Kari Lake won a closer-than-expected GOP primary to replace outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), setting the stage for a marquee Senate race against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), which could determine the balance of power in the upper chamber.
Lake, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2022, received 53% of the vote with two-thirds of the ballots counted when the primary was called at 11:44 pm ET. Meanwhile, her primary opponent, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, received 41% of the vote. Lake’s victory was much narrower than expected, which could spell larger problems for Republicans in the Grand Canyon State, where voters have repeatedly rejected former President Donald Trump and the candidates he endorses in general elections.
The former news anchor will face Gallego, who is running unopposed, to replace Sinema who was elected in 2018 but left the Democratic Party last year to become an Independent. The Arizona senator considered running as an independent but ultimately opted against it in March.
After receiving the endorsement of Trump and out-fundraising her competitors in the Republican race, Lake has focused her messaging on Gallego and the Biden administration. According to the last campaign finance report in early July, Lake had $2.1 million in cash-on-hand, in comparison to Lamb’s $263,000.
Gallego has nearly $8.2 million on hand, according to campaign finance records. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates this race as lean Democratic.
In 2022, Lake ran for governor in the state as a hard-charging conservative outsider who was quick to turn on the GOP establishment — and at the time, her campaign was one national Republicans kept at arm’s length, worried about her electability in the battleground state. This cycle, the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm endorsed Lake’s candidacy in February.
Since launching her campaign, she made some efforts to shift her most unpopular views, but they haven’t been consistent. She criticized a near-total abortion ban in Arizona, but previously had called it a great law. Even after Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), the chairman of the Senate Republican Campaign arm, advised her to stay clear of election fraud claims; she hasn’t listened.
Lake filed another appeal earlier this month asking the Arizona Supreme Court to declare her governor two years after she lost that election, despite her current run for the state’s open Senate seat. Her attorneys filed a petition arguing the Superior Court and Court of Appeals should have reinstated her case over new evidence. Gallego is leading by 3.4 points in an average of polling.
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Since Sinema’s victory in 2018, Arizona has transformed from a solid red state to one of the country’s most competitive battlegrounds.
In 2020, Biden’s victory in the state over Trump helped him secure the White House. In December 2020, Arizona had two Democratic senators for the first time since 1952 after Mark Kelly was sworn in. In 2022, Lake and three other Republicans running for major statewide offices lost. It was the first time Democrats held all major statewide positions since 1950.
Arizona was the only state in the 2022 midterm elections where Republicans running for top positions had all embraced former President Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. All of those candidates lost to their Democratic opponents in the vote count.
