Kari Lake Inching Closer to Ruben Gallego, New Poll Shows

Republican Kari Lake is inching closer to Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego in their Arizona U.S. Senate race, a new poll shows.

Lake, a former President Donald Trump-endorsed candidate, will go up against Gallego in the November 5 election. For weeks, Gallego has remained steadily ahead of his opponent, although it’s still a fairly close race for a key Senate seat. With just about three weeks until Election Day, Lake has slightly narrowed the gap with Gallego, albeit by less than a percentage point.

A poll by the Republican-linked Trafalgar Group, conducted on September 11 and September 12, showed Gallego leading Lake by 4.2 points (47.2 to 43 percent). The number of respondents saying they’d vote for another candidate totaled 4.4 percent, as 5.4 percent said they were undecided.

The poll surveyed 1,088 likely Arizona voters and has a margin of error of 2.9 percent.

In a more recent poll from the Trafalgar Group, Gallego is ahead of Lake by 3.7 points (47.6 to 43.9 percent). The percentage of voters planning to cast their ballots for another candidate shrank to 2.8 percent and 5.6 percent of voters were still undecided.

The poll, conducted from October 10 to October 13, has the same margin of error as the previous poll, 2.9 percent, and around the same number of respondents, 1,090 likely Arizona voters.

But how are the candidates doing overall?

According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average in the Arizona Senate race, Gallego is up by 7.4 points, with 49.8 percent support compared to Lake’s 42.4 percent.

Newsweek reached out to Lake and Gallego’s campaigns via email for comment Monday night.

A victory for Gallego is crucial for Democrats to keep their slim majority in the Senate. There are currently 48 Democrats and three independents who caucus with them and 49 Republicans in the upper chamber. Republicans will be looking to flip control with Arizona’s race, as well as races in Montana, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s seat is expected to turn red after the Democrat-turned-independent decided not to seek reelection.

Gallego is a fifth-term congressman and Marines veteran who served in Iraq. Lake was the Republican nominee in Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election. When she lost against Democrat Katie Hobbs, Lake claimed the election was stolen. She also has claimed that Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory was stolen from Trump. There is no evidence to support either claim.

Lake and Gallego are vying for the seat of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent who is not seeking reelection.