Casey Diemer is a senior English rhetoric major and political science minor at the University of Arkansas. He plans to pursue legal education following his bachelor’s degree and is looking to attend school in Washington D.C. and get involved in government.
This race plays out on a national scale in more ways than one. Both parties see this race as crucial to the future of the Senate and therefore the ability of the next President to pass their agenda, add to it that Kari Lake is a hardcore supporter of former President Trump. Not only have national funds been injected into it from out-of-state interests, with $26.4 and $9 million in out-of-state contributions to Gallego and Lake respectively.
The candidates have also framed issues around national politics. The debate between these two became nasty quickly, similar to the national debate, and intensified especially against Lake’s election denial of her gubernatorial defeat in 2020. Gallego has had to defend against another national issue: border security. His state sits on the US-Mexico border, and many in Arizona consider the border to be their top issue. Importantly, Arizona voters will decide on a ballot measure making immigration a state crime, something that could drive Republican and potentially independent voters to the polls as they are concerned with border security in general. Kari Lake appears to welcome the national strategy, campaigning around Trump’s border wall and claiming that Gallego is too progressive for Arizona, mimicking Trump’s accusations against Vice President Kamala Harris. Gallego by contrast does not want this race to become national despite the overwhelming lead in out-of-state contributions. He told NBC News that he was running “independently” of Kamala Harris and has not campaigned with her. Polling has been quite strong for Ruben Gallego, who has held a lead of around seven to ten points for much of the race.
Even though the polling favors Gallego, the demographic trends appear to break for Kari Lake. The 2020 election brought record voter turnout, which will likely come down with a reduction in mail-in ballots. Notably, 2020 in Arizona saw high Latino and Native American turnout for Joe Biden, helping him take the state. If overall turnout is down, these groups will also be impacted. Republicans also appear to be gaining on the crucial early voting lead that Democrats broke out to in 2020, but it remains unclear whether this will end up cutting into Election Day voting statistics.
Prediction: All in all, it appears to be Gallego’s election to lose, although a strong ground game for Republicans could see a Trump victory carrying with it an unlikely Senator Kari Lake. I tend to agree with The Arizona Republic article published in their opinion section after a particularly bad YouGov poll for Lake that was titled “Kari Lake is in a deep hole in Arizona. Turns out voters just don’t like her.” Barring an upset, expect Gallego to be declared the winner on Election Night.