Lake Loses to Gallego

When Kari Lake was named as the candidate of choice in Arizona, I fought it tooth and nail all along.

Well, the race has been called, and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has been named the winner.

Signs Were There

Kari Lake was a Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate during the 2022 cycle.

She ran against Katie Hobbs, who ran a campaign similar to the 2020 Biden campaign.

Hobbs was surrounded by controversy, and she refused to debate Lake. Due to the allegations made against Hobbs, she hid down the stretch, did not do interviews, and avoided the media in public at all costs.

Yet, she won the election by 17,000 votes, giving everyone a sign that Lake was not liked by moderate voters in a moderate state.

I’m Running

Even with all the writing on the wall, Lake decided to run in the 2024 Senate race for the seat being vacated by Senator Sinema (I-AZ).

Sinema ran as a Democrat but went independent after a disagreement with the party on several key issues. This meant the seat was ripe for the flip with the right moderate candidate, but Lake decided to throw her hat into the ring.

Lake was immediately endorsed by Trump, and I pushed back on this right from the start.

I have always stated that in states like Arizona, you have to have a moderate candidate who can take votes from both sides of the aisle. For someone like Trump, he needed to be able to live with the idea that the candidate of choice would back him on key issues, and he would have to live with some pushback on issues that were not considered to be as important.

Lakes Loses

I do not have a direct line to Trump, so he clearly did not get my message, and I stated from the outset that I thought Lake would lose this race and possibly cost us the majority.

Lake lost but luckily, we were able to win the majority and currently hold 52 of the 100 seats, with two elections still undecided.

In this race, Gallego defeated Lake 50% to 47.8%, nearly 70,000 votes, so Lake is clearly less popular now than she was two years ago.

Even though the GOP has 52 seats right now, even if they gain another seat or two in the remaining races, they are about to lose a seat after JD Vance takes his oath of office as VP. The duty to pick the right candidate will fall on Governor DeWine, so we can only hope that he has enough common sense to call Trump and Vance for their input.