Kari Lake shrinks Ruben Gallego’s lead in race for U.S. Senate

U.S. Congressman Ruben Gallego’s lead
over his opponent Kari Lake in the contest for one of Arizona’s U.S.
Senate seats shrunk Thursday, as more results slowly trickled in. 

After Maricopa County, where 60% of
the state’s voters live, released more results at around 7 p.m. Gallego,
a Democrat, led Republican Lake by only 1.7 percentage points and
43,698 votes, down from 2.5 percentage points and 52,578 after votes
were tallied Wednesday. 

Lake’s campaign team shared hopeful
messages on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, urging supporters
to cure any issues with their ballots so that their votes count and celebrating returns that leaned Republican.

Maricopa County posted results from
72,100 additional ballots Thursday evening, pushing its total number
already tabulated to more than 1.6 million. Those votes favored Lake at 57% to Gallego’s 41%. The county estimates that it has around 472,000 more ballots to count, and there are around 780,000 left to count across the state. 

Even though Maricopa County’s
counting process has taken an average of 13 days over the past 16 years,
some of Lake’s fans baselessly speculated on X that the counting
process was taking so long because Democrats were attempting to rig the
election in Gallego’s favor. 

Even though Lake lagged in polling
throughout the Senate race, some of her fans could not believe that
presumed president-elect Donald Trump had raked in over 128,000 more
votes in Arizona than she did. 

Lake and her followers have a long history of false allegations of election fraud, in 2022 when she lost the race for Arizona governor to Democrat Katie Hobbs and in 2020 when former President Donald Trump lost to President Joe Biden. 

Lake, a former Phoenix news anchor
and Gallego, a former U.S. Marine who has represented the state’s 3rd
Congressional District in the U.S. House since 2015, launched aggressive
campaigns against one another, trading personal barbs and accusations
of extremism. 

Gallego ran on a platform of making
life more affordable for the middle and working class, reestablishing
abortion rights and making measured increases in border security that
would include increased manpower and better use of technology. 

Gallego garnered support from some moderate Republicans
who said they couldn’t support Lake and her vitriolic style, including
Mesa Mayor John Giles and former staffers for the late U.S. Sen. John
McCain.

Lake, a Trump devotee, made her
campaign in his image, calling for completed construction of his border
wall, mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and an extension of
his tax cuts. 

Even as she ran for Senate, Lake continued to unsuccessfully challenge
the results of the gubernatorial race in court, and two years later she
still has not conceded the race. The Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday
denied her final appeal in the case. 

Lake is also facing the prospect of paying yet-to-be determined damages
to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, after she legally conceded
fault in his defamation suit regarding Lake’s false claims that Richer
helped rig the 2022 governor’s race against her.