Lake continues chipping away at Gallego’s lead in U.S. Senate race in Az

Republican Kari Lake on Friday
continued to slowly chip away at the number of votes separating her and
her Democratic opponent Ruben Gallego as more results were released in
the race for one of Arizona’s U.S. Senate seats. 

As of 8 p.m. on Friday, after
Maricopa County reported the votes from around 123,220 new ballots, Lake
was trailing Gallego by only 1.1 percentage points and 32,779 votes. 

The day following the election,
Gallego led Lake by 2.5 percentage points and 52,578 votes. That lead
shrunk to 43,698 votes Thursday, before decreasing again Friday.

Lake, a former Phoenix television
news anchor, benefited from votes tallied in some of the state’s most
deeply red counties like Yavapai, where she garnered an overwhelming
nearly 76% of new votes to Gallego’s 22%. U.S. Congressman and Marine veteran Gallego had the advantage in new votes from Coconino County, garnering 57% to Lake’s 39%. 

Around 60% of the Grand Canyon
State’s voters live in Maricopa County, where Lake led Gallego in new
votes tallied on Friday by 2 percentage points. The county has come
under fire for its slow counting, both from Arizonans and those across
the country who are keeping an eye on the outcome of the race. 

Maricopa County has taken an average of 13 days to completely count its ballots over the past 16 years, but counting has gone even slower this year, in part because of a lengthy two-page ballot that takes more time to process and tabulate. 

As of Friday evening, around 81% of
the state’s ballots had been tallied, with about 351,000 left to count
in Maricopa County and almost 629,000 across the state. At that time, 2.8 million ballots had been tallied, out of the state’s almost 4.4 million registered voters, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. 

Lake and her campaign continued an
aggressive effort Friday to recruit people to urge voters to cure any
issues with their ballots, such as a missing signature on an early
ballot envelope, so that their votes count.

The devotee of President-elect Donald
Trump and her supporters remained optimistic about her chances of
overtaking Gallego as more results come in. 

“Guys, I am running through the
voters left to count in Arizona and between that and the voters that we
know we ballot chased, Kari Lake is in an incredible spot,” Tyler
Bowyer, chief operating officer of Turning Point USA, said in a post
on the social media site X. “This thing is going to be close and every
ballot matters, but I feel really good about what we know we have
left.” 

Turning Point USA is a rightwing
student activist group based in Phoenix that has been a major player in
Republican get out the vote efforts this election cycle. 

“We have hundreds of full-time staff
and hundreds more volunteers curing every last ballot in Arizona for
Kari Lake,” Turning Point CEO Charlie Kirk posted on X Friday. “We are relentless.”

Lake and Gallego, who has represented
Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House since 2015, ran
acrimonious campaigns, taking turns 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. 

Lake copied Trump’s style in her
campaign, calling for completed construction of his border wall, mass
deportation of undocumented immigrants and an extension of his tax
cuts. 

Trump endorsed Lake both in her unsuccessful run for Arizona governor in 2022 as well as in this year’s bid for senator. 

In the middle of her Senate campaign, 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.