Ruben Gallego's polling lead holds over Kari Lake in Arizona's US Senate race
As early voting is about to get underway across Arizona, Democrat Ruben Gallego’s significant polling lead over Republican Kari Lake in the U.S. Senate race has inched upward.
The first poll taken in October, conducted by RMG Research for the Napolitan Institute, showed Gallego, a five-term member of Congress, leading Lake 52%-42% among likely voters.
The 10-percentage-point lead is outside the poll’s margin of error and extends a recent string of similar findings from other pollsters, according to those tracked by FiveThirtyEight, a nonpartisan politics website.
Gallego has reached the critical 50% support level in six consecutive polls and seven of the past eight — all from different pollsters. In the last 12 polls of likely voters, Gallego has shown a double-digit lead over Lake six times.
Overall, he has led in every publicly available poll taken since early August. That’s 28 straight as of Monday. And since U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., dropped out of the race in March, Gallego has led 49 of the 52 polls in that time.
Two polls taken in the summer for Republicans showed the race a tie. A July poll for Lake’s campaign is the only one to show the former Phoenix newscaster with a lead.
There is also evidence that the race has gotten more lopsided.
Fourteen polls taken in August, after Lake was formally named the Republican nominee, showed Gallego leading on average 48%-41%.
In September, 17 polls showed Gallego leading on average 51%-42%.
Where do political prognosticators land on Lake vs. Gallego?
Real Clear Politics, a politics website, gives Gallego a 7.8 percentage point advantage in its average of polls taken since early September.
The Cook Political Report rates it as “lean Democratic.”
Inside Elections rates the race “tilt Democratic.”
Sabato’s Crystal Ball scores it as “leans Democratic.”
What do the betting markets say about the Arizona Senate race?
The political forecast betting markets also give Gallego the nod as well.
Polymarket, which claims to be the biggest wagering market in the world, gives the Arizona Democrat an 87% chance of winning the race. That is up 2 points over the past week.
PredictIt, an online wager market created by Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, shows the price of betting on the Democrat in Arizona as quadruple that of the Republican.
What else should voters know?
AdImpact, a nonpartisan media research firm that tracks political advertising nationwide, reported at the end of September that Arizona’s Senate race had the biggest ad spending disparity of the competitive races this year.
At that time, Democrats and their allies had spent $44 million compared to $14 million from Republicans and their allies in the Gallego-Lake race, AdImpact said.
To give a sense of what a more competitive race looks like, there is Ohio’s Senate race between U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Republican Bernie Moreno. Democrats have poured $148 million into that contest, while Republicans have spent $128 million.
Both sides each have reservations in that race booked for another $53 million each.
In Arizona, however, Democrats have booked $32 million in additional spending compared to the GOP’s $10 million.
In fact, Republicans have put more money into trying to win in Maryland, a state where the party hasn’t won since 1980, and in Texas, a state where the GOP sees cracks in its customary advantage.
Arizona Democrats have won three straight Senate races beginning in 2018. That streak snapped a 30-year elective drought that included nine straight Republican wins.
Since Sinema won her seat in 2018 as a Democrat, the party has won by about 2 percentage points each time.