Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is trailing Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego by double-digits in Arizona, according to the results of a new poll.
Lake, an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump who mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Arizona governor in 2022, was hit with her worst polling result since May in a survey released by HighGround Public Affairs on Thursday.
The candidates are vying to replace incumbent independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat, who is not seeking reelection. Arizona’s other Senate seat is currently held by Democrat Mark Kelly, who was elected to a six-year term in 2022.
The poll found that 50 percent of likely voters support Gallego, while 39 percent back Lake. The 11-point gap was the best result for Gallego since a YouGov/CBS News poll in May found the congressman leading Lake by a margin of 49 percent to 36 percent.
Most polling conducted since May has suggested that the Democratic candidate is leading the Republican. The lone exception was a survey commissioned by the Lake campaign that showed her with a 1 percent lead in early July.
In a statement emailed to Newsweek on Thursday, a Lake spokesperson said, “If you believe Kari Lake is down 11 points, you are as dumb as we thought.”
Lake is a supporter of Trump’s false claims of a “stolen” 2020 presidential election and has repeatedly made similar false claims about her own 2022 loss to Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs.
On Sunday, Gallego announced that a coalition of 40 Republican and independent Arizona leaders were supporting his campaign. The coalition includes current and former elected officials, industry experts, business owners and community leaders.
“I am a lifelong Republican. But I cannot in good conscience stand on the sidelines while extremists like Kari Lake, who have hijacked our party for the sake of personal gain, undermine the very fabric of what makes America exceptional,” Mesa Mayor John Giles said in a press release.
In a previous statement to Newsweek, a Lake campaign spokesperson said the following: “Kari Lake is uniting Republicans, meanwhile Ruben Gallego still doesn’t have the endorsement of Senator Sinema, and is tanking in the polls because of his support for open borders and illegal immigrants voting in our elections.”
Arizona is considered a crucial swing state in November, both in terms of the presidential election and regarding the balance of power in the Senate, which Democrats currently control by a razor-thin margin.
The new poll also showed Vice President Kamala Harris with a narrow 2.8-point lead over Trump, with 44.4 percent of respondents favoring the Democrat and 41.6 percent preferring the Republican.
While President Joe Biden narrowly won Arizona in 2020, polling from earlier this summer showed the president losing to Trump before he dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on July 21.
The HighGround poll was conducted among 500 likely Arizona voters between July 31 and August 3. The poll has a margin of error of 4.38 percent.
