Republicans could cost Kari Lake the Arizona Senate race as a new poll shows 15% of GOP voters backing her likely Democratic opponent

Kari Lake, left, and Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego. AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File; AP Photo/Jonathan J. Cooper

• Kari Lake is hoping to flip the Arizona US Senate seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema.
• But a new Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey shows that she’s not consolidating the GOP base.
• The poll shows her likely Democratic opponent, Ruben Gallego, winning 15% of GOP voters.

In the fight to win Arizona’s Senate seat this fall, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and GOP candidate Kari Lake are locked in a close race in what has become one of the nation’s premier swing states.

A new survey released by Emerson College Polling/The Hill showed that Gallego, a Phoenix-area congressman, led Lake by 2.2 points (45.3% to 43.1%), with 11.6% of respondents indicating that they were undecided.

While the Senate primaries in Arizona won’t be held until August, both Gallego and Lake are heavily favored to capture their respective party nominations to succeed retiring independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

For Lake, who as the GOP gubernatorial nominee in 2022 ran a Trump-aligned candidacy that appealed to his most conservative acolytes, she’s already made moves to expand her coalition in the fast-growing state.

But the latest survey showed the challenges that she still faces as she works to flip the key Senate seat for the GOP. And her biggest obstacle may be with members of her own party.

In the poll, Gallego was backed by 87.4% of Democrats and received support from 15% of GOP respondents — a sizable level of crossover support for the Democratic congressman.

Lake’s numbers were softer, as she was only supported by roughly 80% of Republicans, while 6.5% of Democrats indicated that they would back her candidacy.

When Sinema — then a Democrat — defeated then-GOP Rep. Martha McSally in the 2018 Senate race, she won 97% of Democrats and 12% of Republicans en route to a roughly two-point (50%-48%) victory.

Lake in the past has notably tussled with leaders in Arizona’s center-right Republican establishment, but in recent months, she’s sought to unify the party around her candidacy. Still, that effort has hit some snags among some in the party who dislike that she endorsed Trump’s debunked election fraud claims regarding the 2020 election.

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