New Poll Shows Kari Lake in a Tight Lead in Arizona Senate Race
Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake received encouraging news from a new poll released Wednesday, showing her ahead of Democratic opponent Rep. Ruben Gallego for the first time.
AtlasIntel's October 29 survey initially reported Lake and Gallego tied, but updated data from October 30-31 now shows Lake with a slight edge, capturing 48.6 percent of the vote compared to Gallego's 47.9 percent.
The poll also indicates third-party candidates have 1.4 percent support, with another 1.5 percent of voters still undecided.
Lake, who narrowly lost to then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race, faces a challenging path.
Gallego has maintained a consistent lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average throughout most of the campaign. A recent survey by Rasmussen Reports, conducted from October 25 to October 29, placed Gallego four points ahead, while a CNN poll from October 21-26 showed him with an eight-point advantage.
An October 26-28 poll by Data Orbital revealed a much closer race, showing Lake and Gallego nearly tied.
As of October 31, Gallego’s lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average remains at 3.9 percentage points.
AtlasIntel also reported strong results for former President Trump in Arizona, reflecting his significant lead in their October 29 poll. In the October 30-31 update, Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris by 4.2 percentage points, marking his largest margin among the seven battleground states covered in the poll.
The data also indicates that Trump is slightly ahead with independent voters in Arizona, with minimal defections among Republican supporters and a near-equal number of Democratic voters not supporting Harris.
Lake’s Senate campaign took an unexpected turn last month following a major court decision that unsealed divorce records from Gallego’s past.
Gallego, who filed for divorce from then-wife Kate Gallego in 2016, fought a lengthy legal battle to keep the case confidential. However, the Washington Free Beacon ultimately won a 10-month court dispute, culminating in the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to reject Gallego’s final appeal to keep the documents sealed.
Gallego's 2016 court filing stated that Kate Gallego “had not yet been served” with the divorce papers and that “her attorney entered an appearance” had not yet taken place, also noting that she was “likely to give birth any day,” according to the outlet. The divorce filing asserted that the “parties’ marriage is irretrievably broken” and that there was “no reasonable prospect of reconciliation.”
This situation reportedly caught Kate Gallego off-guard. In her February 2017 response, she expressed being “without knowledge of information sufficient to form a belief” that the marriage couldn’t be saved, countering her then-husband's claim.
In brief, Kate Gallego, then a Phoenix city council member, was in the late stages of pregnancy when she received the unexpected divorce papers, according to the Free Beacon.
Additionally, court documents show that Ruben Gallego sought to impose court costs on his wife under an Arizona statute that allows courts to assign such fees. In her February 2017 filing, Kate Gallego asked the court to “enter an order that husband contribute to wife’s attorney’s fees and costs.”
Initially, Ruben Gallego had requested the court to block any claims for “long-term spousal maintenance” from Kate, urging that “neither party is in need of nor entitled to an award of long-term spousal maintenance.” Although Kate initially requested spousal support, she later withdrew the claim, agreeing they were both financially independent.
Their divorce was finalized in April 2017.