by Caitlin Sievers for Arizona Mirror
When she was running for governor in 2022, Kari Lake told Arizona Republicans who liked the late John McCain to “get the hell out,” and some of them took that to heart.
Those Republicans haven’t necessarily left the GOP, but dozens of them are backing Democratic candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and Congressman Ruben Gallego in the November election.
Lake, a Trump devotee, is squaring off against Gallego in the race to fill the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema, who is not running for reelection.
Lake has styled herself in the image of Trump, denying the results of the election for Arizona governor that she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs in 2022, much like he denied the results of the presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
So far, Lake’s strategy has only proved successful in primaries, which typically draw out the most devoted in each party. After winning her primary against Sheriff Mark Lamb by only 16 percentage points, a much smaller margin than expected, a recent poll from HighGround Public Affairs shows Gallego up a whopping 11 points, with nearly 50% of voters saying they would back Gallego to Lake’s 39%.
The poll of 500 likely Arizona voters was conducted between July 31 and Aug. 5, and has a margin of error of +-4.4%.
Lake told reporters on Aug. 8 that she doesn’t like public polls and tends to believe her own internal ones instead. Her campaign hasn’t released any of those polls, but Lake claimed that they show she’s shored up 89% of the Republican vote, and that those who backed Lamb in the primary will vote for her in the general election.
“Let me educate you guys, 16% is actually a landslide victory,” she said.
But the pollsters at HighGround did not agree.
“She is earning less than 80% of her base vote, a critical segment she cannot afford to lose. The playbook she used in 2022 is not working in 2024,” said Paul Bentz, the in-house pollster for the Phoenix consulting firm.
Bentz added that Gallego “has continued the Democratic trend that we have seen in the past few cycles of engaging independent and unaffiliated voters early. He has built a significant lead that will be difficult to overcome without a significant course correction by Lake.”
Lake wants to be seen as someone who can attract the support of Democrats and independent voters, who make up a sizable chunk of the state’s electorate at almost 34%. But a campaign event on Thursday that she billed as featuring “Democrats for Lake” was dominated by prominent far-right members of her own party, including U.S. Reps. Eli Crane and Andy Biggs, along with the chair of the Arizona Republican Party, Gina Swoboda.
Lake claimed that many of the people in the crowd standing behind her during the event were current or former Democrats, or people who “had voted for Democrats” but only three of them spoke briefly. No prominent Democrats have officially endorsed her, and while she announced 11 new endorsements prior to the event that day, none of them were from Democrats.
Far from amassing support among independents and Democrats, Trump and Lake’s election denialism, along with her vitriolic speeches and divisive rhetoric, have driven some Grand Canyon State Republicans toward Democratic candidates.
Earlier this week, the vice president and Democratic nominee for president launched Republicans for Harris, while Gallego kicked off Republicans and independents for Gallego.
Mesa Mayor John Giles, a lifelong Republican, has endorsed both Harris and Gallego.
“I think the time has come for us, as Arizona Republicans, to admit the obvious, and to start saying the quiet part out loud, which is that our party’s nominee is not qualified for office, and that we need to vote for the adult in the room, and that is Kamala Harris,” Giles said during an Aug. 5 press conference that officially launched Republicans for Harris.
This isn’t the first time Giles has put his weight behind a Democratic candidate. He was censured by a local precinct of the Republican Party in 2022 when he backed Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly for a second term in the U.S. Senate, and the same year he backed Hobbs in the gubernatorial race that Lake lost.
But he wasn’t the lone Republican who endorsed Kelly two years ago and he is far from the only member of the GOP urging other members of the party to vote for Harris and Gallego on Nov. 5.
Harris also received the endorsement of former Scottsdale Mayor Sam Campana, who backed President Joe Biden in 2020, along with former state Rep. Robin Shaw, who is heading the Republicans for Harris committee in Arizona, alongside Giles.
Another GOP-to-Harris convert is former press secretary for Trump, and former Tucsonan, Stephanie Grisham, who resigned the evening of Jan. 6, 2021, following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building.
They aim to help Harris take the Grand Canyon State, which was solidly red for decades, but has rapidly become a purple battleground state since Trump rose to prominence. They plan to do so, in part, by persuading those who have soured on Trump or never liked him and who voted for Nikki Haley in the presidential primary to cast their ballot for Harris.
And the members of the GOP who gathered to launch Republicans for Gallego on Aug. 7 in Mesa said they did so with the intent of bringing people from both sides of the aisle together instead of sowing division.
Paul Hickman, who spent 18 years on McCain’s staff, including as his state director, said that he didn’t leave the Republican Party, but that the party left him.
“The far-right politicians who have hijacked the Republican Party do not have the temperament or the aptitude for public service,” he said. “They’re not concerned with governing or delivering for Arizona. They are unwilling to work across the aisle to seek practical solutions to the crises we face. They only want power and they want to play games.”
Hickman, the longtime president and CEO of the Arizona Bankers Association, added that Lake’s commitment to serving her own self-interests would do nothing to help Arizona businesses.
“Like my former boss, Senator John McCain, Ruben has spent decades serving his country and this state,” Hickman said. “He’s shown a willingness to work with those of different backgrounds and to deliver for America and Arizona and in the Senate. I know that Ruben will carry on that spirit of making compromises, not spectacles.”
Julie Spilsbury, a Mesa city councilwoman who described herself as a lifelong Republican, said it was not an easy decision to publicly endorse Gallego, but as a mother of six she felt compelled because she believes that the character of the country’s leaders is important.
“The level of division and hateful rhetoric spouted by politicians who will do and say anything in order to get power is despicable to me and what I’ve always taught my kids: What we say matters,” Spilsbury said. “Our words matter. Unfortunately, Ruben’s opponent in this race is someone driven by an extreme and divisive agenda. Kari Lake has shown time and again that she will do nothing to bring us together, she will only divide us.”
She pointed to Lake’s insistence that the upcoming election was a fight between good and evil, between people who want to destroy the country and those who want to save it, instead of an election between people who disagree on the issues.
“We cannot just vote for a straight party ticket. We should be voting for candidates that demonstrate integrity, compassion, and service to others regardless of party affiliation,” she said. “That is why I am here today, supporting Ruben Gallego. Like I said earlier, by no means do we agree on everything. But when we do disagree, I know it will be done with respect.”
In an example of the hateful rhetoric that drove members of the GOP to endorse Gallego, during Lake’s event on Thursday, Crane blamed members of the media for “covering” for President Joe Biden’s memory issues, and that bad things would end up happening to their loved ones because of it
“It’s only a matter of time before someone in your family dies from fentanyl, or maybe your daughter gets raped and murdered by an MS13 gang member that’s not supposed to be here,” Crane told members of the media, saying that Harris and Biden were to blame for an open border and the issues caused by it.
One of the three former Democrats who spoke in support of Lake, Jade Gillum, said that she was “an actual, real-life Black woman,” unlike Harris, repeating a false claim that Trump recently made when he said that Harris used to identify as of Indian heritage and then “happened to turn Black.”
Harris’s Jamaican father is Black and her late mother was Indian. She attended Howard University, a historically Black institution.
“I’m tired of the Democrats using generational trauma to invoke votes,” Gillum, who is now a registered Republican, said, adding that the Black community should stop putting Democrats on a pedestal.
Throughout the event, Lake and her supporters welcomed Democrats to the Republican Party and to vote for her.
“I’m not worried that Republicans aren’t coming home,” she said, adding that she was working to bring over disaffected Democrats who were “sick of struggling under the Democrat Party.”
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and X.
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When she was running for governor in 2022, Kari Lake told Arizona Republicans who liked the late John McCain to “get the hell out,” and some of them took that to heart.
Those Republicans haven’t necessarily left the GOP, but dozens of them are backing Democratic candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and Congressman Ruben Gallego in the November election.
Lake, a Trump devotee, is squaring off against Gallego in the race to fill the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema, who is not running for reelection.
Lake has styled herself in the image of Trump, denying the results of the election for Arizona governor that she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs in 2022, much like he denied the results of the presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
So far, Lake’s strategy has only proved successful in primaries, which typically draw out the most devoted in each party. After winning her primary against Sheriff Mark Lamb by only 16 percentage points, a much smaller margin than expected, a recent poll from HighGround Public Affairs shows Gallego up a whopping 11 points, with nearly 50% of voters saying they would back Gallego to Lake’s 39%.
The poll of 500 likely Arizona voters was conducted between July 31 and Aug. 5, and has a margin of error of +-4.4%.
Lake told reporters on Aug. 8 that she doesn’t like public polls and tends to believe her own internal ones instead. Her campaign hasn’t released any of those polls, but Lake claimed that they show she’s shored up 89% of the Republican vote, and that those who backed Lamb in the primary will vote for her in the general election.
“Let me educate you guys, 16% is actually a landslide victory,” she said.
But the pollsters at HighGround did not agree.
“She is earning less than 80% of her base vote, a critical segment she cannot afford to lose. The playbook she used in 2022 is not working in 2024,” said Paul Bentz, the in-house pollster for the Phoenix consulting firm.
Bentz added that Gallego “has continued the Democratic trend that we have seen in the past few cycles of engaging independent and unaffiliated voters early. He has built a significant lead that will be difficult to overcome without a significant course correction by Lake.”
Lake wants to be seen as someone who can attract the support of Democrats and independent voters, who make up a sizable chunk of the state’s electorate at almost 34%. But a campaign event on Thursday that she billed as featuring “Democrats for Lake” was dominated by prominent far-right members of her own party, including U.S. Reps. Eli Crane and Andy Biggs, along with the chair of the Arizona Republican Party, Gina Swoboda.
Lake claimed that many of the people in the crowd standing behind her during the event were current or former Democrats, or people who “had voted for Democrats” but only three of them spoke briefly. No prominent Democrats have officially endorsed her, and while she announced 11 new endorsements prior to the event that day, none of them were from Democrats.
Far from amassing support among independents and Democrats, Trump and Lake’s election denialism, along with her vitriolic speeches and divisive rhetoric, have driven some Grand Canyon State Republicans toward Democratic candidates.
Earlier this week, the vice president and Democratic nominee for president launched Republicans for Harris, while Gallego kicked off Republicans and independents for Gallego.
Mesa Mayor John Giles, a lifelong Republican, has endorsed both Harris and Gallego.
“I think the time has come for us, as Arizona Republicans, to admit the obvious, and to start saying the quiet part out loud, which is that our party’s nominee is not qualified for office, and that we need to vote for the adult in the room, and that is Kamala Harris,” Giles said during an Aug. 5 press conference that officially launched Republicans for Harris.
This isn’t the first time Giles has put his weight behind a Democratic candidate. He was censured by a local precinct of the Republican Party in 2022 when he backed Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly for a second term in the U.S. Senate, and the same year he backed Hobbs in the gubernatorial race that Lake lost.
But he wasn’t the lone Republican who endorsed Kelly two years ago and he is far from the only member of the GOP urging other members of the party to vote for Harris and Gallego on Nov. 5.
Harris also received the endorsement of former Scottsdale Mayor Sam Campana, who backed President Joe Biden in 2020, along with former state Rep. Robin Shaw, who is heading the Republicans for Harris committee in Arizona, alongside Giles.
Another GOP-to-Harris convert is former press secretary for Trump, and former Tucsonan, Stephanie Grisham, who resigned the evening of Jan. 6, 2021, following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building.
They aim to help Harris take the Grand Canyon State, which was solidly red for decades, but has rapidly become a purple battleground state since Trump rose to prominence. They plan to do so, in part, by persuading those who have soured on Trump or never liked him and who voted for Nikki Haley in the presidential primary to cast their ballot for Harris.
And the members of the GOP who gathered to launch Republicans for Gallego on Aug. 7 in Mesa said they did so with the intent of bringing people from both sides of the aisle together instead of sowing division.
Paul Hickman, who spent 18 years on McCain’s staff, including as his state director, said that he didn’t leave the Republican Party, but that the party left him.
“The far-right politicians who have hijacked the Republican Party do not have the temperament or the aptitude for public service,” he said. “They’re not concerned with governing or delivering for Arizona. They are unwilling to work across the aisle to seek practical solutions to the crises we face. They only want power and they want to play games.”
Hickman, the longtime president and CEO of the Arizona Bankers Association, added that Lake’s commitment to serving her own self-interests would do nothing to help Arizona businesses.
“Like my former boss, Senator John McCain, Ruben has spent decades serving his country and this state,” Hickman said. “He’s shown a willingness to work with those of different backgrounds and to deliver for America and Arizona and in the Senate. I know that Ruben will carry on that spirit of making compromises, not spectacles.”
Julie Spilsbury, a Mesa city councilwoman who described herself as a lifelong Republican, said it was not an easy decision to publicly endorse Gallego, but as a mother of six she felt compelled because she believes that the character of the country’s leaders is important.
“The level of division and hateful rhetoric spouted by politicians who will do and say anything in order to get power is despicable to me and what I’ve always taught my kids: What we say matters,” Spilsbury said. “Our words matter. Unfortunately, Ruben’s opponent in this race is someone driven by an extreme and divisive agenda. Kari Lake has shown time and again that she will do nothing to bring us together, she will only divide us.”
She pointed to Lake’s insistence that the upcoming election was a fight between good and evil, between people who want to destroy the country and those who want to save it, instead of an election between people who disagree on the issues.
“We cannot just vote for a straight party ticket. We should be voting for candidates that demonstrate integrity, compassion, and service to others regardless of party affiliation,” she said. “That is why I am here today, supporting Ruben Gallego. Like I said earlier, by no means do we agree on everything. But when we do disagree, I know it will be done with respect.”
In an example of the hateful rhetoric that drove members of the GOP to endorse Gallego, during Lake’s event on Thursday, Crane blamed members of the media for “covering” for President Joe Biden’s memory issues, and that bad things would end up happening to their loved ones because of it
“It’s only a matter of time before someone in your family dies from fentanyl, or maybe your daughter gets raped and murdered by an MS13 gang member that’s not supposed to be here,” Crane told members of the media, saying that Harris and Biden were to blame for an open border and the issues caused by it.
One of the three former Democrats who spoke in support of Lake, Jade Gillum, said that she was “an actual, real-life Black woman,” unlike Harris, repeating a false claim that Trump recently made when he said that Harris used to identify as of Indian heritage and then “happened to turn Black.”
Harris’s Jamaican father is Black and her late mother was Indian. She attended Howard University, a historically Black institution.
“I’m tired of the Democrats using generational trauma to invoke votes,” Gillum, who is now a registered Republican, said, adding that the Black community should stop putting Democrats on a pedestal.
Throughout the event, Lake and her supporters welcomed Democrats to the Republican Party and to vote for her.
“I’m not worried that Republicans aren’t coming home,” she said, adding that she was working to bring over disaffected Democrats who were “sick of struggling under the Democrat Party.”
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and X.
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