How one of MAGA's brightest stars went from unstoppable to long shot

• Two years ago, Kari Lake appeared to be on an unstoppable path to becoming governor of Arizona.
• Now, she's a heavy underdog to Rep. Ruben Gallego in a state where Trump and Harris are tied.

As a group of Rep. Ruben Gallego's supporters gathered at a downtown Phoenix bar last Wednesday to watch his Senate debate with Kari Lake, the sense of confidence in the room was palpable, if unusual for a Democratic campaign in a historically conservative state like Arizona.

"I think he's going to carry this with no problem," said Democratic state Rep. Patty Contreras. "I don't think she stands a chance."

That wasn't the assessment made by Contreras, or most other Arizona Democrats, when Lake made her political debut three years ago as a gubernatorial candidate. Combative yet charismatic, Lake was quickly recognized as the most skilled purveyor of Trumpism aside from the former president himself. She wasn't simply imitating Donald Trump, but refashioning his political style to fit her own profile as a well-known local TV anchor. It didn't hurt that her opponent was then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who even Democrats will admit is a less-than-stellar campaigner. "She was a fresh face, she was well-spoken," Contreras said of Lake, adding that Hobbs "sometimes is not as articulate as we would like her to be."

Lake was widely expected to win that year, and Democrats regarded her with fear. But then she lost, albeit by just two-thirds of a percentage point.

In the intervening years, she has expended the bulk of her political oxygen insisting that the election was stolen from her as she's traveled the country as one of the MAGA movement's biggest celebrities. The consensus that emerged from interviews here with not just Arizona's political experts, but even Republicans who plan to vote for her, is that Lake gradually dug her own political grave by doing so.

"Don't tell me that you're angry about the last election," said Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican who represents a Scottsdale-area swing district, adding that voters "don't care" about the "resentments" that Lake and other candidates are campaigning on.

With Sen. Kyrsten Sinema out of the picture and Lake flailing, Gallego has had the space to run a successful version of the campaign that Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to wage at the presidential level, where a lawmaker who once wore progressivism on their sleeve has successfully triangulated toward the center in the face of Trumpist opposition.

A large chunk of the state's more traditional Republicans continue to feel alienated by Lake's denigration of the late Sen. John McCain and his supporters during her 2022 campaign. That's allowed Gallego to court Republicans like Julie Spilsbury, a city councilor in Mesa who's backing the Democratic congressman even as she acknowledges that he's been "pretty far left" throughout his career.

"I've seen a willingness to moderate," Spilsbury told a small group of reporters at a "Republicans for Harris" event in Mesa last week, adding that both Harris and Gallego are "big-tent Democrats that say 'we want you,' and the Republicans are saying, 'get the hell out of our party.'"

The situation is all the more remarkable given that political headwinds in Arizona — a state disproportionally impacted by both inflation and the border crisis — have been blowing rightward. While Trump and Harris remain locked in a dead-heat race for the state's 11 Electoral College votes, Gallego boasts a polling lead over Lake that's outside the state's margin of error.

Lake's campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But at a press conference last week, she told reporters that she had "zero faith in the public polling" of her race and insisted that her own internal polls showed a tight race. "These polls are meant to take the oxygen out of our movement," Lake argued. "They're meant to keep donors away."

'She's lost credibility'

Lake remains a skilled politician, a fact that was apparent during last week's debate, where she smoothly lobbed attacks at Gallego as he occasionally tripped over his words. But the congressman's supporters remained relaxed throughout the event, breaking into laughter when Lake professed a desire to put "country over party" or erroneously used the term "UVF" to refer to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.

"She was certainly a juggernaut when she ran for governor," said Kirk Adams, a Republican who was former Gov. Doug Ducey's chief of staff and once served as the speaker of the Arizona House. But today, Adams argued, she's primarily defined by her status as a political loser. "If you were to ask people, 'What do you know about Kari Lake?' There are likely two things that they will tell you: She was a news anchor for a very long time, and she thinks that the 2022 election was stolen from her."

It's a facet of Lake's candidacy that rankles even her supporters. Maryjane Carsten, a 71-year-old Republican retiree who lives in Oracle, said she felt like she was "voting for the best of the worst" in the Senate race.

"I like that she's a conservative," Carsten said as she made her way into Sen. JD Vance's rally in Tucson on Wednesday. "But she just would not let that election go. She just won't let stuff go. She needs to."

Compounding that issue is Lake's unclear positioning on abortion. Like many Republicans, she's pledged not to support a national abortion ban, though she told reporters last week that she voted against a ballot measure to expand abortion rights in Arizona. She's also expressed conflicting views on a near-total abortion ban that almost took effect in the state this year, saying that she opposed it only to bemoan later that it wasn't being enforced.

"She's lost credibility with a giant portion of the electorate, which, at the beginning of that game, could have been hers," said Chuck Coughlin, a former GOP political strategist in Arizona who's backing Gallego.

Of course, Trump has also refused to concede his last election and has offered conflicting views on abortion. Yet while a Lake win at this point would be an upset, that's simply not the case for Trump. The difference between the two candidates may simply come down to the fact that the former president is, well, a former president who has a mostly positive economic record to run on.

"The Donald Trump playbook only really works for one person, and that's Donald Trump," said Barrett Marson, a Republican political strategist in Arizona.

Mike Noble, the founder and CEO of the Arizona polling firm Noble Predictive Insights, said that his polling had found that voters, including Republicans, simply viewed Lake differently. "She does have all the baggage Trump has, but she doesn't have any of the positives, the policy wins and things like that," Noble said.

The election is just over three weeks away, and Lake is now hobbling toward the finish line. She trails Gallego in public polling by an average of 7 percentage points, and she's consistently struggled to keep up with the Democratic congressman's fundraising machine. Last week, Gallego's campaign said that he had raised over $50 million since he entered the race, with $21.7 million of that sum coming in since July. Lake's campaign has declined to release her latest fundraising figures, suggesting they're lackluster.

Deep-pocketed national GOP groups have also largely avoided the race, even as they've plunged tens of millions of dollars into more promising targets elsewhere. Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, hasn't spent a dime in Arizona this year.

"Normally, these things are more competitive," said Noble. "This Senate race should be more competitive."