Recent polling on the presidential race shows Donald Trump taking small but noticeable leads in a number of swing states, including Arizona. AZ Republicans trying to determine if this suggests an improvement in the overall party brand or if it represents weakness in Joe Biden’s candidacy may have answers in recent polling on the US Senate race in Arizona.
According to numbers from Noble Predictive Insights, Democrat Ruben Gallego continues to lead the field in both 3-way and 2-way scenarios involving current Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Republicans Kari Lake and Mark Lamb. Gallego (39%) leads both Lake (33%) and Sinema (29%) in that hypothetical matchup. Gallego (36%) also narrowly leads both Lamb (32%) and Sinema (32%) in that alternative matchup.
The poll notes that the “Senate race becomes even tighter when Lake is out of the picture”, and also notes that Lamb’s numbers, while one point lower than Lake’s, includes a very high percentage of voters who are not yet familiar with the Pinal County Sheriff (44%).
“The problem Kari Lake faces is that she is the best known of the candidates and the least liked, so she has very few places to go to get additional support.” said another GOP pollster who was not affiliated with Noble Predictive Insights or any of the candidates. “If Republicans want to give themselves the best chance to win, they should back Mark Lamb, because he’s already getting as many votes as Lake and he has a lot of voters still left to introduce himself to.”
According to the poll, Gallego’s net favorability was +19, while Lamb and Sinema were both +10. Lake’s was a dismal -8, meaning more voters viewed her unfavorably than favorably.
Another finding from the poll was that Lake was still struggling to rally Republican support to her, something that haunted her failed 2022 run for Governor. While Gallego attracted the support of 84% of Democrats, Lake was only attracting 70% of the Republican vote.
“Gallego has his primary field to himself and the only thing keeping him from really running up the score with Democrat voters is that Sinema has some Democrats who still view her fondly.” said the GOP pollster. “Lake, on the other hand, spent her entire campaign for Governor attacking groups of Republicans and never really stopped, even after the campaign was over.” The pollster pointed out that Lake had taken on an attack dog role for Donald Trump, most recently getting involved in a high-profile attack on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who Lake had previously praised.
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The complete poll can be found here: https://www.noblepredictiveinsights.com/post/a-night-at-the-sinema-update-on-the-2024-senate-race-in-arizona