Polling released on Thursday by an Arizona pollster showed former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake with a commanding 26-point lead in the race for the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) nomination for U.S. Senate.
Conducted between October 25 and October 31, the Noble Predictive Insights (NPI) poll showed Lake has the support of 40 percent of Arizona’s Republican primary voters. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb (R) placed in second place with 14 percent of support. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 5.25 percent.
Former U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters also received 10 percent of support, but he has since declared he will instead mount a campaign for the House seat being vacated by Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08) at the end of her term. NPI founder Mike Noble noted Masters’ decision, and stated that “Lake is likely to benefit the most” from his share of the vote.
An additional 4 percent of respondents said they would vote for businessman Brian Wright, while 33 percent said they were undecided.
The polling matches a similar survey conducted in August, before Lake entered the race, which found she had the support of 42 percent of Arizona Republicans. That survey similarly reported Lamb to have 11 percent of support, Masters to have 7 percent of support, and Wright to have 2 percent. It also included former Senate candidate Jim Lamon at 2 percent of support.
While the polling predicts an easy primary victory for Lake, it finds the presence of Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) in the race may complicate her general election odds.
Should she decide to seek re-election, the polling predicts Sinema will lose the race in a distant, third-place finish, but that she will pull enough independent and Republican voters from Lake to allow Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03) to secure victory with primarily Democratic voters.
Sinema’s performance in the poll corresponds to a donor strategy memo obtained by the media earlier this year, which revealed she reportedly identified a path to victory that involved abandoning the Democratic base to Gallego in favor of courting Arizona’s Republican and independent voters. While polling indicates Sinema performs well with these groups, polls have repeatedly shown she will lose the race.
Meanwhile, Lake is reportedly moving to secure support among Arizona’s moderate Republican factions. German-owned Politico reported Lake recently met with her former gubernatorial primary opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, last month “to discuss putting their 2022 race behind them,” and the outlet reported the Republicans “agreed to stay in contact.” The outlet added that a “person close to Lake” said the meeting was “productive” while an individual tied to Robson described it as “cordial.”
Shortly after she declared her candidacy, it was reported the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) considered Lake’s primary victory inevitable and was considering whether to support her candidacy. Around the same time, she was endorsed by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), the chair of the Republican Senate Conference, who predicted she “will shine brightly for Arizona.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Kari Lake” by Kari Lake.
