Dem-Funded Poll: Arizona GOP’s Kari Lake Leads Ruben Gallego by One Point in Two-Way Senate Race

A Super PAC backing Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) in his bid for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-AZ) seat sponsored a January poll that found him narrowly losing to leading Republican candidate Kari Lake in a two-way match-up. 

The Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey commissioned by the left-wing group Replace Sinema, which endorses Gallego, found Lake leading the Democrat 46 percent to 45 percent in a two-way contest. In this scenario, another ten percent of respondents are unsure who they would back. 

When Sinema, who has not yet announced a reelection bid, is added to the fray, Lake trails Gallego by one. Gallego garners 36 percent of the response, followed by Lake at 35 percent and Sinema at 17 percent. Another 12 percent of respondents are undecided in a three-way race.

According to the Messenger, which first reported on the poll, the margin of error (MOE) is plus or minus four percentage points, meaning both Lake and Gallego’s leads in both of these variations fall within the MOE.

While the Super PAC is unaffiliated with Gallego’s campaign, Lake’s team took a victory lap over her strong poll numbers funded by the pro-Gallego PAC. 

“Even Ruben Gallego’s own Democrat pollster can’t hide the fact that Kari Lake is the frontrunner in the race to be Arizona’s next senator,” she stated in an emailed press release from her campaign:

Arizonans are sick and tired of Ruben Gallego and Kyrsten Sinema’s lock-step support of Joe Biden’s failed policies. In 2024, Arizona will vote to return to the common-sense America First policies that provided historic peace and prosperity just three years ago.

The poll sampled 590 Arizona voters between January 5-6.

PPP also gauged all three candidates’ favorability, finding that Sinema is the most vulnerable at net -22. Of the respondents, 26 percent find Sinema favorable versus 48 percent who see her as unfavorable, and 26 percent are unsure of how they feel about her.

Lake fares second worst, with 36 percent viewing her in a positive light and 52 percent expressing unfavorable perceptions, for a net -16 rating. 

Gallego is also underwater but only by one percent, at 34 percent to 35 percent. In PPP’s release, the Lake campaign emphasized that the 30 percent of voters who did not have opinions of Gallego give Lake the opportunity to define him in the coming months.