Ruben Gallego, Kari Lake largely quiet as Arizona’s US Senate race tightens

An unusual and prolonged silence hung over Arizona’s U.S. Senate race, where Democrat Ruben Gallego holds to a shrunken lead over Republican Kari Lake on Nov. 6, with hundreds of thousands more votes to count.

Gallego, a five-term member of Congress and the favorite to win the contest entering the election hasn’t posted on social media since a tweet election night thanking poll workers for their service.

Lake, a former Fox 10 newscaster who cut into his polling lead in the final weeks of the race, urged her followers the morning after Election Day to ensure their provisional ballots are counted.

“This race is going to go down to the wire!” Lake tweeted. “We need ALL HANDS ON DECK to cure ballots and ensure the vote of every Arizonan counts.”

That could matter in her race if the results continue moving in Lake’s direction, as happened throughout the night as the counting continued.

In 2022, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes won her race with the votes that she picked up from provisional ballots. That race, which she won by 280 votes, was the closest statewide race in Arizona history.

Lake has also repeatedly noted President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and pointed to complaints about the pace of vote counting in Maricopa County in a handful of tweets.

Gallego’s lead, which once stood at about 120,000 votes based on unofficial results on election night stood at fewer than 60,000 votes the next morning. An estimated 40% of the state’s votes remained to be tallied.

“We are closely watching as results come in, and we’re feeling very optimistic,” Gallego said in a tweet. He thanked his supporters for their efforts.

There is at least one major tranche of votes from Election Day in Maricopa County and a much smaller batch like that in Pima County that is expected to skew heavily for Republicans.

There are also sizable numbers of Democratic-leaning early ballots that were dropped off on Monday or Tuesday in those counties that could match or exceed the number of likely red votes left.

Elsewhere, there are pockets of smaller, GOP-leaning counties with votes to count, but one of the counties with the heaviest share of ballots still to come is smallish, but Democratic-friendly Apache County.

Whoever wins succeeds retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who quit the race in March.

The uncertainty in Arizona comes as Republicans have already clinched narrow control of the Senate in January with victories in West Virginia and Ohio.

Democrats hold a 51-49 advantage in the Senate for now with independents such as Sinema who caucus with that party.

So far, Republicans have won at least 51 seats, plus Trump’s victory means vice-president-elect JD Vance will become the tie-breaking vote once he is sworn into his new position.

If Lake loses, it won’t be a mystery why.

Though she often cast herself as “Trump in heels” and had his endorsement from the night she first entered the race, Lake had the biggest vote gap between a U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona and Trump’s total in his three presidential campaigns.

Based on unofficial results through the morning of Nov. 6, Lake had about 91% of the votes Trump had received. The number of votes cast in both races is 99% the same, but Gallego has pulled in nearly 60,000 more votes than Vice President Kamala Harris has.

In 2016, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pulled in 9% more votes than Trump. In 2020, U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., received 99% of Trump’s vote total.

Four other Senate races remain undecided and will settle the GOP’s final margin in the chamber.

In Pennsylvania, Republican challenger Dave McCormick led U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., by about 49,000 votes with about 95% of the votes counted, according to results tracked by the New York Times.

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., led former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., in that state by less than 8,000 votes with about 95% of votes counted.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., led Republican challenger Eric Hovde by about 29,000 votes with 95% of the votes counted.

And Republican challenger Sam Brown led U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., by less than 1,000 votes with 84% of the votes counted.