Arizona

Ruben Gallego leads Kari Lake for Arizona US Senate seat

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PHOENIX — U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego’s lead over Kari Lake in the race for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat continued to decrease as of Thursday night.

Drops from multiple counties, including about 70,000 votes from Maricopa County, cut Gallego’s advantage to 49.8%-48.1% — a difference of 1.7 percentage points (43,698 votes), with about 2.6 million votes tallied as of Thursday evening, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office results page.

As of Thursday morning, Gallego’s advantage was 52,578 votes as tallies from Republican-heavy rural counties were unveiled.

Green Party candidate Eduardo Quintana was pulling about 2%.

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Gallego’s lead fluctuated for most of Wednesday as those rural counties that reported results earlier in the day favored Lake. Maricopa County, the state’s largest county by far, released the results of about 175,000 votes slightly favoring the Democrat in two evening drops.

Gallego was leading Lake by 5.4 points in the initial results posted after the polls closed Tuesday night.

The winner will replace Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who did not seek reelection.

Regardless of who wins the Arizona race, Republicans will win control of the Senate, giving a boost to Donald Trump’s agenda as he returns to the White House.

Who are Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake?

Gallego is the representative for Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers most of south, west and downtown Phoenix. The Marine veteran has served five terms in the U.S. House.

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Gallego entered the race in January 2023 and ran unopposed in the July primary election.

Lake, the Republican candidate, is one of Arizona’s most well known political figures and popular in GOP circles.

Lake, recognizable in the Phoenix market from her years on TV before getting into politics, built an enthusiastic following among Republicans with her unflinching support for Donald Trump and her steadfast promotion of false claims of election fraud.

She lost the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election to Democrat Katie Hobbs in her first run for office. Lake has since unsuccessfully fought the results of the 2022 election in court.

Lake entered the race in October 2023 and defeated Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in the primary.

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