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The Arizona Senate race providing clues for Trump’s fate in November

IN GOLD CANYON, USA – Republican Kari Lake always talks with an ease and comfort that makes it appear she is heading for victory.

Indeed, it was doubtless such confidence and polish that helped her secure the endorsement of Donald Trump when she ran to be governor of Arizona two years ago. Although the fact she supported his false claims the 2020 election was rigged may also have helped.

“She is strong on crime, will protect our border, Second Amendment, military, and vets, and will fight to restore election integrity (both past and future),” Trump has said about her.

In 2022 Lake narrowly lost that year to Democrat Katie Hobbs by less than one percentage point, even though she claims – without evidence – the election was not fair.

A former television news anchor, Lake is one of a number of loyalists who earned Trump’s backing by repeating his false claims about the 2020 election but also in the most recent mid-term elections, alongside Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia, Dr Mehmet Oz also in Pennsylvania.

All were beaten by a larger than usual Democratic turnout, in large part generated by the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, ending the right to abortion.

This year, Lake, 55, is back, running this time for an open Senate seat and again with the support of the 78-year-old Trump.

Yet for all her confidence in front of the cameras and when speaking to voters, polls suggest she could be heading for her second defeat in two years in what could be a worrying sign for Trump’s campaign, given her full-throated endorsement of the Republican.

Her Democratic challenger, Ruben Gallego, 44, who served four years with the US marines and who currently represents voters in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, is leading in many polls.

FILE - Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, right, speaks as former President Donald Trump listens during a rally, Oct. 9, 2022, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
Kari Lake has staked her political career on an alliance with Trump (Photo: Matt York/AP)

While the presidential contest for Arizona and its 11 electoral votes showed the race between Trump and Kamala Harris very close, an average of polls collated by Real Clear politics puts Gallego 5.8 points ahead. The same site gives Trump a two-point average lead over Harris.

For those unfamiliar with Lake – who turned to politics amid the Covid pandemic “to tell a truth” she claimed was suppressed by the mainstream media – she is probably best known for two things.

Firstly, her devotion to Trump, his policies and a belief among many supporters he has literally been brought by God to be their nominee.

The other is a viral moment from the Republican National Convention this summer, when she was interviewed by former BBC journalist Emily Maitlis, now a host of The News Agents podcast and i columnist. When asked if she was “inflaming the political rhetoric in this country”, Lake cut short the interview and told Maitlis: “I actually think you need your head examined.”

It is fortunate for Lake that few in the community of Gold Canyon, 40 miles east of Phoenix, Arizona, want to confront her in such a manner.

On a September evening, several hundred Republicans filled the pews of the Gold Canyon Community Church to listen to her speak.

Kari Lake, Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, speaks at a campaign event for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Thursday, Sept.12, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Kari Lake is facing defeat in her Senate race in Arizona, polls suggest (Photo: Alex Brandon/AP)

Many were also supporters of conservative congressman Eli Lake, a former navy seal, who is part of the “freedom caucus”. The crowd in Pinal County near the Mexican border is largely Trump supporters, which the former president carried 60-40 against Joe Biden in 2020.

Towards the rear of the room, Robert and Debbie Hagens say they will be voting for Trump and for Lake. They believe both Lake and Trump’s defeats were the result of a rigged election, even though they cannot point to any evidence.

“As with Trump, I think hers was stolen too,” says Robert, 60, who also served in the military.

Asked about the multiple investigations that uncovered no such evidence, he says: “I don’t believe that. There was more than enough evidence to move forward.” When asked to account for those Republicans who were re-elected amid a supposedly rigged system, he deflects to other issues.

In truth, the minds of voters here was made up long ago. They think the job Biden and Harris has done is bad, and they speak in apocalyptic terms should the Vice President win in November.

They point to an economy they say it hurting the working class, and want Trump to tighten border security and boost domestic energy production.

“We think our country is heading to peril,” says Debbie.

Lake speaks in similarly stark terms, not just about the race between Trump and Harris, but between her and Gallego.

Earlier this year she urged supporters in Arizona to “strap on a Glock” pistol as they prepared for an intense election season.

“You can put one here,” she said at a speech, touching her right hip. “And one in the back.”

Tonight, she makes a special appeal to people with children.

“I’m going to be honest, I’m in this selfishly, for my 19-year-old and 21-year-old. We can’t leave our country in this shape to our kiddos,” she says.

“I see a few people my age and maybe a little bit older, in this crowd. We’ve had good luck. [But] I think this is the end of the road for America….I can’t even imagine what is ahead if we do not put all hands on deck and win this election.”

Lake does not just attack Gallego’s political positions but takes aim at his personal actions, something that are also the focus of her attack ads.

Ruben Gallego’s campaign website says he is the son of immigrants from Colombia and Mexico.

“Along with his three sisters, he was raised by a single mother in a small apartment on a secretary’s salary and slept on the family’s living room floor, finally getting his own bed when he went away to college,” it says.

It claims he “enlisted in the marine corps and deployed as an infantryman to Iraq, where his company saw some of the heaviest casualties of the war”.

It adds: “In Congress, Ruben has fought tirelessly for hard-working Arizona families, working to cut costs, support small businesses, and take care of our veterans.”

In 2021, he published a memoir that detailed his time at Harvard, in Congress and in Iraq.

Gaellgo wrote he was a member of the so-called “Lucky Lima” company, 3rd battalion, 25th marine regiment, which did not lose any members in its first two months of deployment clearing Iraqi towns where insurgents were believed to be hiding.

His unit would later be known for suffering the most casualties of all.

He writes that he named his son, Michael Grant Gallego, in honour of his grandfather and Lance Corporal Jonathan Grant, a close comrade killed by an IED in May 2005.

“I told him he was named for his grandfather and my best friend, Grant,” Gallego writes in They Called Us ‘Lucky’: The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq War’s Hardest Hit Unit.

“I told him about Grant, and said he would grow up to be a good man just like Grant.”

The Gallego campaign did not respond to inquiries from i. Neither did the state or county Democratic Party.

But it was not hard to find people saying they would be backing the former Marine in his race against Lake.

Brian Kennedy, who lives in the historic Encanto neighbourhood of Phoenix, says he will be voting for Harris and Gallego.

A self-described progressive, except on the issue of immigration, Kennedy believes Democrats can win this year.

“I have no doubt Trump can win,” he adds. “What I also don’t doubt is the idiot’s going to sit there and spend the next six months after the election [challenging it with numerous trials].”

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