Arizona US Senate Race: 4 Key Issues as Kari Lake Faces Ruben Gallego (original) (raw)

In Arizona, former television news anchor Kari Lake is battling Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego in a crucial race for the U.S. Senate, as an expert told Newsweek that the contest is steered by four key issues in the Grand Canyon state.

The seat is vacant after incumbent Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party to become an independent in December 2023, then deciding not to run for reelection. With the Democrats' narrow Senate majority, the race could determine who controls the upper chamber next year.

Polls show Gallego, who represents Arizona's 3rd Congressional District in the House, is leading Lake, who shot to national prominence as a figure in former President Donald Trump's MAGA movement after stepping down as a news anchor to run for Arizona governor in 2021.

Kari Lake, left, and Ruben Gallego, right, are battling for a seat in the Arizona Senate race. Kari Lake, left, and Ruben Gallego, right, are battling for a seat in the Arizona Senate race. LM Otero and Francis Chung/ASSOCIATED PRESS

She later claimed that the contest had been "rigged" after losing by a narrow margin and launched a series of failed legal challenges attempting to reverse the outcome.

Polls have shown Gallego leading Lake by double digits. A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll from August 28 showed the Democrat 15 points ahead, while a HighGround poll from August 5 showed him with an 11-point lead over Lake.

During an interview on talk radio station KTAR, Lake dismissed the polls, saying that "nobody wins by 15 points. I put zero stock in these polls," she said.

Other polls have shown Gallego with a smaller lead of between 1 and 8 points, including the latest Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll, which showed Gallego 6 points ahead with 48 percent to Lake's 42 percent.

Meanwhile, the RealClearPolitics poll tracker placed Gallego on average 7.3 points ahead of Lake.

Newsweek spoke with an expert to identify the key issues likely to influence Arizona voters in November.

"The key issues in Arizona will likely be inflation, immigration, abortion and housing," Noble Predictive Insights Chief of Research David Byler said.

Newsweek has contacted Lake and Gallego for comment via email.

Inflation and housing

"Arizona is a magnet for in-movers from other states because of low costs [especially housing]. So inflation and housing costs are front of mind," Byler said.

According to polling by Noble Predictive Insights, 38 percent of voters in Arizona said that affordable housing is a top issue in this election. But inflation ranked above affordable housing, with 52 percent of voters overall choosing it as their top issue, including 66 percent of Republicans, 40 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independents.

The poll surveyed 1,003 registered voters in Arizona between August 12 and 16 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.09 percent.

Lake previously promised to tackle inflation causing high home prices and tight housing inventory that have locked out potential homeowners. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, she commented on the situation of a couple living in Arizona, featured in The New York Times, who are employed, yet face housing affordability issues in the greater Phoenix area.

"It is now almost impossible to find an affordable home in a safe neighborhood in Phoenix anymore," Lake wrote.

She told Newsweek earlier this year: "Everyone's fed up with where the economy is going. They're fed up with mortgage rates, inflation, they can't afford anything."

Arizona's housing market, once buoyant, now strains under the weight of its affordability crisis, with Phoenix home prices soaring by 13.8 percent to $455,000 in the past year, according to Redfin. The evolving demographic landscape of Arizona, marked by a high influx of new residents, has intensified the already critical housing situation, with more than 74,000 Californians moving to Arizona in 2022, according to the U.S. Census.

And although home sales in the state saw a 3.2 percent uptick on a year-over-year basis in February, they have fallen a sharp 40 percent since mortgage rates were still low in 2021. John Wake, an independent real-estate analyst, characterized the low amount of home sales as a "real-estate sales recession," on X in February.

Lake has criticized the Biden administration for exacerbating the issues through unchecked government spending and stringent regulations in the state that hinder housing development.

"As your Senator, I will attack out-of-control government spending to bring down inflation & interest rates to pre-Biden levels," Lake wrote on X. "I will also work to remove burdensome regulations that stand in the way of the construction of affordable housing."

She has also proposed creating a construction trade school assistance program to train workers to build new homes.

"We're pricing people out of even the ability to rent," Lake told The Mike Broomhead Show in July. "This used to be an affordable state but we're literally pricing a younger generation out of the American dream right now, and that root of the problem is, basically for two decades, we haven't built enough housing, so I propose things like construction trade school assistance program that'll bring more people into the trades to help us build these homes.

"If we start now, we could have thousands, even tens of thousands, newly trained, ready to go construction and trade workers on the job by the end of my campaign."

Gallego has proposed a different solution, advocating for more Housing Choice Vouchers—which provide rental housing assistance to low-income households—for Arizona's communities, particularly those experiencing rapid population increases and whose public housing authorities are severely under-resourced.

According to an August press release, Gallego penned a letter to Acting Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Adrienne Todman, highlighting the shortage of vouchers in cities like Phoenix and calling for a fairer distribution of funds to help more eligible households that aren't currently receiving support.

Phoenix, now the fifth-largest city in the U.S., was authorized to issue just 7,487 housing vouchers in the last fiscal year—covering only about one-quarter of eligible households in the region. The shortfall, despite the city's size and growing needs, stems from an outdated allocation system that favors older cities over newer, fast-growing ones, according to a press release from Gallego.

He has pushed for a budget that recognizes and addresses the surging demand, introducing a bill in the House in April that would set aside an additional $2 billion to address affordable housing.

"Immigration, abortion, inflation – when these issues come up, the parties know what they're talking about. And voters know who they trust. Housing is a different animal. Housing costs are just too high, and it's becoming a bipartisan concern," Byler said in an August press release.

"This is a rare opportunity for both parties – an important issue where neither side has a pre-existing advantage or even a defined message. The party that figures out how to win on housing will benefit hugely."

Noble Predictive Insights polling shows that Arizona voters trust Gallego more on affordable housing and inflation than Lake, with the Democrat receiving 45 percent and 42 percent support, respectively, while Lake received 35 percent and 40 percent support.

Immigration

Immigration is another big issue in the Arizona Senate race. As a border state, immigration has "special salience" in Arizona, Byler told Newsweek.

Noble Predictive Insights polling shows immigration is one of the top issues for Republicans and independents, with 74 percent and 45 percent, respectively, choosing it as their top issue. In contrast, only 22 percent of Democrats chose immigration as their top issue.

The U.S. saw record-high 248,785 arrests for illegal border crossings in December 2023, about one-third of which came through the busiest corridor for illegal crossings into Tucson, Arizona.

In every poll since October 2023, most Arizonans have consistently said they believe the United States does not have control of its borders. In a July 2024 survey by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, 58 percent of Arizonans said that the United States does not have control.

To tackle the crisis at the border, Lake has mirrored Trump, supporting the building of a wall.

"We have to secure the border to save lives. It's, this isn't partisan guys. This isn't Democrat, Republican," Lake told WBUR in May. "This is a crisis that affects all of us. And the solution is so darn simple. Go back to President Trump's border policy and finish the wall. Finish the wall.

"I will tell you, I know for a fact that Joe Biden, Kyrsten Sinema and Ruben Gallego care a whole lot more about Ukraine's border than our border. And that's a crime. When I am your senator, I will make securing that border priority numero uno."

Lake has also advocating issuing a Declaration of Invasion on day one in office and sending Arizona National Guard troops to the border.

Although Gallego previously said that a border wall is "necessary in certain areas," he has argued that a full-fledged southern border wall is a performative waste of taxpayer dollars.

"Putting border walls in areas that you don't need only costs more money and then also costs manpower," Gallego told NBC News in August.

His proposed solutions include increased funding for border patrol, border technology and more border agents while also "advocating for sane, comprehensive immigration reforms, things that would take care of our Dreamers"—undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as minors and see themselves as American.

"That's where Arizonans are. They want border security, but they also want to fix our broken immigration system," said Gallego, who has supported the bipartisan immigration reform bill, which would give the White House new tools to use to restrict asylum when numbers at the border inflate.

Noble Predictive Insights polling shows that Arizona voters trust Lake more than Gallego on immigration, with 43 percent supporting Lake to Gallego's 41 percent.

Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty

Abortion

"Abortion rights will be a significant issue in Arizona's '24 senate race," Matthew Dempsey, assistant professor in politics and global studies at Arizona State University, told Newsweek.

"The state Supreme Court allowed a stringent abortion ban, which hails from the days when Arizona was still a territory of the United States, to take effect. Now, there's a ballot issue that would protect abortion rights in the state constitution," he said.

Abortion is the top issue for Arizona Democrats in this year's Senate election, according to Noble Predictive Insights. Its poll showed that 50 percent of Democrats chose it as their top issue, compared to 17 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of independents.

It comes after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in April to revive the state's 1864 near-total abortion ban. The law, which barred all abortions except when "it is necessary to save" the mother's life, carried a penalty of two to five years in prison for anyone who performed or helped a woman obtain an abortion. It did not protect women in cases of incest or rape.

The law had largely gone unenforced since the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 that enshrined the right to abortion, but when that was repealed in 2022, Arizona became one of many states to restrict abortion access, with 14 states banning the practice at every stage of pregnancy.

While the law is set to be repealed on Saturday after lawmakers voted for a bill that would strike down the legislation, there is still a dispute over whether the right to an abortion should be in the state's constitution, with the issue set to appear on the ballot in Arizona in November.

If voters approve the measure, abortions would be permitted up to the point of fetal viability, generally about 24 weeks. After that, abortions would still be allowed if the mother's physical or mental health is at risk. At the moment, Arizona law allows abortions until 15 weeks. After that, there is an exception to save the life of the mother but not for cases of rape or incest.

On this issue, Lake has proclaimed abortion "the ultimate sin," said abortion pills should be illegal, and praised laws to restrict reproductive rights in other conservative-led states.

She has also supported Arizona's current 15-week abortion ban and admitted she is in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade. While she has stopped short of supporting the state's Civil War-era abortion ban, as well as a federal abortion ban, she previously referred to the 1864 law as a "great law."

In an interview with NBC News, she praised the 15-week rule as "something that Americans can get behind because it gives people options, gives women options, and makes sure that there are carveouts."

"The vast majority of Americans and Arizonans hold the view that abortion should be legal and that late-term abortion should not be legal," she added, "with exceptions for rape, incest and obviously the health of a mother.

"What we need to do is really start supporting women and giving them true choices. We need to prioritize. We talk about being pro-family, and it's about time we put the money where our mouth is.

"This is where I can actually help in the Senate, by pushing some really great legislation that would actually provide baby bonuses for families, extend and beef up child tax credits to provide more tax incentives, and tax cuts for moms and dads and babies," Lake said.

Gallego has argued that merely repealing the Civil War-era abortion ban isn't enough.

"It could just get overturned later by another state House or state Senate," Gallego told NBC. "The only protection we really, really have is to codify this and put this on the ballot and enshrine Roe and protect abortion rights."

Gallego previously said he was "enraged" by the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

"For nearly 50 years, the United States has protected the right to a safe, legal abortion," he said in a press release. "But today the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, hellbent on rolling back women's rights, chose to take our country backwards and endanger the lives of American women by ripping away the right to choose."

Noble Predictive Insights polling shows that Arizona voters trust Gallego more than Lake on abortion, with 47 percent supporting the congressman to Lake's 33 percent.

"Lake appears to be out of step with the average Arizonan on this issue," Dempsey told Newsweek.

A CBS News poll in May found that 65 percent of likely Arizona voters said they would vote "yes" on a ballot measure establishing a constitutional right to abortion in the state.