Kari Lake, behind in money and the polls, getting little help from GOP allies on TV

With about seven weeks to go before Arizona voters begin casting their ballots, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is behind in polling and campaign cash and there are few signs of a major lifeline from GOP-aligned groups.

Of the eight most competitive Senate races across the country, Lake has drawn the least Republican-supportive money in future television ad reservations, a key data point widely viewed in political circles as a sign of serious competition.

National Republicans, it seems, are showing with their wallets a unique skepticism that Lake can beat her Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego.

“Money talks,” said Jessica Taylor, who edits Senate and gubernatorial races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “It reflects that there are other races that Republicans see as winnable than the Arizona Senate race right now.”

Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based Republican campaign consultant not involved in the Senate race, sees echoes of the 2022 Senate race in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., didn’t see Arizona’s Blake Masters as electable.

“I think everyone is heeding the McConnell message of ‘candidate quality matters,’” Marson said.

Republicans are looking across a relatively favorable Senate map in their bid to retake the chamber.

The GOP is expected to win West Virginia’s Senate race and needs no more than two other seats for a majority in January. Their spending so far suggests they don’t see Arizona as their most likely path to doing so.

AdImpact, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political spending in the media, showed future reservations for Lake and Republican-aligned organizations on her behalf totaling $12 million. Gallego and Democratic-aligned organizations planned almost $65 million.

Other Senate races in states such as Montana and Pennsylvania have drawn nearly $100 million in GOP-related spending. And those races involve Republican efforts to knock off Democratic incumbents. Gallego and Lake are battling for the seat being vacated by the retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.

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Lake’s campaign dismissed the spending disparities and alluded to a recent poll by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“Kari Lake continues to keep this race in a dead heat statistical tie, meanwhile Gallego has spent tens of millions and cannot pull away,” the campaign said in a written statement. “Arizona is one of the best pick-up opportunities for Republicans in the Senate. Kari Lake will win.”

White House battle pushes up costs

Money moves around quickly in major races, especially as voting approaches, but TV ads are a scarce commodity in presidential election years.

Waiting until closer to the election to run them is more expensive for everyone, and especially for organizations that aren’t connected to a candidate’s campaign.

President Joe Biden’s decision to end his reelection bid has seemingly jolted Democratic chances in Arizona, where former President Donald Trump was leading comfortably for months. The newfound competitiveness in that race will only make future TV time scarcer and more expensive for anyone else.

“Now Arizona’s firmly back in play at the presidential level and Gallego, with his money advantage, has been able to lay down his reservations early on,” Taylor said. “We’ve seen Democratic groups lay down their reservations early on. The earlier you buy these ads, the cheaper they are. For Lake, she has not been able to do that.”

“If you’re going to go big on a race, then your best investment is to buy early because that’s when it’s cheaper,” said Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of the nonpartisan Inside Elections.

That’s especially true in Arizona, he said, where there is no shortage of key political races and only one major media market to blanket. Beside the presidential race and Senate contest, there are two competitive congressional races, a statewide measure on abortion rights, a handful of significant legislative races and several Maricopa County races that will draw TV time.

“There’s a lot of saturation of the airwaves, and that just ratchets up the cost even more,” Rubashkin said.

Kari Lake is behind Ruben Gallego in the polls

Since Sinema said in March she wouldn’t seek reelection, Gallego consistently has led in publicly available polling for the race. His lead has shifted over time and some of that polling has come from pollsters that work for Democrats or who support him.

But it has also included polls from Republican-friendly firms, too. The one constant is Gallego has led in nearly all the polls.

The nonpartisan FiveThirtyEight political website shows 24 polls other than the Club for Growth in the Arizona race since Sinema quit. Gallego has led in 21 of them with two ties. His average lead in those polls is nearly 5 percentage points.

In the nine polls taken in July and August, Gallego has led six times with two ties, including one from last week for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

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Four of those nine polls showed Gallego leading by 5 points or more.

The one poll showing Lake ahead, by 1 point, was conducted by her campaign.

On Thursday, the conservative Club for Growth Action released a poll showing Gallego ahead by just 2 points and called the race “one of the best pick-up possibilities for Republicans.”

Rubashkin said Inside Elections sees Lake as the “underdog” in the race.

“The preponderance of the polling that’s out there is not good for her,” he said. “Other than the one NRSC internal (poll) that they put out that showed it’s tied, she’s been consistently down against Gallego.”

Kari Lake is targeting the 'enemy' Ruben Gallego

Lake’s campaign headed into the July 30 primary at a major financial disadvantage with Gallego.

As of July 10, Gallego had $8.2 million in cash and no debt. At the same time, Lake had $2.1 million and $857,000 in debt.

She won her primary battle over Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb by 16 percentage points. That was well short of the 30-point advantage her campaign cited two weeks before voting began.

Earlier this month, Lake maintained a 16-point win “is a landslide victory” and said she was solely targeting Gallego.

“Guess how much money I spent in the primary? Zero. I didn’t spend a penny,” she told reporters in Gilbert. “I have been, since I jumped into this, focused on the enemy. The enemy is not Mark Lamb. The enemy is actually Ruben Gallego.”

That approach still left her far outspent by Gallego, according to AdImpact.

It found that Gallego spent $20.2 million on ads during the primary. By contrast, Lake spent $4.2 million.

Much of Lake’s messaging involves “hybrid” ads with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which endorsed Lake in February. The coordinated ads allow campaigns to split costs with the NRSC, but it also limits the amount of time spent on a named opponent, presumably diluting its impact.

Lake’s spending disparity lingered after the primary, too.

Gallego has reserved about $43 million in time for ads in the general election. Lake has reserved about $7 million, according to AdImpact.

Unless donations went viral for Lake in the weeks since her underwhelming primary win, it appears she and her GOP allies won’t come close to matching the presence on screens that Gallego and his Democratic allies expect to have.

So far, the GOP is spending elsewhere

Arizona’s Senate race is only one of the races where Republicans could make a gain. There are seven other races across the country that have drawn notable spending from both parties in a sign of competitive campaigns.

In each of them, the candidates and Republican-aligned organizations have reserved more TV time than they have for Lake.

Ohio is by far the most expensive Senate battleground this cycle.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is seeking a fourth term in a state where Republicans consistently win statewide. He is facing businessman Bernie Moreno.

So far, the campaigns and their partisan allies have reserved time totaling more than $310 million in Ohio. Republicans have committed slightly more in that race than Democrats, $158 million, according to AdImpact. It is the only competitive state where the GOP is outspending Democrats.

In other states, Republicans have poured far more into the Senate races than they have in Lake’s race.

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In Pennsylvania, there’s $96 million reserved for Dave McCormick’s effort to unseat U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Penn. In Michigan, the GOP has committed $27 million to help former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers challenge U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin for the open seat in that state.

Republicans have put more money into trying to win an open seat in the blue state of Maryland, $17 million, than the $12 million they have invested in purple Arizona. Maryland hasn’t elected a Republican senator since 1980.

Lake repeatedly has dismissed Gallego’s fundraising edge over her, vaguely suggesting without evidence that Democrats and Gallego may be getting money from mysterious sources.

They “take in a ton of money from God knows where and God knows who, and he’s going to run ads making himself look like he’s just a middle-of-the-road kind of guy. And it couldn’t be further from the truth,” she said in an April example.

It’s getting late

Money is only part of the problem that Lake is facing. The calendar is also becoming a factor.

Early voting begins Oct. 9, about seven weeks from now. Once voting begins, ballots flow in rapidly across the state and campaigns are divided between pushing out their messages and chasing votes they think they can still get.

Candidates who are trailing have limited time and a rising price tag to reach the public to change their minds or convince them to vote at all.

Marson noted that it’s not just a matter of booking ads. People need to see them — repeatedly — before the message takes root, he said.

In general, it’s believed an ad needs to be seen at least 10 times to have a chance to change voter behavior.

“Defining Ruben (Gallego) as a liberal is a key to victory,” Marson said. “Without that, he gets a free pass.”

While Taylor sees Gallego with a key advantage, she warns against presumptions that the race is settled.

“I don’t think you can ever say that a race in Arizona is over. I still expect this to be a close contest,” she said. “But I look at the fundamentals of the race right now … and Gallego has a small but notable lead.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Senate race: Kari Lake getting little help from GOP allies