Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake got some great news in the form of a new poll on Wednesday that showed her leading her Democratic opponent, Rep. Reuben Gallego, for the first time.
AtlasIntel’s October 29 survey showed Lake and Gallego tied, but their most recent data from October 30-31 indicates that Lake has taken a slight lead over her Democratic challenger, securing 48.6 percent of the vote compared to Gallego’s 47.9 percent.
Lake—who was narrowly defeated by then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race—continues to face an uphill battle.
Gallego has held a consistent lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average for most of the campaign cycle. A Rasmussen Reports survey conducted from October 25 to October 29 indicated Gallego’s lead at four percentage points, while a CNN poll conducted from October 21 to 26 found the Democrat ahead by eight points.
An October 26-28 survey from Data Orbital showed a much tighter race, with Lake and Gallego nearly tied.
Overall, as of October 31, Gallego’s lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average is 3.9 percentage points.
AtlasIntel also reported favorable results for former President Trump in Arizona, consistent with his substantial lead in the October 29 poll. In the October 30-31 survey, Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris by 4.2 percentage points, marking his largest lead among all seven battleground states included in the poll.
Additionally, the survey revealed that Trump is marginally winning over independents in the state, with few Republican voters defecting and nearly equal Democratic voters choosing not to support Harris.
Lake’s Senate campaign took an unexpected turn last month following a bombshell court ruling that revealed sealed divorce records from her opponent’s past.
Gallego, who filed for divorce from his then-wife, Kate Gallego, in 2016, lost a protracted legal battle to keep the case private. The Washington Free Beacon prevailed in a 10-month court fight, culminating in the Arizona Supreme Court’s rejection of Gallego’s final appeal to keep the documents sealed.
Gallego filed a memorandum to the court that year stating that Kate Gallego “had not yet been served” with divorce papers and “her attorney entered an appearance” hadn’t yet occurred in the case, noting that she was “likely to give birth any day,” according to the outlet. The divorce petition said that the “parties’ marriage is irretrievably broken” and saw “no reasonable prospect of reconciliation.”
That said, it appears that Kate Gallego was caught off-guard by the filing. In a February 2017 response to his divorce filing, she said she was “without knowledge of information sufficient to form a belief” that the marriage wasn’t fixable and thus refuted her then-husband’s claim.
In short, Ruben Gallego’s wife, then a Phoenix city councilwoman, was extremely pregnant when she was served with divorce papers she had no idea were coming, the Free Beacon noted.
The court documents also indicate that the congressman was attempting to saddle his wife with court costs under an Arizona law that allows courts to grant such fees. Kate Gallego, in her February 2017 filing, requested the court to “enter an order that husband contribute to wife’s attorney’s fees and costs.”
In his initial request to the court, Ruben Gallego aimed to block any claims to “long-term spousal maintenance” from Kate, urging the judge to rule that “neither party is in need of nor entitled to an award of long term spousal maintenance.” She initially claimed that she was “entitled to spousal maintenance,” but she later dropped it and agreed that both of them were financially independent and not in need of any assistance.
Their divorce was finalized in April 2017.
