Kari Lake closes gap in Senate poll in New Arizona

Republican Kari Lake is closing in on Democrat Ruben Gallego in Arizona’s U.S. Senate race, according to the results of a poll released just days before Election Day.

The vote published on Friday by YouGov/The Times of London/SAY24 finds Lake trailing Gallego by 5 percentage points. A 49 percent plurality of registered voters in Arizona said they supported Gallego, while 44 percent chose Lake. The survey was conducted from October 25 to October 31 and has a margin of error of 4.4 percent.

Lake fared significantly worse in one vote released by YouGov/CBS News on Oct. 18, with the Republican candidate trailing the Democrat by 9 points among likely voters — 54 percent of respondents said they would vote for Gallego and 45 percent preferred Lake. The survey was conducted from October 11 to October 16 and has a margin of error of 3.3 percent.

Gallego, who represents Arizona’s 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, still has a lead over Lake in the vast majority of polls. But the congressman has seen his advantage shrink in the final weeks of the contest, with some recent investigations indicates that the race is effectively tied.

An AtlasIntel vote conducted on Oct. 30 and Oct. 31 and released Friday showed Lake with a slight 1-point advantage among likely voters. However, the survey was one of only three public opinion polls showing the Republican with an advantage over the entire election cycle, all by just 1 point.

By comparison, Gallego has had 15 different polls show him with a double-digit lead over Lake. A RABA research map out released Monday and conducted from Oct. 25 to Oct. 27, showed the Democratic congressman with a massive 15-point advantage among registered voters in Arizona.

Newsweek reached out to the Lake and Gallego campaigns for comment via email Friday night.

A spokesman for the Lake campaign previously said Newsweek that “momentum is with” Lake and former President Donald Trump heading into the Nov. 5 election, with the campaign expressing confidence “that Arizonans will deliver both Trump and Lake a victory.”

Lake has polled significantly behind Trump despite frequently touting her affection for the former president. Trump led Vice President Kamala Harris in Arizona by just 1 point, 48 percent to 47 percent, in Friday’s YouGov/The Times of London/SAY24 poll.

After narrowly losing Arizona’s gubernatorial election to Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs in 2022, Lake repeated Trump’s denial of the post-2020 election by claiming without evidence that the contest had been “stolen” while launching a series of unsuccessful lawsuits to overturn the result.

Lake continued to refuse to admit she lost to Hobbs during an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday, lashing out at Collins for “looking backwards” after being asked at least seven times if she would accept the reality of his defeat.