Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake is known to be a firecracker on the stump, where she often uses incendiary rhetoric to rile up Republican crowds and taunt her critics. But speaking with prospective GOP donors behind closed doors, the former Arizona newscaster turned grassroots MAGA celebrity unsurprisingly strikes a much softer tone in her bid to win over deep-pocketed donors, often talking at length about her personal faith and her humble upbringing as the youngest of nine children.

Lake, who lost Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial race but continues to insist that she won, is focusing on her personal backstory as she plays catch-up in the fundraising department to powerhouse fundraiser, Democratic representative, and 2024 Senate candidate Ruben Gallego, whom she often characterizes to donors as her “far-left” opponent.

Both candidates have spent recent months on the campaign trail moderating their message on a number of policy issues ahead of what’s expected to be a bitter and hotly contested general election for retiring independent senator Kyrsten Sinema’s seat. (Both candidates are expected to win their party nominations.) While Gallego runs to the center on immigration (more on his campaign soon), Lake is running to the center on abortion, most recently decrying her state supreme court’s decision to revive an 1864 law that prohibits most abortions in the state. Her critics have been quick to point out that she had praised the same exact law during her 2022 gubernatorial run.

Lake notably did not raise the topic of abortion during a private donor reception in Huntsville, Ala. earlier this month, according to a source who attended the event and is not affiliated with her campaign. Instead, she highlighted her background and spoke about policy areas where she believes the Biden administration is failing the country, including the southern border and the economy.

Also present at Lake’s April 23 fundraiser in Huntsville — which raked in more than $250,000, according to a source familiar with the matter — were her husband, Jeff, country singer-songwriter Lee Greenwood, and U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.).

Alabama may seem like an unusual fundraising destination for someone who is running for the Senate in Arizona. But asNational Review reported earlier this month, Lake’s fundraising schedule is heavy on the out-of-state travel. It’s a curious strategy that’s raising confusion and concern among some Republicans in the Grand Canyon State. The Washington Post also reported earlier this week that “Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about her political prospects in a state he sees as key to his bid to return to the White House, and has shown annoyance with her frequent presence at his Florida resort.” (Lake raised $1 million at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for her Senate campaign earlier this month.)

Here’s a snippet from my April 3 story on her out-of-state travel:

The end of April 2024 will mark more than 50 out-of-state trips taken by Lake since January 2023, as a look at her book tour and political-event travel shows. That itinerary includes more than a dozen out-of-state appearances since launching her Senate campaign in October, with at least three out-of-state trips scheduled for April alone, raising eyebrows among Arizona Democrats and Republicans alike. . . .

The frequency of her out-of-state trips is unusual and underscores how different a candidate she is from other 2024 battleground Senate GOP recruits this cycle. Take, for example, West Virginia governor Jim Justice, former hedge-fund CEO Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania, real-estate developer Eric Hovde in Wisconsin, and Moreno, a former car dealer — all of whom are independently wealthy and likely don’t depend on the extra few thousand dollars that can flow in from a county GOP event in a small town, or otherwise don’t have the celebrity status that often precipitates invitations to these sorts of grassroots events.

A source close to Lake maintains that her out-of-state fundraising strategy has helped her play catch-up to her Democratic opponent, citing the quarter-million-dollar haul she raised in Huntsville earlier this month as a case in point.

Gallego, who has a leg up in this department after launching his campaign in January 2023, raised $7.5 million in the first quarter of this year and had $9.6 million on hand at the end of March. Lake raised $4.1 million during the same time period but had just $2.5 million in the bank at the end of last quarter — a stark cash gap that she hopes to remedy over the next few months.