Democrats received welcome news on Friday that the odds in the hotly contested Arizona Senate race shifted in their favor as the party fights to keep the Senate majority.
The nonpartisan election forecaster CookPoliticalReport changed its prediction from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat” due to the candidate quality of Republican front-runner Kari Lake against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).
The two are running for a seat being vacated by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who caucuses with Democrats.
“If Republicans have succeeded in recruiting more palatable nominees in most states, Arizona remains the proverbial elephant in the room,” CookPoliticalReport’s Jessica Taylor wrote in her analysis. “In many ways, Republicans were painted into a corner ever since 2022 gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake made clear she was running for the seat.”
Neither the Gallego campaign nor the Lake campaign responded to requests for comment.
Lake, who lost her bid for governor last cycle and is a staunch supporter of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, is backed by Senate Republicans but still has some in the GOP concerned about electability over past claims that elections with her and Trump were fraudulent. Questions have mounted over how many resources the party’s Senate campaign arm should divert to the race, given pick-up opportunities elsewhere on the election map.
“Although this is still a competitive contest and may end up within the margin of error, we can no longer group it with the most competitive Senate contests on the board,” Taylor wrote.
The ratings shifted left just three states in the “toss-up” column: Montana, Ohio, and Nevada. With West Virginia’s open seat set to go from blue to red, Republicans need to flip just one more seat to take back the Senate. If Trump defeats President Joe Biden, Republicans will control the chamber without needing to win any additional seats.
CookPoliticalReport forecast seven competitive races with incumbent Democrats and predicted the GOP is likely to clinch one to four of the seats.
Another leading nonpartisan election forecaster, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, rated the Arizona Senate race as “lean Democrat.”
Recent polling of the battleground contest gave Gallego an advantage but still largely showed it is within the margins of error.
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Gallego recently launched a $19 million ad blitz in the Grand Canyon State, which is on top of a $23 million advertising boost from a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Lake is also hitting the airwaves with an ad campaign worth $10 million.
Samantha-Jo Roth contributed to this report.