Even if voters in the Grand Canyon State choose former President Trump over Vice President Harris for president, split-ticket voters could ultimately send Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego to the Arizona Senate.
Trump won the state in 2016 but narrowly lost in 2020, roughly 49% to 48%, just ahead of Harris, according to a tally of Arizona polls compiled by Decision Desk Headquarters. exceeded. But Gallego comfortably leads Senate Republican challenger Kari Lake, 50% to 42%, according to DDHQ's tally.
Both races are expected to be close, but the likelihood of a split vote in the state highlights the unexpectedly dynamic nature of Arizona politics.
https://elections2024.thehill.com/new-hampshire/biden-trump-rfk-new-hampshire/
The presidential race is “certainly much closer than the Senate race, and I think Gallego has a fairly large and favorable lead in the Senate race,” said Nicholson, senior vice president of research and strategy at Phoenix-based Highground. Paul Benz said. That's within acceptable range. ”
Arizona is likely to play a pivotal role in determining who controls the White House and the Senate this fall. The Grand Canyon State voted for President Trump in 2016 by a margin of more than 3 percentage points, but in 2020 it narrowly voted for President Biden by a margin of just over a quarter of a percentage point, and election denialism spread in the process. It was one of the states that did so.
Split voting, in which voters vote for candidates from different political parties, is becoming less and less common in an increasingly polarized political environment.
said Casey Burgat, director of the Legislative Affairs Program at George Washington University's School of Political Science.It was pointed out in a Substack post last month“The 2020 election saw the lowest number of districts in 70 years that voted for one party's presidential candidate and supported the other party's congressional candidate.”
“This trend even suggests that in 2024 we may set a new record in the amount of split-ticket votes that we do not have,” he said in the video.
But Arizona's split voting remains in place. One prime example is the 2018 election, when voters elected Republican Doug Ducey as governor and then-Democratic Kyrsten Sinema as senator.
Arizona's 1st and 6th Congressional Districts also represent divisive voting. Both districts voted for Biden by close margins in 2020, but are represented by Republican Reps. David Schweickart and Juan Siscomani, respectively.
Recent polls show that split voting is very likely to happen again this cycle.
Some strategists believe Mr. Lake is underperforming Mr. Trump because he is running a largely similar campaign to the former local news anchor's 2022 campaign.
“I don't think she's ever properly introduced herself. I think she thinks everyone knows who she is in the gubernatorial race,” Benz said. did.
“I think she was having a hard time raising money, but she hasn't really reinvented herself in terms of what makes this act different. So this seems like a kind of rethinking.” “But they gave Gallego a ton of room to introduce himself to set up his position,” he added.
Ms. Lake was able to raise more money this quarter than other Senate Republican candidates, but there is a clear difference between the amount she and Mr. Gallego have raised.
“If you look at the last three Senate elections in Arizona, the quality of the Republican candidates has been an issue, and we're seeing the same thing again in Kali Lake,” said Max Forse. spoke. He worked on the campaigns of Sinema and the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
“So I think the divide between Donald Trump and Kali Lake is simply a matter of candidate quality and likability,” he said.
But some party members believe their stronghold will eventually return.
Republican strategist John Seaton, who advised Lake's 2022 gubernatorial rival, said Lake is running a “more disciplined” campaign and “I don't think there will be widespread defection.” said.
Lake ignored the polls and said voters shouldn't trust them in an interview with NBC News that aired Wednesday.
“Polls are very similar to what we saw in 2016, polls designed to get voters to do something. I know what internal voting looks like. It's great.” said Lake. “I've talked to door knockers who are knocking on pro-independence groups and people who are knocking on Republican groups. The response people are getting on the doorstep is overwhelming.”
Her team also provided a “Path to Victory” press release last month, suggesting split ticketing would be rare during a president's term. The memo notes that in 68 of the 69 U.S. Senate elections held between 2016 and 2020, only one state voted for presidential and U.S. Senate candidates from different parties.
A national Republican strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity said the reasons why Lake is trailing Trump in the polls could be due to issues of candidate quality or favorability, or because of her campaign. He frankly refuted the idea that there are different kinds.
“Since the primary, Kari Lake has focused on reaching out to Republican voters and uniting Republican leaders in the state. People like Karyn Taylor Robson and Doug Ducey have joined her campaign. You’ve seen her support ,” the strategist said, referring to her former gubernatorial rival. “And in that time, we have seen Gallego fully embrace the Harris-Waltz and Biden-Harris agenda.”
At the presidential level, some Republican strategists believe that Trump has a narrow lead because of repeated attacks on Harris, or simply because of issues looming in the race, such as border security, immigration and the economy. I think so.
“You can debate the extent to which Kamala Harris is responsible for the border crisis,” Seaton said. “But what we can't discuss is that she's part of the Democratic administration that's in charge right now and the border is not secure.”
A spokesperson for Team Trump Arizona cited these issues, among others, as well as Mr. Trump's record, as reasons for confidence in the race.
“President Trump's wins in the state are due to his successful record and the fact that Arizonans trust him more than Kamala Harris, who has failed on issues such as the border, immigration and the economy. “We know the facts,” the spokesperson said.
But other issues also loom over the state, including the economy, threats to democracy and abortion. Voters are expected to weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment that would enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution, potentially boosting Democratic turnout.
Jacques Petit, communications director for Arizona Harris Walz, told The Hill in a statement that the vice president is the “underdog” and suggested he is implementing the right strategy on the ground to deliver victory. did.
“Our campaign has the infrastructure in place to reach voters in every corner of Arizona, and we stand ready to support Vice President Harris' new path forward and change Donald Trump's policies. “We're building a broad coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents,” and their extreme Project 2025 agenda to ban abortion and drag Arizonans into the past. '' Petit said.
Some Democrats are skeptical of the idea that Harris is narrowly trailing Trump in the state. DJ Quinlan, former executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party, said polling at this point “is going to be very noisy.”
“If anything…I think I'm giving Harris a little bit of an edge because they've built a very strong field infrastructure, knocking on tens of thousands of doors, making hundreds of thousands of phone calls. ,” Quinlan said.
