To lose one election to the choice of a bad candidate may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.
Reading through Jim Geraghty’s characteristically thorough compendium of the personal baggage of Ruben Gallego, I am reminded once again of how costly it was to Republicans that they nominated Kari Lake to face off against Gallego in 2024. Whatever case may have been made for taking a flier on Lake’s telegenic charisma in 2022 was dispelled by the missteps and bad judgment that cost her that year’s governor’s race (in a good Republican environment) against the colorless Katie Hobbs.
To lose one election to the choice of a bad candidate may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. Both Lake and Blake Masters blew winnable races in 2022, but instead of learning lessons from those losses, Arizona Republicans scared off respectable figures such as Doug Ducey and Karen Taylor Robson and picked Lake by 16 points over Pima County sheriff Mark Lamb, who at least would have been a fresher face. It ended up as a good year for Republicans in the state, with Trump improving his showing in Maricopa County alone by over 100,000 votes and winning Arizona by 5.51 points, but Lake lost again, by 2.38 points — running nearly nine points behind Trump. As I detailed at the time:
Among Hispanics, Trump ran six points ahead of . . . Lake. . . . Trump ran eight points ahead of . . . Lake among 18- to 29-year-olds and nine points ahead of Lake among 30- to 44-year-olds. Among white voters lacking college degrees, Trump ran six points ahead of Lake. . . . Lake was undone by the state’s most populous urban/suburban county: She ran 111,066 votes behind Trump in Maricopa County and lost her Senate race by about 80,000 votes.
Whether you fault the Lake campaign for failing at opposition research, or fault Lake herself for being such a poor standard-bearer, the fact remains that a man with Gallego’s baggage managed to carry a state that Donald Trump was winning by a significant margin — and that’s on his opponent. GOP primary voters, donors, endorsers, commentators, and other power brokers should think about that in choosing future candidates.