Kari Lake extends Ruben Gallegos lead in U.S. Senate race • Arizona Mirror

Lake, a former Phoenix television news anchor, benefited from vote counts in some of the state’s most red counties like Yavapai, where she won an overwhelming majority 76% of new votes to Gallegos 22%. U.S. Congressman and Marine veteran Gallego had the advantage in new votes from Coconino County. Reach 57% to Lakes 39%.

About 60% of the Grand Canyon State’s voters live in Maricopa County, where Lake Gallego led by two percentage points in Friday’s new election. The county has come under fire for its slow count, both from Arizonans and those across the country keeping an eye on the outcome of the race.

Maricopa County took one average 13 days to have his ballots fully counted for the past 16 years, but the count has been done has been even slower this yearin part due to a long, two-page ballot that takes more time to process and tabulate.

As of Friday evening, about 81% of the state’s ballots had been counted, with about 351,000 remaining to be counted in Maricopa County and nearly 629,000 remaining statewide. At that time, 2.8 million ballots were countedof the state’s nearly 4.4 million registered voters, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Lake and her campaign continued their aggressive efforts Friday to recruit people to urge voters to fix any problems with their ballots, such as a missing signature on an early voting envelope, so that their votes count.

President-elect Donald Trump’s supporter and her supporters remained optimistic about her chances of overtaking Gallego as more results come in.

“Folks, I’m going through the voters that have yet to be counted in Arizona, and given the voters that we know we’ve been tracking, Kari Lake is in an incredible position,” said Tyler Bowyer, Chief Operating Officer of Turning Point USA. said in a post on the social media site

Turning Point USA is a right-wing student activist group based in Phoenix that has played a major role in Republican vote-gathering efforts this election cycle.

“We have hundreds of full-time staff and hundreds more volunteers sorting every last Kari Lake ballot in Arizona,” said Turning Point CEO Charlie Kirk Posted on X Friday. “We are relentless.”

Lake and Gallego, who have represented Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2015, ran bitter campaigns, alternating personal remarks and accusations of extremism.

Gallego’s goals were to make life more affordable for the middle and working classes, restore abortion rights, and moderately increase border security, including increasing the workforce and making better use of technology.

Lake copied Trump’s style in her campaign, calling for the completion of construction of his border wall, the mass deportation of illegal immigrants and an expansion of his tax cuts.

Trump supported Lake in both her unsuccessful run for governor of Arizona in 2022 and this year’s run for senator.

In the midst of her Senate campaign, Lake moved on challenge unsuccessfully the results of the gubernatorial race in court, and two years later she still hasn’t given up the race. The Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected her final appeal in the case.

Lake also faces payment Damages still to be determined to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer after she legally admitted guilt in his defamation lawsuit regarding Lake’s false claims that Richer helped rig the 2022 governor’s race against her.