Long-awaited US Senate debate may have fireworks 

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U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake will finally get the kind of formal, face-to-face debate she has long said she wanted for much of her four years in politics.

It’s also a first of sorts for her Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, who has held office in a safely left-leaning district for nearly a decade with no competition comparable to what Lake presents.

That might suggest an element of suspense heading into the debate, hosted by the nonpartisan Clean Elections Commission.

But in a race featuring two polar opposites like Lake and Gallego, there are relatively few people whose vote remains up for grabs and the familiar lines of attack seem unlikely to dramatically reshape support.

“Debates are not likely to have such an impact unless somebody performs as poorly as (President Joe Biden) did in June,” said Paul Levinson, a communications professor at Fordham University who specializes in debates. “It’s highly unlikely that either of these two candidates are going to do that.”

Mitchell McKinney, a professor of political communication at the University of Akron and a former consultant to the Commission on Presidential Debates, had a similar sentiment.

“Barring any major gaffe by either of the candidates, this debate will not move the needle in this race much at all, if any at all, he said. “We typically find very slight change in polling following presidential debates, usually in the range of 1-2 points max; and the presidential debates have wide viewership … with intense media coverage before and after the debate. Statewide debates receive limited media attention with slight viewership.”

The debate happens on the day early voting gets underway in Arizona. Publicly available polling has consistently shown Gallego leading the race for the seat currently held by the retiring U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.

Gallego’s lead grew in September polls with him reaching 50% support in seven of the past 14 surveys in the race. He had double-digit leads on Lake five times in that span. For her part, Lake maintains her campaign’s internal polling shows her ahead.

A debate is the kind of event where Lake, a longtime newscaster for Fox 10 and a fixture of conservative cable news channels, would make a strong impression. But a debate also may have given Democrats little incentive to meet her in her element.

In her 2022 gubernatorial campaign, she impressed conservatives during a raucous primary debate with four other Republicans that featured a heavy dose of election denialism and personal attacks.

Republican rival Karrin Taylor Robson dismissed Lake as “a career talker with the teleprompter.” Lake let loose with putdowns of her own.

“We do need someone who’s a grownup, and someone who calls names is not a grownup,” Lake said.

The Democratic nominee, Katie Hobbs, who was then the Arizona secretary of state, canceled all debates with Lake afterward.

Hobbs’ campaign said, “You can’t debate a conspiracy theorist and at the last debate, she brought the conversation back to the 2020 election no less than a dozen times.”

Lake responded by calling Hobbs a “coward.”

Before she formally joined the Senate race last year, Lake and Gallego had their only direct confrontation to date about a year ago at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

In a videotaped encounter, they clashed for a few minutes near a baggage claim area after both sniped at each other on social media on the same flight from Washington, D.C., to Phoenix.

A man passing by told Lake she got “railroaded,” presumably referring to her narrow gubernatorial loss.

“We did, and this guy wants to destroy our country. He really does,” she said pointing at Gallego.

Lake tried to steer the conversation to border security and said the nation needed to finish the border wall favored by former President Donald Trump. Gallego pointed out that Trump said Mexico would pay for it, something that didn’t happen.

They talked over each other, and the edited tape of the confrontation ended not long afterward.

The impromptu debate faded in a campaign that has unfolded over the past year, and it provided no incentive for Gallego to give Lake any similar moments. On Mother’s Day weekend, for example, she called for a debate on abortion rights.

Instead, they have traded insults on social media.

Lake has called Gallego “rotten” and “hateful, unhinged, and a vicious bully.”

Gallego noted that Lake “finally won something” after Phoenix New Times sneeringly named her the winner of the region’s “best dumpster fire.”

And in the GOP primary this year against Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, Lake participated only in one online candidate forum and her campaign suggested there was no reason to debate a race she was winning by 30 percentage points.

She wound up winning in July by 16 points.

Lake offered fresh evidence of her combative political style on Oct. 3 in an interview with Arizona PBS. Gallego declined an offer to make the show a debate, so Lake attacked host Ted Simons.

When he cited data pointing to a strong economy, Lake sarcastically told Simons, “You know what? I have a great idea for you. When you retire here, you should go work for Kamala Harris.”

For his part, Gallego hasn’t faced serious political competition since he won the Democratic primary for his first congressional race in 2014. In a district that leaned overwhelmingly to the left, the primary effectively determined the winner.

In that race, he defeated former Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox by about 3,900 votes or 13 percentage points. Wilcox, who was shot by a constituent during a board hearing in 1997, tried to paint Gallego as a supporter of gun rights who was presumably too conservative for that district.

In their limited joint appearances, Gallego, a Marine combat veteran who was a former member of the National Rifle Association, said he supported “common-sense” restrictions on firearms, such as mandatory background checks and more scrutiny for those with mental illness.

After his primary win, Gallego cruised to five easy victories in the years since, winning by about 50 percentage points each time.

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