Quote (Black XistenZ @ Nov 14 2022 10:23pm)
Not winning in an R+2 state in a Biden midterm with his approvals in the gutter and inflation the highest it's been in 40 years, against a mediocre opponent who had plenty of problems of her own, is not exactly a testament to Lake's strength as a candidate.
When we compare the AZ gubernatorial and senate race, it must be noted that Mark Kelly was an incumbent, is a prodigious fundraiser and a much stronger candidate in general than Katie Hobbs. Factoring in the strength of their respective opponent, Lake probably didn't perform much better than Blake Masters, who - after losing his race - was widely panned as a "nobody" and a failure.
At the end of the day, Kari Lake proved to be REALLY good at catering to the MAGA base, but turned out to have very little crossover appeal with independents/swing voters.
I wouldn't worry too much about R+ or D+. Arizona has been trending away from Republicans for the last few cycles. 2012 --> 2016 --> 2020 is a story of Arizona slowly slipping away from the GOP. Lake performed as expected in that sort of environment and lost a close race. Polling towards the end of the race was more strongly in her favor, but by that time a significant chunk of the early vote was in. I'm not saying that Lake is a fantastic candidate, but she performed fine. Laxalt in Nevada performed ok as well, Nevada just isn't ready to flip yet. Federal Republicans need to do a better job helping the state parties organize themselves, because right now they're a bit lost.
With respect to Masters versus Lake, I would simplify it and say it's about the relevant strength of the candidates. Masters was very weak, whereas Lake was stronger. Katie was weak (albeit less so than Masters), whereas Kelly was stronger. If the takeaway from 2022 is anything, it should be that candidate quality is incredibly important. You can't trot morons out and expect them to win, except in the case of Fetterman, and that's one of the greatest voter deception campaigns ever run.