OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump appears to be on his way to another election endorsement victory.
According to a survey by polling firm Data Orbital that was on Monday, former Phoenix-area newscaster Kari Lake has taken a massive double-digit lead over the next-closest candidate vying for the Republican Party gubernatorial nomination.
Arizona’s primary election is on Aug. 2.
“With mail-in ballots already being returned, Kari Lake shows a commanding 11-point lead over Karrin Taylor Robson. Lake is pulling away from the field as a poll conducted by Data Orbital earlier in July showed Lake only 4 points ahead of Taylor Robson,” the polling firm noted in a press release.
Taylor Robson is backed by outgoing GOP Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Lake leads Taylor Robson 43.5 percent to 32.4 percent. The next two closest contenders who are still in the race — Scott Neely and Paola Tulliani-Zen — are both polling around 2 percent.
The ‘X’ factor in the race, however, is the 11 percent of GOP voters who are as yet undecided.
NEW SURVEY RESULTS: Latest statewide, mixed mode survey of likely Republican primary election voters shows @KariLake with a commanding 11-point lead over @Karrin4Arizona.
See full release: https://t.co/nZoMII8IgQ#electiontwitter pic.twitter.com/2dFVKtpprJ
— Data Orbital (@Data_Orbital) July 25, 2022
Still, according to Data Orbital analysts, it certainly appears as though the race for the GOP nomination is locked up.
“With nearly 250,000 Republican ballots returned, it is clear Kari Lake has maintained – and grown – her lead in the Gubernatorial race,” pollster George Khalaf said.
“We have seen the Undecided rate steadily drop from 28% in late June to 12%, with a little more than a week until Election Day. With what we are seeing in our polling, and every other public poll released on the Governor’s race, one thing is clear: Kari Lake is on her way to securing the Republican nomination,” Khalaf added.
Should Lake secure the nomination, she will likely face current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is far ahead of her Democratic competitors for their party’s nomination, according to RealClearPolitics (RCP) average polling.
Trump was in Arizona last weekend to campaign for Lake as well as his pick for the U.S. Senate, Blake Masters, who is running against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. RCP has his race listed as a “toss-up.”
During his keynote speech, the former president proclaimed that Lake will become President Joe Biden’s biggest nightmare.
Lake “will be one of the fiercest voices in the country” standing up against Biden, Trump said, going on to blame Biden’s lax immigration and border enforcement policies for the massive increase in illegal crossings since he took office, Breitbart News reported.
Trump also said that Lake, as Arizona governor, “will do whatever it takes to protect the people of Arizona.”
“No one understands better than Kari how to fight back against the Fake News media and the Radical Left,” Trump asserted. “The media is terrified of Kari because they know that as your Governor, she will be one of the fiercest voices in the country standing up against Joe Biden’s Open Borders catastrophe.”
“If you look at countries throughout the world, the only ones that don’t have a drug problem are those that institute the death penalty for drug dealers,” Trump will say. “If we are going to stop this scourge, it is time to get brutally tough on the dealers, traffickers, and narco-terrorist cartels who are stealing millions of lives. And yes, in many cases, drug traffickers should receive the death penalty.”
Trump also spoke highly of Masters.
“Mark Kelly is also culpable for the runaway inflation that is crushing Arizona families—he voted in favor of all Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi’s lunatic socialist spending bills, and he voted to support Biden’s war on American Energy,” Trump will say.
“Blake is a titan of the business and technology world and a brilliant mind who truly supports the MAGA movement and the America First agenda,” Trump said. “He brings exactly the kind of toughness, courage, and intellectual firepower we need in the Senate to take our country to the next level.”
“It is so important to bring patriots like Blake to the Senate. The Senate needs new energy and some real courage,” Trump added, going on to rip Democrats who control the country’s public school system and their “Marxist educators.”
