Mass psychology is one hell of a drug.
Wait, is Mastriano mass psychology or Lake mass psychology?
Both.
A couple of things to keep in mind here (this is very simplified; if you want, we can discuss this in greater detail via PM):
1. Mass psychology is usually characterized by a leader figure who is confident, assertive, and forceful (the image of a flock springs to mind here). There are exceptions to this, mostly during momentous national events/crises in which a combination of fear and excitement is the main driver of public opinion/sentiment/behavior, but that doesn’t apply here. — Lake is obviously closer to that type of leader than Mastriano.
2. Prestige is the second driving force behind a leader's authority/aura, and it does not spring from a logical or even rational/conscious evaluation of said person's past or actual views, but from the fact that, for example, said individual occupies a certain position/profession or carries a certain title (e.g. doctor). Such markers of status and authority are incredibly powerful and can have a near-paralyzing effect on the individual's mind. — Lake was a popular news anchor, Mastriano is a nobody.
3. A leader's prestige usually increases with the number of people who accord him or her respectability, no matter how justified their assessment is (and it very often isn’t). It’s all about the numbers, not about the person — think of prestige 'spreading' from one person to the other and also ask yourself which candidate a voter would instinctively trust more, the one with prestige (i.e. the one who the rest of the herd also trusts) or the one without (i.e. the one only a tiny minority identifies with). Also ask yourself how it would affect the voter's own prestige if he or she supported a candidate with little to no prestige. — More voters are familiar with and like Lake than are familiar with and like Mastriano, and the average voter isn’t unaware of the (rough) numbers.
4. There is no more powerful means of shaping mass opinion than mass media, particularly news broadcasts. Do bear in mind that even if you happen to be alone while watching the news, you are aware that hundreds of thousands if not millions of other viewers are watching the same show along with you. — Lake (obviously) has experience in mass media and playing an audience, Mastriano has none of it.
This is an often underappreciated but nonetheless very powerful perspective. The other big reason is that Lake has benefited from actual outside spending whereas Mastriano hasn’t, but there’s a reason why Lake is harder to paint as an extremist than Mastriano, and it’s only partly because she’s less sincere about her views than Mastriano and because she’s clearly more skilled at branding herself than Mastriano. Lake being a woman also works to her advantage in this case, as (a) women are generally harder to paint as extremists than men and (b) confidence arguably has an even more intimidating effect on the audience when it is a woman who manages to project it.
