Yeah, this is a clear Lean R race even if Lake is nominated. Hobbs is a leftist who is a poor fit for the state, as we saw in 2018 when Garcia got crushed by 14 points.
While I don’t think Hobbs is a good GE candidate (Stanton, Gallego - either one, aka most other prominent Ds here would be stronger), that 2018 margin says more about the strength of Ducey than anything about Garcia. He is vanilla generic R to most here, which plays well.
Lake is the opposite of generic R, lol. She will make this race needlessly competitive. Robson would be a far better GE candidate, regardless of what the polls say today. She would easily beat Hobbs and retain downballot loyal R voters. Lake…..? The same people who abandoned McSally and Trump probably won’t be too thrilled with her.
For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be surprised if AZ Sen and AZ Gov go in opposite directions as we approach November. If Lake makes the Gov race competitive, I think it will improve the R nominee’s standing vs Kelly and vice versa - if Robson is the nominee, I expect no one will be thinking about the Gov race, to Kelly’s benefit.
