You would be hard-pressed to find a political figure who doesn’t have an opinion on Kari Lake.
Since the Republican senate candidate shot from being a small-time TV anchor to one of Trump’s top acolytes she has been the darling of the MAGA movement.
Bill Clinton has said he thinks she’s “attractive” and Donald Trump has called her “fantastic”.
Her attempt to win Arizona’s open seat for the GOP has been seen as a weathervane for the strength of the MAGA movement in a crucial swing state.
The race could be key to determining the balance of power in the US Senate, which Democrats currently control 51-49.
But Ms Lake is struggling to replicate Trump’s popularity in Arizona, and some strategists wonder whether the race has exposed the limitations of attempting to copy his bombastic style.
The 55-year-old Ms Lake first shot to political prominence in 2022, when she beat a crowded field to be crowned the Republican candidate in Arizona’s governor’s race.
Her eager adoption of the Trump playbook, together with her telegenic looks and fluency on the campaign trail earned her a national profile and a substantial power base within GOP circles.
Some speculated she could be on track to become Trump’s running mate in 2024, or even lead the GOP ticket in a future White House race.
Like the former president, she railed against a litany of enemies, from voting machines to the media, as she echoed his disproven claims of vote rigging in the 2020 election.
Her hardline positions ultimately proved to be her undoing in a state which prides itself on its political independence.
She narrowly lost the governor’s mansion to Katie Hobbs, a Democrat whose poor campaign skills had alarmed her own party’s strategists.
Ms Lake is yet to formally concede the 2022 governor’s race, but she has since attempted to soften her image to appeal to independent and moderate Republican voters.
She has also forfeited her defence in a defamation case over her election-rigging claims, and sought to shake her “divisive” label by shifting her rhetoric on abortion and vowing to reach out to “people who may be sceptical of me or even hate me”.
Arizona is one of a handful of key Senate contests around the country that has seen an influx of funding and attention as Nov 5 nears.
It is also the best example of a ballot-splitting trend, with a significant number of voters telling pollsters they plan to back Trump for the White House, but Democrat Ruben Gallego for the Senate.
The phenomenon may offer the Democrats their best hope of holding the chamber, where they are defending 23 seats, many in states Trump won or came close to winning in 2020.
They include Ohio and Montana, two states where Trump holds a large lead over Kamala Harris, and where incumbent Democrat senators will need to outperform her by large margins.
Arizona’s seat has been vacated by Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat who became an independent in 2022.
Mr Gallego, a 44-year-old Marine combat veteran, has learned from Ms Sinema by distancing himself from Ms Harris and the party leadership.
It appears to be paying off: he has an almost seven-point lead over Ms Lake, according to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, despite Trump leading Ms Harris by almost two points in Arizona.
Those divided loyalties have been exposed by traditional Republican groups.
Notably, the Senate Leadership Fund, a powerful committee aligned with the Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, has declined to turn on the funding taps in Ms Lake’s race.
At the same time, Democratic groups have poured more than $60 million into the race, compared to around $16 million spent by GOP groups.
And while the Arizona Police Association’s president has backed Trump, the group has also endorsed Mr Gallego, citing his military service.
‘Trump and Kari are going to win together’
Ms Lake’s campaign has played down the significance of ballot-splitting voters.
“I think the polls are always off,” campaign aide Caroline Wren said earlier this month. “Donald Trump and Kari Lake are both going to win Arizona together.”
The senate candidate has made clear she is not prepared to go down without a fight and has highlighted her tenacity in recounting her life story.
The youngest of nine children, she was raised in a poor Catholic home in rural Iowa and funded her degree in communications by working as a janitor waxing floors.
She began her TV career as a weather forecaster before bagging a presenting role in Phoenix, but claims she left her local Fox station after coming to see the media as “immoral”.
Some of her former colleagues have expressed scepticism at Ms Lake’s transformation, highlighting her previous support for Barack Obama and a dalliance with Buddhism.
But her devotion to Trump’s MAGA movement and her skills on stage have earned her a prominent position in the Republican former president’s court.
She has secured prime speaking slots at marquee conservative events, from the Conservative Political Action Conference to the Republican National Convention.
“She’s fantastic,” Trump said of his loyal lieutenant on the campaign trail in Arizona earlier this year. “Kari Lake, I just think she’s going to be as good as you can get.”
Despite the warnings for her in the polls, Democrats still see her as a formidable opponent.
As he campaigned in the state this week, Mr Clinton described Ms Lake as “someone who is physically attractive but believes that politics is a performance art”.
The agile Ms Lake was quick to hit back at the former president: “As a middle-aged woman, I’m flattered.
“I don’t get those kind of compliments every day … [but] I thought I was a little too old for him. Doesn’t he like interns?”
