Sstrange things can happen in the desert. Wednesday morning in San Tan Valley, Arizona, I saw Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake come within feet of breaking a fundamental election law.

Lake’s campaign bus had just arrived at an early voting site about an hour southeast of Phoenix. Along the path leading to the entrance to the compound was a yellow sign that read 75 FEET LIMIT. The post warned that campaigning beyond that threshold would constitute a Class 2 misdemeanor. Lake, like her penchant, waltzed to the line with a knowing smile.

I stood nearby, watching Lake happily wave and pose for selfies with constituents, who seemed surprised to see her. I heard her ask a man if he voted for Donald Trump. In the middle of the campaign, she found time to attack the media. When I told him I was reporting for Atlanticshe replied, “Oh, is that really, really, really biased?” (Three indeeds.) Lake appeared to be singing for the cameras, but there were none at that stop, except for his own campaign. It was just me and three other journalists with notebooks. No matter: this was Kari Lake, after all. Bombast is her brand.

Lake might be the top voted MAGA candidate in the country. (The expression MAKE ARIZONA GREAT AGAIN is lying on the side of the bus next to a giant picture of her head.) A former local news anchor, Lake first gained national attention by promoting Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories about the results of the 2020 Arizona election. When he ran for governor Arizona in 2022, she refused to accept defeat. Most candidates make their name on a particular issue; Electoral denial, more than anything else, came to define Lake.

Once seen as Trump’s potential running mate in 2024, Lake is now battling Democrat Ruben Gallego for the Arizona Senate seat soon to be vacated by Kyrsten Sinema. The RealClearPolitics polling average suggests he could be on the verge of another loss. Trump, meanwhile, appears poised to reclaim the state at the top of the ticket. While no outcome is guaranteed, on Tuesday, in a border state wracked by division and extremism, both Democrats and a Republican could emerge victorious.

Such a result would come as a shock to many. It may especially bother conspiracy theorists and those who have spent years questioning the validity of America’s electoral systems. People, in other words, like Kari Lake.

Read: In Kari Lake, Trumpism has found its leading lady

That morning, she took questions from the other three reporters, but she looked at me and said, “I’m not talking to your station.” So instead, I approached one of her surrogates, Richard Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and later as acting director of national intelligence. Grenell, too, had antagonized himself Atlantic near the Lake a few minutes before. (Just like Trump did in a recent rallyGrenell claimed without evidence that our editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, “made up a lot of stuff”). But now, in a quieter setting on the side of the stage, he was willing to talk to me.

I informed Grenell that I planned to ask Lake a simple question: Will she commit to accepting the results of next week’s election? He scoffed at the premise.

“It’s a stupid question to say, ‘Do you accept the election results?'” Grenell told me. He said that “of course” she would accept the result if there were free and fair elections. “Let me ask you this question,” he said. “Do you think there is no fraud in elections? Zero fraud?”

Lake saw me talking to Grenell, and as she walked back to the bus, she and I made eye contact. The crowd was smaller now, and Lake spoke in a slightly lowered register. Professional wrestlers have a term to describe the performative antagonism of an opponent: kayfabe. Based on what I’d seen of Lake up to that point, though, I didn’t think she would ever she slipped out of her combative persona when dealing with the media. As we chatted briefly, one on one, Lake wasn’t exactly friendly, but she was at least willing to let me finish a sentence. I asked her if she accepts the election results.

“A legally organized election? Yes, absolutely,” she said. “One hundred percent.”

But how do you define that?

Suddenly, her switch went off. With a bright smile and sarcasm in his voice, Lake said, “I will accept the election results, absolutely!” Then he quickly got back on the bus.

George Packer: What Will Happen to American Civilization?

ITthat afternoon I drove to a mall in Maryvale, a predominantly Latino neighborhood in metro Phoenix, to meet Gallego, Lake’s challenger. Between a barber shop and a check cashing place, Arizona Democrats had set up a bustling field office. Inside the room, papel picado banners Hanging from the ceiling, the walls were plastered with posters—Latinos Con Harriz Walz, Democratas Protegen El Aborto—and, on the far side of the room, someone had handwritten a bunch of motivational quotes (“If you have the opportunity to make things better and don’t then you are wasting your time on Earth.” – Roberto Clemente). When I returned, I saw Gallego talking to the volunteers that day. He was dressed casually in short sleeves and jeans, and was not surrounded by a large entourage like Lake had been. He and I found a quiet corner and asked him the same question I had asked Lake: would he commit to accepting the election results? He didn’t hesitate.

“I have confidence in Arizona’s election system. I trust the Republicans and Democrats who have run the state, and I will trust the results of the election, win or lose,” Gallego said.

Right now, the 44-year-old is in a rare position: He knows he has a shot at winning against Lake-fearing Republicans. He is a Democrat, but as a former Marine who has spoken out about culture-war issues such as against use Latinxhe can also appeal to some centrists and independents. Above all, he is positioned to appeal to some of the region’s most sought-after persuasive voters: Latinos. Sometimes he tells a story about how he grew up sleeping on the floor and didn’t have a bed until he got to college. On the stump, he often delivers remarks in both Spanish and English.

What is Gallego? not what he is doing is running a straight campaign along the Democratic Party lines. When I asked him what he thought of Joe Biden’s comments that Trump supporters were “trash,” he didn’t rush to unequivocally defend the president. “Anyway, we shouldn’t be condemning people for the way they vote,” he said. I also asked him if he anticipated civil unrest next week, given the chaos that had unfolded in Arizona in the previous election. “I really have faith in the voters of Arizona — Democrats, Republicans and independents — to go to the polls and keep the situation civil,” Gallego said. “I hope the politicians keep the situation civil and don’t try to bring election denial into it like Kari Lake did. That’s it where the danger occurred.”

Gallego had stopped by that office to encourage volunteers for a canvassing operation. He was joined by Sen. Mark Kelly and his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords. That afternoon, I asked Kelly what kind of challenges he and his fellow Arizona Democrats anticipate after Election Day, and whether he thinks Lake (and Trump, for that matter) will accept the election’s outcome. “They should,” Kelly said cautiously. “I mean, though, I don’t expect their behavior to be much different than the 2020 and 2022 elections. I mean, I don’t have wait that. But you know, you can always dream that maybe they learned a lesson,” he said. “Kari Lake definitely should have learned her lesson.”