About 42,000 fewer votes were cast in the Senate race than in the presidential race. Lake, whose entire campaign was an insult to everyone's intelligence (the "cartel" business you raise is just one example of this, since Gallego grew up without his father), received about 94,000 fewer votes than Trump. So at most, 52,000 people, or 1.5 percent of the voters, would have had to cross over to get this outcome. And it might have been significantly less than that, since surely some number of Dems skipped over Harris or voted Green or for Chase Oliver, embarrassed at what a rotten candidate Kamala was, but voted Democrat down-ballot. And then yes, probably some number of Hispanic voters especially decided to give Trump a chance but voted for Gallego. Hell, if a few thousand Marines voted for their fellow Marine that might have been enough.
Meanwhile Lake was extremely unpopular, trailed in almost every poll throughout the election, and was considered likely to lose before the race even began.
Republicans chose a poor candidate and lost a winnable race. We don't need a conspiracy theory to explain that.
Please stop the election conspiracy theories. This "they'll cheat" crap is nothing but a psy-op by Dems to demoralize you and stop you from voting, 100%. Stop spreading leftist propaganda on FR. Newer FR posters who do this should be viewed with suspicion as potential Democratic party plants.
Donning the asbestos underwear, it's well worth it in this case.
Senate races shouldn’t be popularity contests.