When Rep. Ruben Gallego campaigned for Arizona’s crucial Senate seat last week, he did something that might seem unusual to those who know him as a fierce liberal fighter: He struck a moderate tone.
Speaking to retirees in Goodyear, a politically divided Phoenix suburb, Gallego, a Democrat, addressed the surge of migrants at the border, suggested the asylum system was being “abused” and called for more support for Border Patrol agents to help them could do this “Really focus on these bad guys.”
It was a departure from the Ruben Gallego of previous years, when he called former President Donald J. Trump’s border wall plans “stupid” and accused him of “scapegoating immigrants.” The new message — reflecting in part a deepening crisis under a very different president — represented a tacit acknowledgment that winning over Arizona voters may require a move back to the center.
A careful shift toward the political center is a time-honored tradition for candidates from both parties. But Mr. Gallego, who represents a liberal district in Phoenix and has long identified as a progressive, could face a greater challenge than most in redefining himself in a battleground state with a decades-old conservative bias — even after a major one Court This week’s abortion decision put Democrats in the state clearly on the offensive.
“In this era of bipartisanship — and national money will be pouring into Arizona in this Senate race — people are going to be throwing around stereotypes like crazy,” said Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who served two terms as the state’s governor in the 2000s .
Ms. Napolitano, noting that Mr. Gallego’s status as a Marine Corps veteran could help him, said that to win nationally as a Democrat, he would have to show that “you’re there to solve problems and you’re there, to help. “Work hard and you will be there to represent all Arizonans.”
However, Mr. Gallego has several key advantages in Arizona.
A state Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday that said an 1864 law banning almost all abortions could be reinstated accelerated Democrats’ attempts to make abortion a central focus of the November election. That decision, coupled with the likelihood that a ballot measure protecting abortion access will be on the ballot in Arizona, gave Democrats hope for increased liberal turnout.
Mr. Gallego is also poised to run against a Republican who is making even more of an effort to broaden her appeal: Kari Lake, the former television host and Trump ally whose disunity and election lies contributed to her narrow defeat in the 2022 governor’s race .
And Arizona has shifted blue in recent years, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. flipped the state in 2020 and a number of Democrats won statewide elections: Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, and Gov. Katie Hobbs, who defeated Ms. Lake .
But those candidates had spent more time crafting cautiously moderate, pragmatic images, while Mr. Gallego has built a reputation as an outspoken liberal who aligns politically with young progressives and angers his opponents with profane social media posts.
Mr. Gallego’s success may depend on his ability to present a new side of himself to Arizonans. While Ms. Lake is widely known, Mr. Gallego is less known in the state, giving him a chance to present himself as a no-nonsense veteran focused on local priorities like prescription drug prices and health care while highlighting her history as a politician and election denier.
Mr. Gallego said he was up to the challenge of appealing to voters of all political persuasions and that he was reaching out to Republicans and visiting redder parts of Arizona.
“When it comes to being a Democrat, we haven’t gone to the easiest areas of the state, but we will continue to do so,” he said in an interview last week. “I don’t see this as a step towards the middle. We are here to talk to voters and we must earn their support.”
At the same time, Ms. Lake and her allies are highlighting some of Mr. Gallego’s past votes and positions that they say are out of step with Arizonans, such as his co-sponsorship of a bill that would have established a “Medicare for All” universal health care program; his enthusiasm for ending the filibuster in the Senate; his proposal to take military spending “to the scalpel”; and his criticism of Mr. Trump’s border wall proposal.
“Ruben Gallego is a far-left progressive who has accomplished nothing for Arizona in his 10 years in Congress,” Alex Nicoll, a spokesman for Ms. Lake, said in a statement, noting that Mr. Gallego voted with Mr. Biden 100 percent currently.
Mr Gallego has tried to parry this criticism. His campaign noted that over the years he had voted for tens of billions of dollars in appropriations bills that funded national security projects and the hiring of border patrol agents, and that he supported the bipartisan bill that would have tightened restrictions at the border, but was rejected by the Republicans that year.
His spokeswoman, Hannah Goss, said Mr. Gallego had “always put Arizonans first” and attacked Ms. Lake’s record on abortion, saying she would “do or say anything to gain power.”
Mr. Gallego also ended his membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus last year, a move first reported by Politico. He said last week that he left the caucus because of increased dues costs and did not directly answer a question about whether he still considers himself a progressive.
“These terms are kind of DC terms. I consider myself someone who worked very hard for Arizona,” he said. As for Republicans’ criticism of his record, he urged them to “bring it forward.”
Mr. Gallego, who is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination, has maintained a narrow lead in most polls over Ms. Lake, who made unfounded claims of voter fraud in 2020 a key part of her 2022 gubernatorial campaign and subsequently filed lawsuits to try to stop it prevent overturning their own defeat after they had lost. Ms. Lake has a large lead over her main Republican challenger, Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff, ahead of the July 30 primary. Although she has a core of ardent supporters, she is struggling to win the support of more moderate Republicans.
Mr. Gallego has a financial advantage, having raised more than Ms. Lake at the end of last year and collecting $7.5 million in campaign contributions in the first three months of this year; She has not yet revealed her total for the same period. He entered the race long before her and has maintained a busy campaign schedule. He promised to visit all 22 federally recognized Indian tribes in Arizona before the election.
One of those visits came last week when Mr. Gallego toured the Yavapai-Apache Nation reservation near Sedona. Courting the Native American voters who had helped turn Arizona blue, he squeezed through the mud and cottonwoods on the banks of the Verde River while debating the importance of tribal water rights with the head of the state’s tribal council .
Mr. Gallego, a 44-year-old of Colombian and Mexican descent, has a compelling personal story. He grew up poor in Chicago and worked at various jobs as a teenager while his single mother supported him and his three sisters on a secretary’s salary.
That helps him understand, he said, “what people are feeling right now, the frustration, the pain, the sense of betrayal.”
He attended Harvard, enlisted in the Marines and was deployed to Iraq, where his unit suffered heavy casualties. Dozens of Marines were killed, including his best friend, and Mr. Gallego speaks openly about suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after returning home. He served in the Arizona Legislature before being elected to Congress in 2014.
There are also aspects of his life that Republicans view as damaging. He and his first wife, Kate Gallego, divorced in 2016, just weeks before she gave birth to their child. A conservative news outlet is suing to disclose their divorce documents and Ms. Lake has accused him of “abandoning his wife and baby.”
Ms. Gallego, now mayor of Phoenix, has supported Mr. Gallego, who has since remarried and said his post-traumatic stress disorder contributed to their divorce. The couple are raising their child together and Mr Gallego said the divorce records showed “nothing at all”.
Both Mr. Gallego and Ms. Lake say they are aggressively courting Arizona’s sizable population of independent and moderate voters, some of whom felt without a political home when Ms. Sinema announced last month that she would not run for re-election. Ms. Sinema’s office did not respond to a question about whether she would support Mr. Gallego.
As Ms. Lake continues to denounce issues where Republicans have an advantage among voters, such as the border crisis, Mr. Gallego may find it difficult to gain traction among independents.
Jon Lindstrom, 77, a Democrat at the Goodyear event, said he supported Mr. Gallego. But the congressman must work to win the support of others, he suggested.
“I think when it comes to immigration he will face a challenge,” Mr. Lindstrom said.
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2024-04-10 20:39:14
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