As Rep. Ruben Gallego campaigned for the vital Arizona Senate seat last week, he did something that might seem unusual to those who know him as a hard-line liberal fighter: He struck a moderate tone.
Speaking to retirees in Goodyear, a politically divided Phoenix suburb, Mr. Gallego, a Democrat, addressed the surge in immigration at the border, saying the asylum system “is being abused” and called for more support for Border Patrol agents so they can “Really focus on those bad guys.”
It was a shift from Ruben Gallego of years past, when he criticized the plans of former President Donald J. Trump called the border wall “stupid” and accused him of “scapegoating immigrants.” The new message — stemming in part from a deepening crisis under a very different president — represented a tacit acknowledgment that winning over Arizona voters may require a slide down the middle.
The subtle shift toward the political center is a time-honored tradition for candidates of both parties. But Mr. Gallego, who represents a liberal district in Phoenix and has a long history of being labeled a progressive, could face a tougher challenge than others in redefining himself in a battleground state with a decades-long conservative bent — even after a grand jury ruling on abortion this week put Democrats on edge in the state.
“In this age of hyperpartisanship — and there’s going to be national money flooding into Arizona in this Senate race — people are going to throw stereotypes around like crazy,” said Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who served two terms as the state’s governor in the 1990s. 2000. .
Ms. Napolitano, who noted that Mr. Gallego’s status as a Marine Corps veteran could help him, said that to win statewide as a Democrat, he had to prove that ”you’re there to solve problems and you’re there to work hard and you’re there to represent all Arizonans.”
However, Mr. Gallego has several key advantages in Arizona.
A ruling Tuesday by the state Supreme Court that said an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions could be reinstated bolstered Democrats’ efforts to put abortion at the center of the November election. That decision, combined with the possibility that a measure to protect abortion access will be on the ballot in Arizona, left Democrats hoping for a surge in liberal turnout.
Mr. Gallego is also poised to run against a Republican who is trying even harder to broaden her appeal: Kari Lake, the former TV host and Trump ally whose divisiveness and campaign lies helped her narrow defeat in the 2022 governor’s race.
And Arizona has turned blue in recent years, with Joseph R. Biden Jr. flipping the state in 2020 and a slew of Democrats winning statewide elections: Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema and Gov. Katie Hobbs, who won Ms. Lake.
Those candidates, however, had spent more time carefully crafting moderate, down-to-earth images, while Mr. Gallego has built a reputation as an outspoken liberal who is politically in tune with young progressives and blasts opponents with profane social media posts.
Mr. Gallego’s success could depend on his ability to present a new side of himself to the people of Arizona. While Ms. Lake is widely known, Mr. Gallego is less well-established in the state, giving him an opportunity to present himself as a no-nonsense veteran focused on local priorities such as prescription drug prices and health care, while highlights her history as an election denier.
Mr. Gallego said he was up for the challenge of reaching voters of all political persuasions, reaching out to Republicans and visiting redder parts of Arizona.
“We’ve been in the not-so-easy areas of the state when it comes to being a Democrat, but we’re going to keep doing it,” he said in an interview last week. “I don’t see it as a move in the middle. We are here to talk to the voters and we have to win their support.”
At the same time, Ms. Lake and her allies highlight some of Mr. Gallego’s past votes and positions that they say are out of step with Arizonans, such as co-sponsoring a bill that would have established universal health care “Medicare for all.” care plan; his enthusiasm for ending filibuster in the Senate. his proposal to “take a stab” at military spending. 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,” said Alex Nicoll, a spokesman for Ms. Lake, noting that Mr. Gallego voted with Mr. Biden. 100 percent of the time.
Mr. Gallego tried to counter these criticisms. His campaign noted that he had voted for tens of billions of dollars in appropriations bills over the years to fund national security projects and hire Border Patrol agents, and that he supported the bipartisan bill that would have tightened border restrictions but had come under pressure from Republicans. year.
Mr. Gallego also ended his membership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus last year, a move first reported by Politico. He said last week that he was leaving the common body because of the increased cost of fees and did not answer directly when asked if he still considered himself a progressive.
“These terms are kind of DC terms. I consider myself someone who works very hard for Arizona,” he said. As for Republican criticism of his record, he challenged them to “bring it on.”
Mr. Gallego, who is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination, has maintained a narrow lead in most polls over Ms. Lake, who has made unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in 2020 a key part of her 2022 campaign for governor , and then filed lawsuits seeking to overturn her own defeat after defeat. Ms Lake has a wide lead over her main Republican challenger, right-wing Sheriff Mark Lamb, ahead of the July 30 primary. While he has a core of staunch supporters, he is working to win the support of more moderate Republicans.
Mr. Gallego has a financial advantage, having outraised Ms. Lake late last year and counting $7.5 million in campaign contributions in the first three months of this year. has yet to announce its total for the same time period. He entered the race long before that and maintained a busy campaign schedule, promising to visit all 22 federally recognized Native American tribes in Arizona before the election.
One of those visits was last week when Mr. Gallego toured the Yavapai-Apache Nation reservation near Sedona. Shutting down the Native American voters who helped turn Arizona blue, she slogged through the mud and cottonwoods on the banks of the Verde River while discussing the importance of tribal water rights with the chairwoman of the country’s tribal council.
Mr. Gallego, a 44-year-old of Colombian and Mexican descent, has a fascinating personal story. Growing up poor in Chicago, he worked odd jobs as a teenager while his single mother supported him and his three sisters on a secretarial salary.
That helps him understand, he said, “what people are feeling right now, the frustration, the hurt, the feeling of betrayal.”
He attended Harvard, enlisted in the Marines and deployed to Iraq, where his unit suffered heavy casualties. Dozens of Marines were killed, including his best friend, and Mr. Gallego is open 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 find damaging. He and his first wife, Kate Gallego, split in 2016, weeks before she gave birth to their child. A conservative news outlet is suing to unseal their divorce records 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 PTSD contributed to their divorce. The couple share their child together and Mr Gallego said there was “nothing” that could come out of the divorce records.
Both Mr. Gallego and Ms. Lake say they are aggressively courting Arizona’s large populations of independent voters and moderates, some of whom felt left without a political home when Ms. Sinema announced last month that she would not seek re-election. . Ms. Sinema’s office did not respond to a question about whether she would support Mr. Gallego.
With Ms. Lake continuing to chip away at issues where Republicans have an edge among voters, such as the border crisis, Mr. Gallego could put his work to independents.
Jon Lindstrom, 77, a Democrat at the Goodyear event, said he supported Mr. Gallego. But the MP would have to work to win the support of others, he suggested.
“I think when it comes to immigration, it’s going to have a challenge,” Mr. Lindstrom said.
