Rep. Ruben Gallego is projected to win Arizona’s open Senate seat, defeating Republican Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched Senate races this cycle.
His win is a bright spot for Democrats, who lost Arizona in the presidential race and will not keep control of the Senate. The Associated Press called the race late Monday night.
“Gracias, Arizona!” Gallego posted on social media.
The two candidates ran against each other for outgoing independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat. They avoided a three-way race when Sinema, a former Democrat, decided not to run for reelection. Gallego and Lake were then left to calculate the best pathway to winning in a state with a large chunk of unaffiliated voters.
Gallego, the first Latino to be elected senator in Arizona, highlighted his military background and roots as the son of immigrants during the campaign. He enjoyed a steady polling advantage through the months leading to Election Day.
Gallego, who has been a congressman for a deep blue district since 2014, pursued a political rebrand this election. He distanced himself from his progressive record as he tried to appeal to a growing number of Republicans and independent voters in the state.
“He’s softened his tone on some things, and that’s made him a much more attractive candidate than Kari Lake,” Sam Almy, a Democratic strategist, told NOTUS.
Democrats have run a successful slate of Senate races in the state, first electing Sinema in 2018 (she later became an independent) and then Mark Kelly in a 2020 special election. Kelly was reelected in 2022.
They’ve found success when arguing that Republican candidates are too extreme. That includes the 2022 gubernatorial race, when Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, beat Lake, a former news anchor best known for supporting Trump. Lake still denies she lost.
“More Democrats are elected statewide, and the reason is that we have candidates like Ruben Gallego, and they have candidates like Kari Lake,” Democratic strategist Adam Kinsey told NOTUS. “We’re just able to get these wins because the Republicans continue to nominate people that are out of touch with mainstream values.”
This time around, Lake attempted to moderate herself, including on abortion, which was a major issue in the state. She distanced herself from a state Supreme Court ruling that upheld an abortion ban with origins dating back to before Arizona was a state. (The state legislature stepped in to repeal the law just weeks after the ruling.)
Though Lake tried to appeal to former Sen. John McCain’s supporters, she had previously alienated them, including by telling them to get “the hell out” of one of her events in 2022.
“She put the nails in her own coffin with what she said, [about the] McCain Republicans,” said Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based political strategist who is a former Republican. “She struggled to identify beyond highly MAGA based.”
Lake often reverted to some of her MAGA instincts, repeatedly hesitating to say she would accept the results of the election. She also downplayed the monthslong polling disadvantage she had against Gallego.
Even Republicans acknowledged that her campaign was in free fall. Though she had backing from national Republican brass, her campaign struggled in several ways, from polling to closing a fundraising gap.
—
Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Torrence Banks contributed reporting.