Democrat Ruben Gallego faces Republican Kari Lake in the US Senate race in Arizona

On By Littum

PHOENIX (AP) — Democratic Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallegoa veteran of the Iraq War, faces well-known former TV news anchor and steadfast Donald Trump ally Kari Lake in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate election in a state with a recent history of extremely close elections.

The race is one of a handful that will decide Senate majority. It is a test of the strength of the anti-Trump coalition that has fueled the rise of Democrats in Arizona, which was reliably Republican until 2016. Arizona voters have rejected Trump and his preferred candidates in every state election since then.

Arizona is one of seven battleground states expected to decide the presidency.

Gallego led Lake in early returns, which included mail-in ballots received and counted before Election Day and about half of the total expected votes.

The winner of the Senate race replaces Kyrsten Sinema, if 2018 victory as a Democrat created a formula that the party has successfully repeated ever since.

Cinema left the Democratic Party two years ago, after she opposed the left wing of the party. She considered running for a second period as an independent but bowed down when it became clear, she had no clear path to victory.

Gallego maintained a significant fundraising lead throughout the race. He relentlessly attacked Lake’s support of a Civil War-era state law that banned abortions under almost all circumstances. Lake moved to the center of the issue and infuriated some of her allies on the right by opposing a federal abortion ban.

Gallego portrayed Lake as a liar who will do and say anything to gain power.

He played down his progressive voting record in Congress, leaning on his up-by-the-bootstraps personal history and his military service to build an image as a pragmatic moderate.

The son of immigrants from Mexico and Colombia, Gallego was raised in Chicago by a single mother and was eventually accepted to Harvard University. He joined the US Marine Corps Reserve and fought in Iraq in 2005 in a unit that suffered heavy casualties, including the death of his best friend.

If elected, he would be the first Hispanic senator from Arizona.

Lake became one star of the populist right wing with his 2022 campaign for Arizona governor.

She has never acknowledged lose the race and called herself the “legitimate governor” in her 2023 book. She continued her unsuccessful battle in court to overturn it even after launching her Senate campaign and as recently as last week refused to concede defeat in a contentious CNN -interview.

But while visiting a polling station on Tuesday, she told reporters: “I will accept the result of the election” this year.

Her dogmatic commitment to the falsehood that consecutive elections were stolen from Trump and from her endeared her to the former president, who considered her his running mate. But it has exacerbated her battles with the moderate Republicans she alienated during her 2022 campaign when she despised the late senator. John McCain and then-Gov. Doug Ducey.

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She tried to moderate, but struggled to keep a consistent message on difficult issues, including election fraud and abortion.

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Lake instead focused on border security, a potent issue for Republicans in a state that borders Mexico and so record numbers illegal crossings under democratic president Joe Biden’s administration. She promised a tough crackdown on illegal immigration and labeled Gallego an “open borders” supporter. She also went after his personal life, pointing to his divorce from Kate Gallego shortly before she gave birth. His ex-wife, now the mayor of Phoenix, approved Gallego and has campaigned with him.

Lake spent the final weeks of the campaign trying to win over voters who back Trump, but was not sold on her.

Close to 4 in 10 Arizona voters said the economy and jobs are the biggest issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCasta thorough survey of more than 110,000 voters nationally, including more than 4,000 voters in Arizona. About a quarter of Arizona voters said immigration is the most pressing issue, and about 1 in 10 cited abortion.

About half of Arizona voters viewed Lake negatively, including about 4 in 10 who said they had a very unfavorable view of her, according to AP VoteCast. About 4 out of 10 voters viewed her favorably.

About half of voters had a favorable view of Gallego, and about 4 in 10 said they had a negative view of him.

Meanwhile, Arizona has two of those nearest race for the US House, where the Republicans David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomania seeking re-election in districts that voted for Biden in 2020.

Schweikert, now in his seventh House term, faces a challenge from former Democratic state lawmaker Amish Shah in Arizona’s 1st District, which includes northern Phoenix, Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and Paradise Valley.

While Republicans have a voter registration advantage in the affluent district, it’s trending toward the center as college-educated suburban voters have turned away from Trump, reluctantly voted for Democrats or left their ballots blank. Redistricting ahead of the 2022 midterms accelerated the trend.

Schweikert won re-election by just 3,200 votes in 2022 against a relatively unknown challenger who received minimal support from national Democrats. Shah, an emergency room physician, emerged as the primary winner among a field of six Democrats.

In the 6th District, Ciscomani is seeking a second term in a rematch against Democrat Kirsten Engel, whom he defeated by 1.5 percentage points in 2022. The district, which includes a stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border, runs from Tucson east to the New York Mexico state line .

Ciscomani, a former Ducey aide who immigrated from Mexico as a child, calls border enforcement his top priority but has distanced himself from Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Engel, a University of Arizona law professor and former state lawmaker, has pointed out that Ciscomani in February rejected a major bipartisan border bill that would have overhauled the asylum system and given the president new powers to deport migrants when asylum applications become overwhelming.

Of Arizona’s nine representatives in Congress, six are Republicans and three are Democrats.