The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: ruben gallego
Kari Lake

In Arizona Senate Race, Kari Lake Is A Big GOP Problem

Senate Republicans already have an Arizona problem they are trying to fix.

Their top GOP candidate, 2022 gubernatorial loser Kari Lake, isn't polling well against the top Democratic candidate, Rep. Ruben Gallego, and independent incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. In fact, one recent survey found Sinema, who is polling third in the contest, pulling more votes away from Lake than Gallego.

Noble Predictive Insights’ late October polling of the hypothetical three-way contest showed Gallego at 39 percent, Lake at 33 percent, and Sinema at 29 percent. Notably, Gallego inspired far more party loyalty than Lake, with Sinema drawing support from nearly twice as many Republican voters (23 percent) as Democrats (12 percent).

In early October, a Public Policy Polling survey commissioned by the Gallego campaign similarly showed him winning a 41 percent plurality of the vote to Lake's 36 percent, with Sinema garnering just 15 percent. The same poll found a head-to-head favoring Gallego at 48 percent over Lake at 43 percent.

What makes the polling particularly ominous for Republicans is the fact that Lake is extremely well known by voters across the state after her high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful bid for governor last cycle. In other words, most voters have made up their mind about her.

That leaves Republicans with one chief tactic at this point: trying to drive down support for the other two candidates. Thus, the National Republican Senatorial Committee's latest ad blasting Gallego's personal life and tying Sinema's voting record to President Joe Biden. The ad frames the choice facing voters as one between "Rotten Rubin," who "abandoned" his pregnant wife when he filed for divorce, and Sinema, who "voted for Biden's agenda 100% of the time." The ad accuses Gallego of being a "deadbeat dad" without providing any evidence and slams Sinema as a "liberal Democrat." Yikes, what could be worse?

But the main takeaway here is that Senate Republicans are already grasping at straws in order to prop up a Trump-aligned election denier who enters the race with high name ID and a boatload of baggage.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Kyrsten Sinema

Sinema's Campaign Funds 'Drying Up' As Democratic Donors Drop Her

Donors who gave to Senator Kyrsten Sinema's (I-AZ) 2018 US Senate campaign have largely left her for her Democratic opponent, according to federal campaign finance records.

As of the latest available Federal Election Commission data, Politicoreports that Sinema is finding little financial support in what's shaping up to be a close three-way race next November. Following her exit from the Democratic Party last December and Rep. Ruben Gallego's (D-AZ) campaign launch the following month, Sinema has had very little success maintaining enthusiasm among the financial backers who propelled her last campaign five years ago.

Sinema still has nearly $11 million in the bank from all of her combined fundraising, which is more than Gallego's total haul. However, according to Politico's breakdown of donor totals, Gallego has raised nearly three times as much as Sinema from the same group of 2018 Democratic donors the incumbent senator depended on when she first won the seat.

"Her fundraising is somewhat dried up," Arizona Republican operative Barrett Marson told Politico. "There isn’t an independent donor base as there is a Republican donor base and a Democratic donor base."

Rep. Gallego is also raking in donors who gave to Senator Mark Kelly's (D-AZ) 2022 campaign. When analyzing money from donors who gave at least $200 in the previous campaign cycle, Gallego has raised approximately $1.7 million from Kelly's backers. Sinema, by comparison, has only brought in roughly $205,000. Politico also found that Sinema's "burn rate" — the amount of money spent on a campaign versus the amount raised — is significant for an off year, with the embattled Arizona senator spending nearly half of her 2023 haul despite her not yet officially declaring for reelection.

Should Sinema declare her intent to run for another term in 2024, she would likely be pitted against both Gallego and Republican former TV news anchor Kari Lake — who ran a failed campaign for governor in 2022 on a far-right platform and who has still not conceded her loss. An internal Republican poll released last week found Gallego with a narrow lead of less than two percentage points in a three-way race, but slightly behind Lake in a two-way race without Sinema running a campaign of her own.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Ruben Gallego

Polls: Gallego Beats Sinema And Republicans In Arizona Senate Race

Two newly released polls show Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego leading the field in a three-way Senate contest in Arizona, a critical race that could determine which party controls the chamber after the 2024 election.

Some commentators had predicted that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) would be a spoiler for the Democratic Party by splitting the Democratic vote with Gallego and allowing a Republican to pick up the seat in November 2024. But the new polls show Sinema pulling more votes from Republican voters than from Democrats.

Sinema left the Democratic Party in December to become an independent. She has not yet announced whether she will seek reelection.

Emerson College released a poll on Tuesday that found Gallego leading both Sinema and the two Republican candidates who have announced bids in the race.

In the first scenario, Gallego leads the polls with 36 percent of the vote, with Republican Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in second at 29 percent and Sinema in third with 21 percent. In the second scenario, Gallego would get 37 percent, Sinema would pull 26 percent, and Republican Brian Wright would receive 25 percent of the vote.

“It appears Sen. Sinema pulls more support from Republican voters than Democrats on the ballot,” Spencer Kimball, the executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.

“About 21 percent of Republicans would vote for Sinema with Lamb on the ballot, and 34 percent of Republicans would support Sinema with Wright on the ballot,” Kimball added. “By contrast, Sinema only pulls about eight percent of Democratic support from Gallego.”

The Emerson results are similar to those of an August 3 poll from Noble Predictive Insights.

In a three-way race among Gallego, Sinema, and Lamb, NPI found Gallego leading with 33 percent, followed by Lamb at 25 percent and Sinema at 24 percent.

NPI also polled a potential three-way race between Gallego, Sinema, and Blake Masters, the failed Republican Senate candidate who lost to Democrat Mark Kelly in 2022 and is mulling whether to run again in 2024. The poll found Gallego in the lead with 32%, followed by Sinema at 28 percent and Masters at 24 percent.

“Sinema’s third-party run does not guarantee a GOP victory in Arizona’s Senate race,” Mike Noble, the founder and chief of research at NPI, said in a statement. “And what is even more interesting is that there appears to be a path to victory for Sinema in a three-way showdown. Buckle up and grab your popcorn because the Senate contest in Arizona is going to be one to watch.”

Arizona is a key race in the battle for control of the Senate. If Republicans net one seat and win the White House, they will regain control of the chamber. If Republicans lose the White House, they would need to net two seats for control.

President Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 by just 0.3 percent. Democrat Katie Hobbs beat Republican nominee Kari Lake in the gubernatorial election by 0.7 percent in 2022.

Inside Elections, the nonpartisan political handicapping outlet, rates the Arizona Senate race a toss-up.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Democratic Rep. Gallego Moves Toward Challenging Sinema In 2024

Democratic Rep. Gallego Moves Toward Challenging Sinema In 2024

Rep. Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, has long been rumored to be thinking of challenging Sen. Krysten Sinema, who last week stunned Democrats by changing her affiliation to independent.

As some have noted, Sinema’s unpopularity appears to have forced her hand with her party switch, knowing she could not survive a head-on primary challenge from a more popular Democrat. Conventional wisdom currently says in a battle between the popular Democratic lawmaker, Gallego, and the unpopular newly-independent Sinema, a Republican could win the seat if Democratic voters are split between two candidates.

Nevertheless, Gallego has reportedly taken another step toward challenging the incumbent in the 2024 election.

“Gallego has signed up the Democratic polling firm GBAO Strategies for a ‘leadership role’ for a potential Senate bid,” Politico reports. “GBAO Strategies is fresh off a slate of victories in the general election, after working for Democratic Pennsylvania Sen.-elect John Fetterman and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock.”

The Democratic Congressman got the question Monday morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“I’m going to listen to my family over the holidays — I have a big Latino family that’s going to come in over Christmas, it’s going to be a very, very crowded house — but then after that, we’ll be making a decision. And we’ll be making a decision based on what’s best for Arizona and based on what I hear from the actual constituents of Arizona,” he said.

He also told MSNBC, “Kyrsten has decided to move to an Independent— that’s not the end of the world. What really is the end of the world is she really doesn’t match Arizona values anymore. And I’m going to go back and listen to the constituents of Arizona.”

Also on MSNBC Monday Gallego slammed House Republicans

“The crazy train has pulled in, the circus has put up the tent, and now the clowns are running around inside,” he said of his GOP colleagues.

And last week he slammed Sen. Sinema for leaving the Democratic Party.

“Last month, the voters of Arizona made their voices heard loud and clear – they want leaders who put the people of Arizona first,” he said in a statement. “We need Senators who will put Arizonans ahead of big drug companies and Wall Street bankers. Whether in the Marine Corps or in Congress, I have never backed down from fighting for Arizonans. And at a time when our nation needs leadership most, Arizona deserves a voice that won’t back down in the face of struggle. Unfortunately, Senator Sinema is once again putting her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans.”

Gallego is a former Marine who served in the Iraq War.

First elected in 2010, Gallego has beat a Republican challenger every election, retaining his seat last month with 77% of the vote.

On Friday The New Republicobserved, “At this point, it seems not a matter of if, but when Ruben Gallego announces his run for Kyrsten Sinema’s seat.”

Meanwhile, Republican turned Democratic strategist Kurt Bardella says he doesn’t even think Sinema will run for re-election, which could make Gallego’s attempt to win the seat even easier.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.