How Gallego’s race against Sinema could shape the future of the Democratic Party.
Ruben Gallego, the Democratic representative for Arizona’s 3rd congressional district, hasn’t been quiet about just how bad of a job he thinks Kyrsten Sinema has been doing as a senator from their state, even before she left the Democratic Party to become an independent in December. While he’s been coy about challenging Sinema in the past, today he made it clear: He wants her Senate seat and will be running for the Democratic Party’s nomination in 2024.
As Democrats head into the 2024 campaign cycle staring down improbable odds to hold their Senate majority, Gallego’s race will be a stand-in for bigger debates over just how progressive the Democratic Party should become. Gallego isn’t the typical progressive candidate, though, and he will have to define a new kind of political identity that doesn’t compromise his beliefs and can win a race in a historically Republican stronghold.
Gallego made his announcement through a video he shot in his home district in Phoenix in both English and Spanish. “You’re the first group of people that are hearing this besides my family. I will be challenging Kyrsten Sinema for the United States Senate, and I need all of your support,” he says in a clip while talking to fellow military veterans at an American Legion post in the predominantly Latino and Native American town of Guadalupe.
Gallego’s news isn’t exactly surprising. He was long considered the leading primary challenger Sinema would face if she decided to run for reelection as Democrat. He’s a rising star in the Democratic Party and the future of the party as a vocal young Latino politician from the Southwest, and he’s long behaved like a candidate aspiring for higher office, including in August, when I profiled him for Vox.
Since Sinema’s party switch, that posture intensified. He and his allies began to release internal polling showing what a three-way race between him, Sinema, and a Republican like failed gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake might look like, and began to build a team of strategists, pollsters, and consultants to help him build out a campaign operation.
