Democrat Ruben Gallego leans into border security in Arizona Senate race
Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego has been leaning into border security in his Senate campaign, a rarity for his party as Republicans have played offense on the issue.
PHOENIX — TV advertising showing candidates touring the U.S.-Mexico border has become a staple of Republican political campaigns around the country. But this summer, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego got in on the action as his party tries to win voters’ trust in his battleground Arizona Senate race — and beyond.
“Ruben Gallego has stood side by side with me, the only member of Congress that has come regularly to my border,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway says in the ad. “He is fighting for solutions. Better technology. More manpower.”
It’s far from the only border security ad on Arizona’s airwaves. Gallego’s competitor, GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, has been bashing him on the border, with one ad tying Gallego to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ border policies and featuring a 2017 clip of Gallego on the House floor referring to Donald “Trump’s stupid, dumb, border wall.”
The back-and-forth on the issue reflects the central role the border is playing in many voters’ calculations this year, as well as Democrats’ realization that voters did not see their rhetoric or policies as up to the task of handling a growing number of migrants in recent years. Gallego’s early efforts to prove himself to voters on border policy are now reflected in other Democratic campaigns. Harris made a border security spot one of the first TV ads she launched after she took over as the Democrats’ presidential candidate, after the issue did not feature prominently in more than a year of Biden’s broadcast TV advertising captured by AdImpact.
The issue also illustrates Gallego’s efforts to redefine himself — and his opponent’s efforts to highlight his progressive past — as he tries to move from a deep-blue House district to statewide office in one of the country’s most tightly divided battlegrounds.
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