PHOENIX — A television ad showing candidates walking the U.S.-Mexico border has become a staple of Republican political campaigns across the country. But this summer, Democratic-Republican Ruben Gallego’s party is on the move as it tries to win back the trust of voters in the Arizona Senate battleground and beyond.
“Ruben Gallego stood by me as the only member of Congress who regularly visits my border,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway says the ad. “He fights for solutions. Better technology. More manpower.”
This is far from the only border security ad on the Arizona airwaves. Gallego’s opponent, GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, was beating him by the margin. an announcement tying Gallego to the border policies of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and introducing 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 acknowledges the central role the border plays in the calculus of many voters this year, as well as the fact that Democrats don’t see voters’ rhetoric or policies as up to the task of coping with the growing numbers. the number of migrants in recent years. Gallego’s early efforts to prove himself to voters in border politics are now echoed in other Democratic campaigns. Harris did border security post One of the first TV ads he launched after being accepted as the Democratic presidential nominee, Biden’s aired TV ad was captured by AdImpact, after the issue had been out of the spotlight for more than a year.
The issue also shows Gallego trying to redefine itself — and his opponent’s efforts to emphasize his progressive background — as he tries to move from a deep-blue House district to state office in one of the nation’s most tightly divided battlegrounds.
At NBC News, Gallego struck a different tone, if not an entirely different angle he asked Seven years after the comments Lake highlighted in his ad, if he still believes Trump’s border wall initiative is “stupid” and “dumb.”
“I think we need border walls in certain areas,” Gallego said. “Building border walls in areas where you don’t need them not only costs more money, but it costs more manpower,” Gallego added, arguing that a full-fledged southern border wall would be an extreme waste of taxpayer money.
Throughout the campaign, Gallego received several endorsements from border city mayors and local leaders, such as Nogales’ Democratic Mayor Jorge Maldonado.
His proposed solutions include increased funding for border patrol, border technology and more border agents, while advocating for “smart, comprehensive immigration reform that will take care of our Dreamers” — shorthand for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as minors and themselves. they see an American.
“This is where Arizonans are. They want border security, but they also want to fix our broken immigration system,” Gallego claimed in an interview with NBC News.
There is border security has long been a key issue for Trump and the GOP and weakness for Biden and his party. It’s not yet clear how voters view Harris on this issue: A new citizen Marquette University Law School survey A poll conducted shortly after Biden’s release found that 52% of voters thought Trump would be better on immigration and the border, compared to only 39% who said Harris would. Moment NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey a week later, it showed 53% of registered voters trusting Trump more on immigration, compared to 47% for Harris.
Harris has faced Republican attack ads on immigration that have been tied to record numbers of undocumented migrants entering the country during the Biden administration. Harris at recent stops in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia he emphasized his experience with border issues While serving as California’s attorney general, his allies downplayed his responsibility to solve the problem the main reasons for migration as vice president.
Republican attacks on the border also backfired in Arizona, where Lake told supporters on the first night that Gallego “voted for the illegals who poured him into this country during the Biden invasion, not only wanted asylum, but wanted them to be able to. He’s going to vote in the next election.”
The Lake campaign said the statement about the Arizona primary night was a sign that Gallego was voting against it Protect the American Voter Eligibility ActLegislation passing the House of Representatives targeting noncitizens to vote. When Democrats opposed the bill, they pointed out that noncitizen voting was already illegal and extremely rare. Gallego voted against the bill along with most House Democrats.
In 2023, Gallego voted against a bill that would have prevented non-citizens from voting in local elections in Washington. The states and I will oppose any effort to undermine this right in Arizona and at the federal level. But not Washington, Arizona.
Fifteen months later, Gallego joined 51 other Democrats and every House Republican on a similar bill to ban noncitizens from voting in DC elections. The lake immediately attacked. “Ruben thinks a few ‘moderate’ voices will sweep away a decade of radicalism,” he said. Posted in X after the vote.
In an interview with NBC News, Gallego argued that they were “two separate bills” and used language that many Democrats have shied away from discussing the issue: “I don’t believe illegal immigrants should have the right to vote. It was very clear and that’s why I voted for him.”
How Gallego’s roots inform his campaign
Gallego’s interweaving of his border security and immigration stance is his own identity. The son of a Colombian father and a Mexican mother, Gallego’s heritage has always informed his political philosophy. On July 29, during the launch of his campaign’s Latino coalition, Gallego became emotional.
“In the darkest times when things were rough, I always believed this was the best country in the world,” Gallego said, surrounded by dozens of Latino lawmakers and local leaders.
The statements did not mention border security or creating a path to citizenship, typical talking points Gallego on the trail. Instead, Gallego reflected on his political journey. “I believed in my little Latino heart that if I worked hard, kept my nose clean, studied, I would be successful and actually live the American dream,” Gallego said. “We Latinos can live the American dream, but we have to have someone who will really fight for us to really believe.”
If elected, Gallego would be the first Latino senator from a state with more than 30% Latino population, according to the US Census Bureau.
In an interview after the launch of the Latino coalition, Gallego told NBC News that he’s not surprised it hasn’t reached that stage yet.
“A lot of young men and women, you know, weren’t as lucky as I was,” said Gallego, who was raised by a single mother in suburban Chicago and won a Harvard scholarship before joining the Marines. deployed to Iraq.
“It’s hard to have a family, it’s hard to do a lot of things, so it doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “I’ll do my best to make sure I help pass the torch when I’m done.”
CORRECTION (August 13, 2024, 10:38 p.m.): An earlier version of this article incorrectly cited Kari Lake’s keynote speech as Gallego’s request that undocumented immigrants “be able to vote in the next election” on the bill. Noncitizen Voting in Washington, D.C. Lake’s campaign says the statement is a reference to the SAVE Act, which is about noncitizen voting nationwide.