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AZ-Sen: Rep. Gallego (D), "Some Democratic Senators have been encouraging me to run against Sinema" [1]

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Date: 2022-12-14

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D. AZ-07)

Here’s the latest news today out of Arizona:

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona told CBS News on Wednesday that some Democratic senators are privately urging him to run against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who announced last week that she would leave the Democratic Party and become an independent. "There have been some senators that have encouraged me to run," Gallego said in an interview. "There are some senators, some of Sen. Sinema's colleagues, that are encouraging me to run." Gallego did not identify the senators who have prodded him to jump into the Senate race, but he believes those senators would "absolutely" support him if he decides to launch a Senate bid next year. Gallego added that the private encouragement, while welcome, would not be a "decision factor" in whether he challenges Sinema. His decision, he said, would be driven by conversations with family members and with Arizona voters in the coming weeks. Still, Gallego's claim of private encouragement from some Democratic senators comes as most of them are publicly tight-lipped about how they will handle Sinema's next Senate campaign, should she decide to seek reelection in 2024 and chooses to run as an independent.

I’m going to take a wild guess that he’s one of the Senators pushing Gallego to run:

The popular progressive US senator Bernie Sanders would consider supporting any Democrat who might mount a challenge against his chamber colleague Kyrsten Sinema after she recently left the party and declared herself an independent like him, arguing that she has “helped sabotage” some of Congress’s most important legislation. Sanders’s comments on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union added to the chorus of detractors against the Arizona lawmaker who has undermined the agenda of the Joe Biden White House and other progressives, including by voting down raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and reforming the Senate filibuster so that voting rights legislation can pass. The independent from Vermont who votes in line with Democratic interests told the show host, Dana Bash, that the leftwing party’s members in Arizona were “not all that enthusiastic about somebody who helped sabotage some of the most important legislation that protects the interests of working families and voting rights and so forth”. And, Sanders added, if Arizona Democrats eventually ran someone to challenge the newly-declared independent, “I will take a hard look at” supporting that candidate, though some are concerned that hopeful could unwittingly give Republicans an opening. “I support progressive candidates all over this country – people who have the guts to take on special interests,” said Sanders, adding that he wasn’t interested in speaking much more on Sinema. “I don’t know what’s going to be happening in Arizona – we will see who they nominate.”

And you know who else would probably back Gallego? Sinema's own supporters:

When Kyrsten Sinema campaigned for the Senate as “an independent voice for Arizona,” her volunteers didn’t take that literally. Perhaps they heard what they wanted to hear. Ana Doan, a retired teacher, thought Sinema would bring fresh energy to Washington as Arizona’s first openly LGBTQ senator. Devina Alvarado, a young Costco forklift driver, thought Sinema would defend women’s rights from Donald Trump. Michael (identified by his middle name to avoid retaliation) admired that Sinema had made it out of poverty after experiencing homelessness as a child, as he did. Each from a different corner of Arizona, they were all proud to have volunteered to get Sinema elected, proud of the doors they’d knocked and calls they’d made, proud to have had her glossy purple-and-yellow literature scattered in their home or on the floor of their car. But their pride had curdled long before Sinema announced she was leaving the Democratic Party last Friday. So far, both the White House and Sinema’s Senate colleagues have been conciliatory, praising her legislative skill and acting as if little will change following her switch. (Sinema will still caucus with the Democrats.) Although her influence will diminish in a forthcoming 51–49 chamber, Democrats can ill afford to make Sinema a pariah. When reached for comment about the switch, Sinema’s press secretary told me in an email, “Kyrsten’s approach remains the same from when she first ran for Senate,” and directed me to a sleek video Sinema released on Friday: “I’m gonna be the same person I’ve always been,” the senator said. But many of her most dedicated supporters don’t see things that way. I spoke with dozens of Sinema’s former volunteers from across Arizona, some of whom I managed in 2018 as a field organizer for the Arizona Democratic Party. What they’ve described to me is a feeling more raw and pained than mere disagreement over policies. Arizona Democrats are used to that; many have Republicans and independents in their family. They’re used to talking through differences. What they cannot forgive is the feeling that Sinema was not straight with them. Doan, the teacher, had worked on a lot of campaigns in the border town of Nogales. She had just retired when Sinema announced her run, and she threw herself into the Senate race. Sinema was smart, well-spoken, a member of the LGBTQ community, and a fundraising powerhouse. In previous elections, Doan had begged the state party to do more phone banking in Spanish, and she didn’t like that phone bankers rushed older Latino voters who had questions about important issues. Things were different on Sinema’s campaign. Doan could have phone-bank lists brought to the houses of other volunteers, so they could make calls from the comfort of their own home. She was thrilled when Sinema won, but her excitement was short-lived. Sinema, in her view, started spending too much time with the Big Business people who had funded her campaign and not enough time among the working-class folks who’d made phone calls for her. Doan told me it hurt to watch her senator block positive initiatives that other Democrats wanted to pass. “She made an idiot out of me, and I made an idiot out of all the people I spoke to,” Doan said. She said she wished Sinema had run as an independent in 2018, so people knew who she really was. Alvarado, the forklift driver, had never volunteered on a political campaign before. She canvassed for Sinema a few days a week after finishing work and on the weekends too, always wearing her pink Planned Parenthood shirt. Alvarado couldn't believe it when Sinema said she thought protecting the filibuster was essential to protecting women’s rights. When Sinema comes up in conversation these days, Alvarado’s fiancé teases her. “He knows I’m super salty that I volunteered for her,” she told me. “I for sure look forward to canvassing for her opponent.” Michael considered Sinema to be a personal hero when he started volunteering on her campaign in Phoenix. A few years before, he’d been homeless, just as she had been. But Michael felt betrayed in March of 2021, when Sinema voted against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. “Hunger changes people,” he wrote to me in an email. “It made me want to make no one feel that way. I’m guessing it made her protective of what she has.”

We should have a decision from Gallego soon but he sure is sounding like he’s gearing up for a run. Click here if you want to donate to Gallego’s potential bid.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/14/2141941/-AZ-Sen-Rep-Gallego-D-Some-Democratic-Senators-have-been-encouraging-me-to-run-against-Sinema

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