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Rep. Ruben Gallego set to announce his candidacy on Monday for Kyrsten Sinema's Arizona Senate seat [1]
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Date: 2023-01-21
Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego is expected to announce Monday that he’s running in 2024 for the Arizona Senate set held by independent Kyrsten Sinema, according to multiple news media outlets.
Newsweek was the first to report on Gallego’s impending announcement of his candidacy:
Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine combat veteran who was critical of Senator Kyrsten Sinema's leadership and fidelity to the Democratic Party long before she announced she was leaving it to become an independent, will announce his 2024 Senate campaign to challenge her on Monday, Newsweek has learned first. Gallego, the chair of BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, plans to make the announcement via a video in English and Spanish that was shot in his home district, which includes parts of Phoenix, according to three sources briefed by the campaign. … After his announcement, Gallego is set to begin a media blitz before returning to Arizona for an in-state tour of events for which the campaign is presently nailing down logistics. Along with consultants, the campaign has also hired some initial staff.
Sinema, who decided last month to leave the Democratic Party and become an independent, has not yet said whether she intends to seek re-election next year.
In October 2021 Data for Progress published poll findings that showed Sinema was so unpopular among Arizona Democrats that she would lose a 2024 primary to Gallego and other Democrats by a wide margin.
Sinema, dressed like a sheep,again infuriated Democrats when she was recently seen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, high-fiving Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to celebrate blocking filibuster reform in the Senate.
Vanity Fair quoted Gallego as saying:
“My general sentiment is that this is the kind of performance art that she does sometimes that I think is very tacky and distasteful to a lot of Arizonans. Even though she thinks it’s tactical, it’s still tone-deaf.” “It just shows that she is absolutely separated from reality and from the Arizona voters,” Gallego said.
And he tweeted:
x Guess this is why we missed her at all the MLK events in Arizona this week.
https://t.co/IzEi2JIFD1 — Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) January 16, 2023
Manchinema combined to block key parts of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better economic agenda from passing the Senate through the reconciliation process which would have required the votes of all 50 Senators who caucus with the Democrats.
If Sinema does decide to run as an independent it would set up an unpredictable three-way race since it is unknown whether she would siphon off more votes from the Democratic or Republican candidate.
Gallego, a progressive Democrat, had been hinting at challenging Sinema ever since she and Manchin teamed up to block passage of key Democratic legislative initiatives. They refused to allow a filibuster carve out to pass voting rights and abortion rights legislation.
In mid-December, Gallego, 43, an Iraq war veteran, hinted more strongly that it would enter the race after Sinema changed her affiliation to independent.
n December, after Sinema announced she was changing her party affiliation, Gallego signaled to NBC News that he was likely to launch a Senate bid.
"I’m a good Marine so I’ve been preparing for this, bringing people on, meeting the right people and, you know, making sure that we’re gonna be able to do — to be able to, you know, go right away [when] we make a decision," he said in the interview.
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