Rep. Reuben Gallego (D-AZ) made it official. He is running against Senator Kyrsten Sinema in 2024 and has hired staffers from the campaigns of John Fetterman and Raphael Warnock.
Here’s Rep.’s campaign launch video. Gallego:
Growing up poor, all I had was the American dream. It kept me going: like a kid sleeping on the floor, a college student scrubbing toilets, a Marine losing brothers in Iraq.
Today, too many Arizona residents see their dream slip away. I’m running for the US Senate to win it back for you! pic.twitter.com/ofUvUYRcTP
— Ruben Gallego (@Ruben Gallego) January 23, 2023
The New York Times reported on some very interesting early hires to the Gallego campaign: “Democrats in Arizona have previously filed motions that they intend to side with Ms. Sinema’s Democratic challenger. Gallego’s campaign team includes veterans of Senator Mark Kelly’s re-election bid in Arizona, as well as Democratic advisers who participated in the successful 2022 senate campaigns for Georgia’s Raphael Warnock and Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman. Mr. Gallego’s campaign has also attacked Chuck Rocha, a longtime Democratic strategist focused on mobilizing Latino voters.
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When an unpopular incumbent like Senator Sinema gets a challenger, the knee-jerk response from some Democrats is to donate heavily, but it’s important to look at the kind of team the challenger puts together to see if they can win.
The lowest incumbent senate re-election rate in any given election year over the past two decades is 79%. It’s hard to beat a sitting senate, which is why campaigns that are serious about winning need quality personnel who have won senate races before.
Rep. Gallego has hired people from Mark Kelly’s campaign, Raphael Warnock’s campaign and John Fetterman’s campaign. All three of those campaigns were Democratic success stories in purple states.
Senator Sinema left the Democratic Party because she faced a Gallego primary she was unable to win.
Sinema has yet to announce her intentions for 2024, but she may run without a constituency. Democrats have already rallied around Gallego, and Kari Lake is rumbling from her hiding place in Mar-a-Lago that she could run for the Republican Senate nomination.
It seems that Rep. Gallego builds a potentially winning team that should be taken seriously no matter what Senator Sinema decides to do.
Jason is the editor in chief. He is also a White House Press Pole and a congressional correspondent for PoliticianUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and professional memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
