Kyrsten Sinema’s announcement that she will not seek re-election in November’s Arizona U.S. Senate race means U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat who would be the state’s first Latino senator, may be President Joe Biden’s best hope for a repeat victory in Arizona over former President Donald Trump.
Sinema, who was elected as a Democrat in 2018, declared herself an independent at the end of 2022. Her announcement Tuesday that she won’t be seeking re-election turns what was a three-way race between her, Gallego and Republican Kari Lake into a head-to-head between the Democrat and the Republican. November’s showdown between a working-class Latino Democrat and an election-denying MAGA candidate who blames an “invasion” of migrants for America’s problems may prove to be important not just for control of the Senate but also for control of the White House.
November’s showdown between a working-class Latino Democrat and an election-denying MAGA candidate may prove to be important not just for control of the Senate but also for control of the White House.
Though polls show Biden trailing Trump in Arizona by an average of 5.5 points, a poll conducted just before Sinema’s announcement showed Gallego leading Lake by 7 points. Biden’s success in Arizona may depend on his grabbing Gallego’s coattails.
“I’ve been talking to my community, building that trust with them, and fighting for them for more than a decade,” Gallego said by telephone Wednesday, acknowledging the high-stakes pressure his campaign is facing. “Will that benefit President Biden? I think it’s going to benefit President Biden. It’s going to benefit all Democrats.”
Latinos played a major role in Biden’s victory in 2020 when he defeated then-President Trump by fewer than 11,000 votes. They again played a major role in 2022 when Democrat Katie Hobbs defeated Lake in that year’s gubernatorial race and Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat, won re-election in a race against Republican Blake Masters. Expect them to play a major role in a race where Gallego will be looking to make history as the state’s first Latino senator.
Obviously, Biden needs Gallego in November, and, given a New York Times/Siena College poll that shows him trailing Trump nationally among Latino voters, his campaign also needs Gallego’s message about why Democrats have to do better to maintain their traditional hold on this electorate. (An important caveat here is that, according to the Times, only “3 percent of interviews among self-reported Hispanics were conducted in Spanish.”)
Gallego and his campaign officials have often argued that Democrats have long ignored the Latino working class and essentially ceded such voters to Republicans. Democrats might not want to hear that criticism, but it’s the message they need to hear to win. It’s a message Gallego insists will lead to more Democratic victories in a state where close to 20% of eligible voters are Latino.
“I actually understand where the true Latino is in Arizona. Not influenced by an East Coast-West Coast bias that comes from the pundits,” Gallego said. “It comes from liberals sometimes, too. It also comes from conservatives.” He made a similar point in a tweet in December 2021: “It will not lose you an election but if your staff and consultants use Latinx in your mass communication it likely means they don’t understand the Latino community and is indicative of deeper problems.”
Gallego, a Marine who fought in Iraq, started his political career as a state representative during the days of Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 immigration bill, a hard-line “show me your papers” law that the Supreme Court partially struck down in 2012. Those opposed to that law led a new wave of political change, particularly with Latinos. It’s why many who voted for Biden before are expressing frustration now about his more conservative immigration stances. As one Arizona voter told The Washington Post last month, “I don’t like that Biden caved in to the Republican Party.” At the same time, though, Trump stokes fears of “languages coming into our country” and immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country.”
“Latinos in Arizona swung against Republicans because Republicans were being extreme, and they are going to do it again because Republicans are misreading the Latino population,” Gallego told me. He said Latinos want “moderation when it comes to immigration and the border. They want border security, and they want immigration reform.”
Biden’s gamble on supporting an immigration bill designed to appeal to conservatives could still lose him Latino support, but Gallego says Arizona Latinos tend to be more conservative on immigration. Although not an Arizona-specific poll, a new report from Pew released this week would confirm that. According to Pew, 75% of U.S. Latinos see the border as a “crisis” or “a major problem,” with 74% saying that the government is not doing a good job. Gallup has listed immigration as the country’s top problem. In a state like Arizona, Republicans will work to exploit that. Democrats must find a way to counter or risk losing. That’s why Biden needs Gallego, a Senate candidate who can speak to Arizona Latinos. “We can’t discount the value of someone being able to talk to them in their languages, both in Spanish and their cultural language,” Gallego said. “There hasn’t been a working-class Latino who has worked hard to understand them in quite a while.” “Latinos are not extremists. Latinos want solutions like anybody else,” he added. In 2020, while proclaiming Biden’s surprise victory, Gallego posted the following tweet: “The children of SB 1070 ten years later grew to change Arizona. You tried to bury us, you didn’t know we were seeds and we would grow to fight for Arizona.” Those seeds have continued to grow, and Biden should pray that the continued blooming of Latino involvement in Arizona politics will lead not only to Gallego’s victory but to his as well.
Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of "The Latino Newsletter" and co-editor of "Pressing Issues from Free Press." 
