Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego has defeated Kari Lake, a far-right former news anchor, to win the Senate seat being vacated by Arizona’s outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, NBC News projects.
Gallego, who launched his career in electoral politics as a progressive who railed against Arizona’s hard-nosed immigration laws, tacked to the right during his Senate campaign. He supported a bipartisan bill that included some of the strictest anti-immigration measures in decades and touted an endorsement from the Trump-friendly Arizona Police Association.
But this race was largely defined by his opponent’s struggles. Lake’s habit of attacking local Republicans complicated her efforts to garner conservative support outside the MAGA base, and she was so steeped in Trumpian election denial that, to this day, she still hasn’t acknowledged her lawful defeat in Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election.
Though Trump won Arizona’s presidential election, Gallego’s victory continues a string of Democratic wins in key races there for statewide office, including governor and secretary of state. Gallego will become the first Latino senator in Arizona’s history.
Lake’s defeat amid a Trump triumph in the state was not an outlier in this election cycle. Though Republicans flipped several Democratic Senate seats, some incumbent Democrats hung on even as Trump won their states, including in Nevada and Wisconsin.
Sinema, the state’s outgoing senator and a Democrat-turned-independent, announced her plans to retire from the Senate in March. She was elected to the Senate in 2018 after running a progressive campaign but drew criticism from her supporters while in office for blocking President Joe Biden’s agenda and voting with Senate Republicans to maintain the filibuster. She said in September that she considers herself to be “fairly libertarian” and plans to work in the private sector after leaving the Senate.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.