Ruben Gallego Defeats Kari Lake in Arizona Senate Race to Replace Kyrsten Sinema

Mar. 15, 2025

Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake.Photo:Chip Somodevilla/Getty; OLIVIER TOURON/AFP via Getty

Chip Somodevilla/Getty; OLIVIER TOURON/AFP via Getty

The news comes after former PresidentDonald Trumpwon Arizona over Democratic Vice PresidentKamala Harris, flipping the state that had helped elect PresidentJoe Bidenin 2020.

With Gallego’s victory, Republicans will officially control 53 seats of the 100-member Senate in the 119th Congress.

Gallego, 44, held a steady lead in polling over Lake, 55, throughout the election, but Democrats were wary of feeling overconfident given the state’s firmly purple politics. Gallego is now in line to replace outgoing independent Sen.Kyrsten Sinema, 48, whoannouncedin March that she would not seek another six-year term in office.

His win makes him Arizona’s first Latino U.S. senator. “Gracias, Arizona!” he wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Thank you for all the Arizonans who supported me, the Democrats, Republicans and Independents," he said in a late night victory speech shared on X. “And for those who did not support me or did not vote for me, please know that I will always still fight for you. I will treat you with respect. And we may not agree all the time, but I will always do my best to serve you.”

“As hard as I fought to get out of poverty, as hard as I fight now for my family, as hard as I fought in the race, I will fight for Arizona in Washington, D.C.,” he added.

Gallego, currently a congressman whose district includes large portions of Phoenix, announced his Senate campaign ina post on Xin January 2023.

“Growing up poor, all I had was the American dream. It kept me going: as a kid sleeping on the floor, a student scrubbing toilets, a Marine losing brothers in Iraq,” he said. “Today, too many Arizonans see their dream slipping away. I’m running for the U.S. Senate to win it back for you!”

Lake, a longtime ally of Trump, joined the race after suffering a contentious loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election.

Kari Lake speaks on the 3rd day of the CPAC conference.Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty

Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty

Lake also attempted to overturn the Arizona gubernatorial election results in court, alleging that intentional malfeasance with ballot printers at some polling sites had manipulated the election in favor of her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs.

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Lake supported Trump in his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, and baselessly insisted that “there’s a lot of corruption” in the electoral system. She also said that if she had been governor at the time, she would not have certified the state’s vote for Biden, and called for the arrest of officials who were in charge of the 2020 election.

After facing backlash in the media, Lake began walking back some of her claims of election denialism, offering vaguer statements in interviews and calling the media “obsessed” with the topic.

source: people.com