MAGA Republican Kari Lake has lost her race for the Arizona Senate to Democrat Ruben Gallego, who becomes the Grand Canyon State’s first Latino senator.
Gallego’s win helps prevent the GOP further extending its majority in the upper chamber of Congress and continues his party’s successful run in Arizona over the last decade, where voters have repeatedly rejected candidates backed by Donald Trump. Trump himself beat Kamala Harris there in last week’s presidential race, however, securing his clean sweep of the swing states.
The race was called in Gallego’s favor minutes before midnight ET on Monday, almost one week on from Election Day.
“Gracias, Arizona!” Gallego, 44, wrote on X after his victory was confirmed, thanking the state’s voters for a win that nevertheless means Republicans still hold 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate.
“I will fight for Arizona in Washington,” Gallego told cheering supporters as he gave a victory speech in Phoenix late on Monday night, as he pledged to fight for people who did not vote for him as well as those who did.
“Yes, he could!” his supporters shouted in Spanish in celebration.
Gallego continued by paying tribute to his mother, a Colombian immigrant who raised him alone in Chicago and sent him to Harvard University. He also pledged to fix the country’s immigration system, which he said was “broken”, further promising to support veterans and protect women’s reproductive rights.
The Democrat is a five-term House member and a Marine Corps Reserve veteran of the Iraq War, who will replace Kyrsten Sinema, whose 2018 victory as a Democrat created a formula that the party has successfully replicated ever since.
Sinema then left the party after angering its left-wing arm and briefly considered running as an independent before deciding against a re-election bid after concluding she could not win.
Gallego maintained a significant fundraising advantage throughout his race against Lake, whom he relentlessly attacked over her support for a state law dating back to the American Civil War that outlawed abortions under nearly all circumstances. He also portrayed his opponent as a liar who would do and say anything to gain power.
Lake, a former TV news anchor who became a MAGA favorite when she pushed Trump’s false 2020 election fraud narrative and then ran, unsuccessfully, to be Arizona’s governor in 2022, has yet to respond to her defeat.
She refused to accept her loss two years ago in the gubernatorial race and went on to refer to herself as the state’s “lawful governor” in a 2023 book.
With Gallego’s win, there is only one more major race left uncalled in Arizona.
The contest between Republican Representative Juan Ciscomani and Democrat Kirsten Engel for the 6th Congressional District, which currently remains too early to call, according to the Associated Press.
Gallego garnered more support in his race than Harris did in the presidential vote, suggesting that a substantial number of voters supported Trump at the top of the ticket but backed the Democrat for the Senate, a pattern also seen in Sinema’s victory six years ago and both of Democratic Senator Mark Kelly’s wins in 2020 and 2022.
“Ticket-splitters” also were decisive in the Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada Senate races this year, which Democrats won even as Trump won their states.
Republicans flipped Democratic-controlled Senate seats in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Montana.
In the latter three cases, defeated Senators Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey and Jon Tester also ran ahead of Harris but could not overcome their states’ shifts toward the GOP.
Gallego led comfortably after the first results were released on Election Night, but his lead narrowed as more ballots were counted.
Arizona is notorious for a drawn-out count because most people vote by mail – which takes longer to verify and process – including many who drop off ballots on Election Day.
Additional reporting by agencies.
