PHOENIX — U.S. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego will face Republican Kari Lake for Senate in November – a matchup he says he can win.
“It's gonna be a close race,” he said. “This is a competitive state.”
Gallego and Lake started off the general election campaign with appearances at very different events in metro Phoenix.
Gallego discussed abortion rights and reproductive health Wednesday afternoon at a roundtable in downtown Phoenix with community members and healthcare workers. Hours later, Lake spoke at Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance's campaign rally in Glendale.
"We're at a crossroads right now," she said after Vance brought her on stage. "We either save this country or, as one of our favorite presidents, Ronald Reagan, said, we’ll plunge into a 1,000 years of darkness."
The Senate race was set when Lake won the Republican primary against Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb.
Lake overperformed compared to her primary win in 2022, when she ran for governor, but Gallego, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, said he’s not looking at her margin of victory. What matters, he said, will be talking with voters about his values.
“This is why I've been traveling the state,” he said. “I've been talking to voters – Democrats, Republicans, independents. I've been going to some of the reddest parts of the state, some swing areas like Yuma. I've been going up to the Navajo Nation, been going to all 22 federally recognized tribes.”
In her victory speech Tuesday night, Lake described the November election as a fight between “good and evil.”
“This is not a battle between Democrats and Republicans,” she told supporters. “This is a battle between good and evil. This is a battle between the people who want to destroy this country and the people who want to save America.”
Gallego rejected that framing Wednesday.
“I don't think she's evil,” he said, saying that he also doesn’t think the people he disagrees with politically are “evil.”
“But at the end of the day, this is not a stark contrast between good and evil,” he said. “And it's sad that she's, you know, breaking and basing politics that way."
At Vance's rally, Lake told the crowd he was the first senator she talked to when she was considering her own Senate run.
"He said, 'Kari, you're gonna hate the swamp. But because I know you're gonna hate the swamp, we need you in the swamp. We need people who don't love Washington, D.C. to go to Washington, D.C.,'" Lake said.
Lake said she wouldn't make friends with lobbyists if elected.
"I got enough friends in Arizona," she said. "And I want to go there and be a senator, much like Sen. Vance has been somebody who votes for America First policy, even if he's getting the stink eye from some of the swampier people in the swamp."
Gallego’s first ad for the general election focuses on Lake’s previous statements on abortion, one of the key issues in Arizona. He told attendees at his roundtable that voters face “a very stark choice” in November.
“My daughter is one 1 years old. ... She is going to grow up in this country with less rights than her grandmother, and that is something we should all be appalled by,” he said.
ABC15 sat down for exclusive interviews with both Lake and Gallego leading up to the primary election. Watch those interviews below:
In March, Kari Lake sat down with ABC15 to share her campaign priorities. Watch in the player below.
In June, Ruben Gallego sat down with ABC15 to share his campaign priorities. Watch in the player below.
