TV commercials featuring politicians touring the border between the United States and Mexico have been a mainstay of Republican electoral campaigns across the nation. However, Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego joined in this summer as his party attempts to gain the confidence of voters in his pivotal Arizona Senate campaign and elsewhere.
In the advertisement, Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway states, “Ruben Gallego, the lone congressman who has visited my border on a regular basis, has stood behind me.” He is striving to find answers. improved technologies. More workers.
There are numerous border security advertisements airing in Arizona. GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, who is running against Gallego, has been criticizing him on immigration. In one of her advertisements, she links Gallego to the border policies of Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden. She also shows a video of Gallego speaking on the House floor in 2017 and calls President Trump’s border wall “stupid, dumb.”
The back and forth on the matter illustrates how important the border is to many voters this year and how Democrats have realized that their policies and rhetoric have not been deemed capable of managing an increasing number of migrants in the eyes of the public. Gallego’s initial attempts to establish his credentials with voters about border policy are currently evident in other Democratic races. After border security was not a major theme in more than a year of Biden’s broadcast TV ads that AdImpact was able to track, Harris made it the subject of one of her first TV spots as the Democratic nominee for president.
In addition, the matter demonstrates Gallego’s attempts to recast himself as well as his opponent’s attempts to emphasize his progressive background as he attempts to transition from a deeply blue House seat to statewide office in one of the nation’s most sharply divided battlegrounds.
When NBC News asked Gallego if he still thought Trump’s border wall proposal is “stupid” and “dumb” seven years after the remarks Lake is spotlighting in her advertisement, he responded differently, if not wholly differently.
Gallego stated, “I believe border walls are necessary in certain areas.” Gallego continued, stating that building a complete southern border wall would be a colossal waste of tax payer money. “Building border walls in areas that you don’t need only costs more money and then also costs manpower,” Gallego said.
Gallego has received multiple endorsements during the campaign from local authorities and mayors of border towns, including Nogales, a Democratic mayor, Jorge Maldonado.
In addition to “supporting sensible, all-encompassing immigration measures that would protect our Dreamers,” which is shorthand for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as minors and identify as Americans, he has increased funding for border patrol, border technology, and more border agents as part of his proposed solutions.
Arizonans are in that area. In an interview with NBC News, Gallego stated, “They want our flawed immigration system fixed in addition to border security.”
One of Trump’s and the GOP’s main concerns, as well as a point of vulnerability for Biden and his group, is border security. The public’s perception of Harris on the matter is still unclear: Just after Biden announced his resignation, a recent nationwide Marquette University Law School survey revealed that 52% of likely voters believed Trump would be more adept at managing immigration and the border, while only 39% believed Harris would. A week later, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll revealed that 53% of registered voters trusted Trump more than Harris on immigration, while 47% did the same for Harris.
Republican attack commercials linking Harris to the record number of undocumented immigrants entering the nation under the Biden administration have bombarded her. when supporters have downplayed Harris’s duty to address the underlying causes of migration as vice president, Harris highlighted her experience with border issues when serving as California’s attorney general at recent appearances in Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia.
Arizona has also been a target of Republican assaults on immigration. During the primaries, Lake reminded supporters that Gallego “voted to grant asylum to undocumented immigrants who flooded into the nation during the Biden invasion, but he wants them to be eligible to cast ballots in the upcoming election.”
The remark made by the Lake campaign on Arizona primary night relates to Gallego’s opposition to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, a piece of legislation that was approved by the House that forbids noncitizens from casting ballots. Democrats pointed out that noncitizen voting is already prohibited and extremely uncommon while opposing the plan. Gallego, like the majority of House Democrats, voted against the bill.
Gallego opposed a bill in 2023 that would have made it illegal for non-citizens of the United States to cast ballots in local elections in Washington, D.C. Gallego stated, “Voting, in my opinion, is a fundamental right that belongs to all Americans, and I will fight against any attempts in Arizona and at the federal level to restrict that right,” in a statement made public following the vote. But Washington, D.C. is not Arizona.”
After fifteen months, Gallego reversed his position and backed a bill that forbade noncitizens from casting ballots in D.C. elections, along with fifty-one other Democrats and every House Republican. Lake struck right away. After the voting, she wrote on X, “Ruben thinks a few’moderate’ votes will sweep a decade of radicalism under the rug.”
Using language that many Democrats avoid when discussing the subject, Gallego claimed in an interview with NBC News that they were “two separate bills” and that “I disagree that undocumented immigrants ought to be able to vote.” That was very evident, which is why I supported it.