By JONATHAN J. COOPER, Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) – Democrat Rubén Gallego was elected Arizona’s first Latino senator, defeating Republican Kari Lake and preventing Republicans from further strengthening their Senate majority.

Gallego’s victory follows a string of Democratic successes for the Senate in a state that was reliably Republican for those seats until Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. Arizona voters had rejected Trump-backed candidates in every election since, but the president-elect won Arizona this year against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Gracias, Arizona!” » Gallego wrote on the social platform X.

With Gallego’s victory, the GOP will have 53 seats in the 100-member Senate.

Gallego is a five-term member of the House of Representatives and an Iraq War veteran with a twisty life story that he has highlighted in his public appearances and advertisements. He will replace Kyrsten Sinema, whose victory 2018 as a Democrat, he created a formula that the party has since successfully replicated.

Movie theater left the Democratic Party two years ago after antagonizing the left wing of the party. She considered running for a second term as an independent but bowed out when it was clear she had no clear path to victory.

“Yes, he could!” several Gallego supporters shouted in Spanish as he made his first comments after the race was called.

“I will fight for Arizona in Washington,” Gallego told cheering supporters, saying he would fight as much for the people who didn’t vote for him as for those who did.

In his brief remarks, Gallego repeatedly mentioned the single mother who raised him, crediting her with his success. He has promised to work to fix what he sees as the country’s broken immigration system and to continue fighting for veterans and for women’s reproductive rights.

The Associated Press left a voicemail and email seeking comment on Lake’s campaign Monday evening.

With Gallego’s victory, only one major race remained in Arizona. The race between Republican Juan Ciscomani and Democrat Kirsten Engel for the 6th Congressional District remained too early to call.

Gallego beat Harriswhich suggests that a significant number of voters supported Trump at the top of the ticket and the Democrat in the Senate, a trend seen in Sinema’s victory and in Democratic Senator Mark Kelly’s two victories in 2020 and 2022. The dispatchers of tickets were also decisive in Michigan. This year, the Senate elections in Wisconsin and Nevada, 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, defeated senators Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey and Jon Tester also outpaced Harris but could not overcome their state’s shift toward the GOP.

Gallego was comfortably in the lead after the first results were released on election night, but his lead narrowed as more ballots were counted. Arizona is known for its drawn-out counting because most people vote by mail — which takes longer to verify and process — including many who drop off their ballots on Election Day.

The son of immigrants from Mexico and Colombia, Gallego grew up in Chicago and was eventually accepted into Harvard University. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and fought in Iraq in 2005 in a unit that suffered heavy losses, including the death of his best friend.

Gallego maintained a significant fundraising advantage throughout the race. He relentlessly attacked Lake’s support for a Civil War-era state law that banned abortions in almost all circumstances. Lake has positioned herself in the middle on the issue, infuriating some of her right-wing allies by opposing a federal ban on abortion.

Gallego portrayed Lake as a liar who would do and say anything to gain power. He downplayed his progressive voting record in Congress and relied on his personal history and military service to build an image as a pragmatic moderate.

Lake is a well-known former television news anchor who became a star of the populist right with his 2022 campaign for governor of Arizona.

She never recognized lose this race and called herself a “legitimate governor” in her 2023 book. She continued her unsuccessful fight in court to overturn the bill, even after beginning her Senate campaign.

Her dogmatic commitment to the lie that back-to-back elections had been stolen from her and Trump endeared her to the former president, who considered her his vice presidential running mate. But it deepened her struggles with moderate Republicans she alienated during her 2022 campaign, when she disparaged the late Sen. John McCain and then-Governor. Doug Ducey.

She tried to moderate but struggled to maintain a consistent message on thorny topics, including voter fraud and abortion.

Lake instead focused on border security, an important issue for Republicans in a border state that has seen record border crossings under Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. She promised a tough crackdown on illegal immigration and called Gallego a proponent of “open borders.” She also addressed her personal life, highlighting her divorce from Kate Gallego shortly before she gave birth. His ex-wife, now mayor of Phoenix, Gallego approved and campaigned with him.

Originally published: November 12, 2024 at 5:06 a.m. PST