Ruben Gallego defeats Kari Lake in Arizona Senate race

Democrat Ruben Gallego has won the U.S. Senate race in Arizona, defeating Republican Kari Lake, according to a race call by the Associated Press.

Gallego, who’s served in Congress for the last decade, is the latest Democrat to win a key race in Arizona, following a sweep of the top three statewide offices in 2022 and President Biden’s narrow victory here in 2020.

Gallego led in the polls for much of his race against Kari Lake, a MAGA firebrand who’s yet to concede her 2022 gubernatorial loss and now faces another bitter defeat in a state where voters seem to have soured on MAGA candidates – save for former President Donald Trump himself.

Gallego will replace outgoing Sen. Krysten Sinema, who declined to run what was seen as a longshot campaign for reelection after she defected from the Democratic Party in 2022 and declared herself an independent.

But Gallego didn’t wait for Sinema’s decision, and has been running for the Senate seat for nearly the last two years.

That time gave him a leg up on Lake, who declared her own candidacy a little over a year ago. Political analysts in Arizona say she failed to reintroduce herself to voters after her failed 2022 campaign, instead running the race in the same combative style – rife with election denialism and fealty to Trump – as she did four years ago.

And Gallego hammered Lake for her past comments in support of strict, near-total abortion bans in Arizona – laws that proved unpopular with voters who also approved a constitutional right to abortion, also on the ballot this year.