By Sabrina Rodriguez, The Washington Post (c) 2024
PHOENIX – Ruben Gallego embodies the kind of voter that Democrats struggled to keep this election cycle.
A Latino with working-class roots, he won his Senate race in a battleground state that Donald Trump flipped and will become the first Latino to represent Arizona in the upper chamber of Congress. He did so, he says, in large part by targeting Latino men.
That demographic is now the most buzzed about group following the 2024 election after it swung 19 points to favor Trump nationally compared with 2020, according to preliminary exit polls. Vice President KamalaHarris notched a slight majority of Latino voters overall, 52 to 46 percent, but that was a dramatic decrease over Joe Biden’s 33-point margin in 2020.
Yet Gallego – a current House member, first-generation American and Marine veteran – ran nine points ahead of Harris in Arizona with Latino men, winning 64 percent of their vote while Harris won 55 percent, according to exit polls.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Gallego laid out his advice for Democrats who want to know how he courted Latino men – and how the party can appeal to them. He said Latinos, especially men, prioritized the same things that all American voters did this year – the economy, mainly, and immigration.
He argued that some Democratic leaders and strategists failed to recognize what Latino men really care about: protecting and providing for their families. The combination of high prices and the administration not cracking down sooner on the influx of migrants at thesouthern border, he said, raised the question for many: “Who’s fighting for me?”
“I don’t think most people in D.C. will ever understand the male Latino brain when it comes to this innate thing that we’ve been trained to do,” he said. “I’ve been trained since I was a boy, like you’re supposed to provide for your family and you’re supposed to protect your family. You’re not a real ‘man’ if you’re not doing both.”
Gallego designed hisSenate campaign around reaching Latino men, knowing how they think because he is one. Gallego, 44, whose family is from Mexico and Colombia,has held jobs as a janitor and a line cook, and worked at a meatpacking plant and on construction sites.
Campaigns often don’t court people like him, he said, because they think it will be a waste of time.
Latino men are “not politically engaged. They do not watch TV. They don’t read the newspaper. They hardly listen to any politics. They don’t even have cable[TV]. They’re largely getting politics through like vibes of what’s going on out there,” Gallego said, adding that many are distrustful of politicians.
“That’s why we did all these events that basically communicated for us to Latino men, like, ‘Hey, this is Ruben. He understands you. He’s like you. He’s from your background. And when he says he’s worried about costs, he actually gets it.’Because you could say it, but they don’t trust you on it, because they don’t think you have lived it. Then it’s just a political talking point to them.”
Gallego netted roughly 90,000 more votes than Harris, evidence that there was a share of voters who split their ticket for Trump and Gallego.
Gallego attributed his victoryover Republican Kari Lake to hisfocus on Latinos as well as to some White swing voters who backed him. He positioned himself as a moderate in a state with a strong independent streak where longtime Republican Sen. John McCain was beloved for being a maverick. Republicans sought to paint him as a far-left extremist given his credentials as a former member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Despite his personal success, Gallego isn’t especially surprised by Democratic underperformance with men like him. He has plenty of thoughts about why – and they don’t include blaming or disparaging Latinos, which some liberals have done since Trump’s win.
“The coalition when Democrats have won has always been with Latinos. The one time we don’t perform for you, now you’re just gonna throw us out? Well, you can throw us out, but there is no winning any other way,” Gallego said. “We all have to work together.”
Some Democratic strategists recognize that Gallego is right – and they’re pointing to him as someone who can help Democrats chart a path forward.
“Democrats have a Latino problem that they need to fix and fix fast,” said Andrew Drechsler, president of the data analysis firm Haystaq that has worked for Democratic candidates. “Ruben in Arizona should be a blueprint for the Democratic Party.”
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Tamales, boxing and Lotería
Drinking a margarita and waiting for his sopa de siete mares at one of his favorite restaurants in South Phoenix after the election and before his race was called, Gallego listed the various ways he sought to connect with Latino men as a Senate candidate.
He was a judge at Somerton’s 16th annual Tamale Festival, where he lost count of how many tamales he sampled. He hired a local business owner to cater tacos for plant workers getting off the overnight shift so he could quickly connect with them while they ate before heading home. His campaign hosted watch parties for major boxing matches at a boxing academy. He hosted carne asadas with live banda music. He organized lowrider car shows, which are beloved by some Mexican Americans. And he closed out his campaign with a Juntos por Arizona rodeo.
“I’m really just proud of all of them, to be honest. The difference, too, is that they weren’t one-offs,” he said of the events. “A lot of times these candidates do these one-offs and are like: ‘Hey, I did something really cool for Latinos. Done.’ For us, it was a series of things that we were wrapping into an overall narrative.”
Gallego said he was proudest of his idea to create a print ad that resembled lotería cards, a reference to the Mexican board game that’s similar to ingo. The cards each represented aspects of Arizona, his background and his criticism of his opponent. Of Lake, the cards included titles and pictures of “la mentirosa” – the liar – and “la peligrosa” – the dangerous one.
Gallego said he saw some criticism on Facebook about the lotería cards, arguing that he was acting like he was running for office in Mexico. “Well, what do you think these people are used to? Like, yes, that’s kind of the purpose,” he said, while eating Mexican food at Comedor Guadalajara. “We’re connecting with them.”
Gallego said he thought Harris’s numbers would have been even worse if the economy and border hadn’t improved a little. Inflation has dropped to its lowest level in more than three years, though it ticked up in October. Illegal crossings at the southern U.S. border are down sharply this year after the Biden administration placed broad restrictions on asylum.
Still, Harris carried the blame for years of frustration, Gallego said.
“I don’t think anyone will ever understand the emotional stress it brings to a Latino male when they just cannot make ends meet. It is like a hit against their whole identity. I’m supposed to be a provider for my family. I’m supposed to be bringing safety and security to my family,” he said. “And for the last few years, these men just weren’t feeling that. And when they’re not feeling that, then they’re going to look for answers and someone to punish.”
If Biden had stayed in the race, “it was going to be a bloodbath,” he added. “Harris did a lot of recovery … but it was just probably too late at that point for her, and the fact that she couldn’t really throw Biden under the bus. … It was a very difficult position for her to be in.”
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What’s next?
Democratic strategists are already pointing to Gallego as an example of someone who the party should be looking to as they seek answers for how to win back some of the Latinos they lost to Trump.
Carlos Odio, co-founder of Equis Research, a Democratic firm focused on Latinos, said the senator-elect could serve as “a bit of a north star for how Democrats can get out of the wilderness.”
Odio noted that Gallego fits a pattern across most states where support for Trump did not automatically transfer to Republicans down ballot. But Gallego, he said, also benefited from really connecting with Latinos in Arizona by leaning into his background as a first-generation American from the working class who served in the military.
“He’s connecting culturally in a meaningful way,” Odio said. “What Ruben captures, what he epitomizes, is being thoughtful but not overthinking it. So much of this is showing up.”
“I think the future for Democrats is in candidates who are multiracial and class conscious, who are progressive in their substance but independent-minded and willing to break from party and ideology when it makes sense,” Odio added.
Gallego pushed back on some of the anger he’s seen from liberals over more Latinos voting for Trump. Post-election, some Democrats and commentators have chosen to blame Latinos for Trump’s victory and have gone so far as to say Latinos deserve any fallout from a Trump presidency. Joy Reid of MSNBC shamed Latino men who supported Trump, saying on her show, “So, you own everything that happens to your mixed-status families and to your wives, sisters and abuelas from here on in.”
Asked about Reid’s comment, Gallego turned to his campaign communications director and asked, “How many times was I on Joy Reid’s show this year?” She responded: “None.”
Gallego shrugged and sat in silence as he took a sip of his margarita.
“I get feeling frustrated and scared because of this political outcome. But not being able to see that we have to figure out how to bring these voters back in the fold together, I think, is very, very dangerous,” he said.
He urged Democratic leaders to welcome more people like him in the conversation and really listen, pointing out that almost every Latino incumbent won their races, “so we clearly know how to communicate. Just include us in part of the coalition building. We’re part of the ideas package, too.”
Gallego also roundly dismissed the idea that Latinos drifted rightward because they were unwilling to vote for a Black woman, saying Latinos “consistently vote for Black candidates and women candidates all the time, all across the country.” More than 70 percent of Latinos voted for Barack Obama – the first Black president – in 2012. And 66 percent voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“The reflexive reaction from more of our progressive base is that it must be that they’re just anti-women and they’re antigay. That’s got to be it,” he said. “I don’t know why they want to run to that … when the easier solution is raise wages, make them feel better about the opportunities that they have to live the American Dream.”
“That’s the actual answer,” he added.
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Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.