As top consultants for Ruben Gallego’s 2024 campaign for Senate in Arizona, New Deal Strategies were key strategists behind Ruben’s two-year-long campaign and historic win. 

We were with Ruben from the very start. Long members of his informal “kitchen cabinet,” New Deal officially joined the campaign soon after the end of the 2022 cycle. We helped position Ruben for success in the pre-campaign period and hired an all-star team of advisors. 

While in retrospect, Ruben’s win may have seemed like a foregone conclusion, when we entered the race in January 2023, it was anything but.  

• Politico: Gallego builds political team ahead of Sinema showdown

Our first major test came before the campaign even launched, in December 2022 when our would-be primary opponent incumbent Senator Kyrsten Sinema announced that she was leaving the Democratic Party — fundamentally changing the dynamics of our race. We went from planning an insurgent primary campaign to potentially facing a costly, damaging open primary and an unpredictable three-way general election.

It’s not always possible, but the easiest way to deal with a problem is by avoiding it altogether. That’s the strategy we took.

Almost immediately after Sinema’s announcement, we put a poll out into the field to show that Ruben would be the strongest Democratic candidate, and that Sinema didn’t have a realistic path to victory as an independent. The poll results helped flip a question about Ruben’s ability to win the seat into one about Sinema’s.

• The Hill: Lake, Gallego neck and neck in hypothetical Arizona Senate match-up: Poll

And we kept up the pace. The campaign launched in January 2023 and raised over $1 million within 24 hours. By the end of our first quarter, the campaign had raised $3.7 million, and we never looked back. This proof point made a strong statement that Ruben was a serious candidate running a serious campaign, and removed any remaining doubt about facing a serious challenger in the Democratic primary.

• CNBC: Arizona Senate hopeful Ruben Gallego posts record-breaking fundraising haul in bid for Kyrsten Sinema’s seat
  
• New York Magazine: The Democrat Who Could Take Down Kyrsten Sinema

After planting our flag with a relentless first quarter, we then focused on the race we wanted to have: Ruben vs. Kari. And that’s the race we got.

• Axios: With Sinema out, Democrats see clear path to Arizona Senate win

Ruben Gallego ran a focused campaign that took a “go everywhere and talk to everyone” approach — running up the margins in Democratic strongholds, cutting into Republican margins everywhere else and turning out first-time voters. On the trail, Ruben spoke to voters’ economic pain, connected with Arizona’s large Latino population and promised to deliver for all Arizonans — and we helped tell his story. 

New Deal also produced a series of web videos to help define Kari Lake using her own words, ranging from substantive and serious ads to horror movie parodies.  

In the end, Ruben Gallego outperformed the top of the ticket by 8 points, more than any other winning battleground senate candidate, and we elected Arizona’s first-ever Latino Senator.