PHOENIX — Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego faced off in Arizona’s first, feisty and only Senate debate Wednesday evening, trading shots over the border, abortion, tax policy and more.
The barbs started before the moderators even asked a single question.
”We are at a crossroads, Arizona,” Gallego said in his opening statement. “We’re going to see and talk to somebody who has really failed the basic test of honesty,” he said, highlighting Lake’s repeated election denialism.
”Tonight, we’re going to watch as somebody tries to reinvent himself,” Lake shot back at Gallego. “Somebody who used to be a member of the Progressive Caucus, somebody who has destroyed the very congressional district that he has served for the past 10 years.”
As the candidates bounced from topic to topic over an hour onstage, the answers circled back on a key slice of voters: old-line Republicans and independents who aren’t necessarily comfortable with Lake. Gallego continually referenced his support from prominent Arizona Republicans, while Lake repeatedly brought up former President Donald Trump, as she tries to prevent Trump voters from crossing over in the Senate race.
“Border mayors that used to campaign with her are now campaigning with me because they don’t think that she’s serious about this,” Gallego said at one point. He added: “It seems like Donald Trump doesn’t want to campaign with her anymore either. He’s not allowing her pictures on any of his billboards. So this is what we’re seeing right now, a candidate that could only talk but doesn’t actually produce results.” he added.
Lake quickly shot back, name-dropping the former president several times throughout the debate.
“President Trump, my good friend, has called me ‘border Kari,’” Lake said. “I love the nickname and I’m going to go there to Washington, D.C., and help him build that border wall and secure the border,” she added.
A massive campaign bus parked outside of the debate had a large image of Trump and Lake together with large print touting his endorsement of the Republican Senate hopeful. Campaign signs across Phoenix also feature photos of Lake and the former President, reading, “Trump endorsed!”
Gallego, in contrast, didn’t mention Vice President Kamala Harris by name during the debate. In an interview with NBC News earlier in the week, Gallego said he was running “independently” of Harris. He has not attended most of her campaign events and visits to the state.
The issues looming large throughout the race have been immigration and border security, a central topic for Arizona, which shares its southern border with Mexico. On Wednesday evening, those topics were once again in the spotlight as the moderators with nearly half of the 60-minute debate on the issue.
“A community that doesn’t have border control is not a country,” Gallego said when asked whether he supports open borders. “Absolutely not,” he added.
Lake’s rebuttal focused on Laken Riley, the 22-year-old college student allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant in Georgia, to drive home the importance of the border. “We want to be able to go for a jog in the morning like Laken Riley did, and not have to worry about being killed, raped and murdered,” said Lake.
Lake reiterated her position in this week’s interview with NBC News, saying she didn’t support any component of the bipartisan border security bill — and falsely claiming that the legislation “sent $115 billion overseas to kill people.”
“The senators were not bipartisan,” Lake said misleadingly of the trio largely behind the bill. The bipartisan border security legislation was negotiated by retiring independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — whose open seat Lake is vying for — along with Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma.
Lake has long made the border a cornerstone of her campaign, chastising Gallego for supporting the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies. Gallego, in turn, has made the bipartisan border bill that Trump and Lake opposed a big part of his campaign.
“The compromise bill that was supported by border patrol, and Kari Lake, for still no reason she can explain it, she can’t explain it, why she was against the bill,” Gallego fired back.
At the halfway point, the moderators shifted the discussion towards abortion. With early voting already underway in the state, Arizonans will vote on Prop 139, a proposed state constitutional amendment that would enshrine abortion rights through fetal viability.
Gallego brought up Lake’s flip-flop on Arizona’s since-repealed 1864 abortion ban, which would have banned all abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest. “She said it was a great law,” he said, noting Lake’s comments about the 1864 ban during her 2022 gubernatorial bid. During her Senate bid, Lake came out against it.
“I want to make sure UVF is protected,” said Lake, likely referring to in-vitro fertilization or IVF, a fertility treatment that has become the latest front in the political battle over reproductive rights.
“He acts like he cares about us,” Lake said of Gallego, “speaking directly to the women” watching the debate.
Both candidates have been reminding their would-be constituents for months about one another’s past. For Lake, it’s pinning Gallego to his progressive past. For Gallego, it’s highlighting Lake’s ardent election denialism after the 2020 presidential race and the 2022 gubernatorial race, where Lake lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs.
Asked to say “once and for all” that she lost her race, over which she launched unsuccessful lawsuits, Lake instead referenced a previous question on Arizona’s water crisis and said, “Can I talk about water?”
After the debate, the Lake campaign sent several surrogates to speak with reporters who claimed that she “won” the debate and appeared strong, while Gallego appeared “weak.”
“She needs to be loud, she needs to lie because she’s weak,” said Gallego, talking to the press immediately after the debate. “That’s it. The weaker you are, the louder you are.”
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