Ruben Gallego spent the better part of the past year positioning himself as the Democrat who cracked the code for Democrats to start winning back Latino voters.
Gallego won his Arizona Senate seat in 2024, defeating Kari Lake by just over two points, even as President Trump carried the state with relative ease.
That narrow but meaningful victory turned him into something of a Democratic savior – proof that a certain kind of candidate, delivering a certain kind of message, could still resonate with the Latino and working-class voters the party has been hemorrhaging for years. “At a moment when the Achilles’ heel for the Democratic Party is Latinos and working-class voters, this is his opportunity to rescue our country,” said Chuck Rocha, an adviser to Gallego, speaking to The Hill earlier this year.
Gallego had mused about a 2028 run just two weeks before this spiral began, telling NBC News,” No matter who runs, even if it’s not me, the candidate that wins in 2028 is going to have to get the Latino vote back to at least 62 percent. That is the ‘Pass Go’ line, collect $200 on the Monopoly board. We didn’t hit that in 2024, and that’s why we find ourselves in this situation.”
For Democrats, Gallego wasn’t just a senator from Arizona; he was the future of the party.
That was before Eric Swalwell.
Last week, Swalwell resigned his House seat and withdrew from the California gubernatorial race following a wave of sexual assault allegations, and Gallego has been caught in the fallout. They were close friends, and he chaired Swalwell’s 2020 presidential campaign and publicly backed his gubernatorial run. When the Swalwell allegations broke, the questions about Gallego’s proximity followed almost immediately. What did he know? When did he know it? His answers have satisfied almost no one.
He held a press conference on Tuesday, attempting to distance himself from Swalwell. “I fell for it,” he told reporters, saying Swalwell “lied to all of us.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t go so well for him.
Democratic strategist Anthony Coley, a Capitol Hill veteran who once worked for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, didn’t even try to sugarcoat it.
“If Gallego’s press conference was meant to reassure potential voters, donors and activists, it failed,” he said. “Folded arms and incomplete answers don’t shut down a story, they extend it. The party faithful will want real clarity on his relationship with Swalwell before he gets serious consideration for higher office in 2028.”
An unnamed Democratic strategist who knows Gallego personally said of his 2028 ambitions: “I think he is done.” A second anonymous strategist said Gallego’s brand – constructed around the idea of a straight-talking, authentic new kind of Democrat — “took a direct hit this week.”
The strategist continued, “He looks lost. He looks like a deer in headlights.” The same source added the observation that underscores why this moment stings so deeply for Democratic insiders: “He’s someone that Democrats were pretty invested in and that’s why it hurts.”
Despite Gallego’s growing problems, not every Democrat is ready to write him off yet. Strategist Brad Bannon argued that the Swalwell friendship “demonstrates poor judgment” but represents “not a major obstacle to the Arizona senator’s rapid rise.” Strategist Christy Setzer said Gallego “distanced himself thoroughly and effectively” from Swalwell and predicted that only Swalwell would ultimately pay a price — “unless they have similar issues of their own that have yet to be surfaced.”
And that could be a problem. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) appeared on CBS News’s The Takeout with Major Garrett and accused Gallego of his own unspecified misconduct – including allegations she described as “sexual in nature” and potential campaign finance violations.
Sen. John Thune’s office confirmed the matter was under investigation.
Thune’s office told The Hill that the material received from Luna had been referred to the Senate Ethics Committee and declined further comment. A Gallego spokesperson called the accusations “right-wing conspiracy theories being parroted by a fringe far-right member of Congress” and said that the Ethics Committee had not contacted Gallego.
The accuser Luna referenced has not yet come forward.
For now, Gallego’s relationship with Swalwell is under scrutiny, and Republicans aren’t about to let the public forget the two were tight.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the Swalwell allegations “despicable and disgusting” and singled Gallego out by name, challenging reporters to ask which Democrats knew about Swalwell’s behavior and stayed quiet. “I think it’s also quite plausible … that there were many other Democrats in this town on Capitol Hill who knew about his perhaps illegal behavior — certainly his disgusting and inappropriate behavior. And why they were silent for so long? I think those are questions that must be raised of the sitting representatives — including Mr. Gallego,” Leavitt said.
Gallego isn’t up for Senate reelection until 2030, which affords him time to recover. Whether that time is enough depends heavily on what comes next — and whether the accuser that Rep. Luna alluded to eventually steps forward.