Riding a wave of momentum from recent off-year election wins, state and local Democrats gathered Thursday in Washington, D.C., to discuss where the party should go, even if it isn’t backed by the national brand.
An up-and-comer in the party, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego said Democratic candidates need to show their authenticity to voters.
Gallego, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015-2025, now serves Arizona in Congress’ upper chamber. He was one of the few bright spots for the Democrats in 2024, winning a highly contested Senate seat in a swing state.
He had advice for Democrats planning to run in the 2026 midterm elections, to visit as many voters as they could.
“Arizona is a big state … there’s a reason it’s called the Grand Canyon, because it is really grand, but if you want to get to some of these communities and you don’t want to get blown out, you need to show up,” Gallego said. “We got on the road and we went everywhere.”
The senator noted that, while campaigning, he visited with nearly every Native American tribe in the state, including the Havasupai Tribe, which lives at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Gallego said he hiked down and asked for their votes. He went to the furthest rural corners of the state and made sure voters knew he was focused on issues they cared about.
Gallgo is an alumnus of the NewDEAL Coalition, a group of center-left state and local elected leaders across the country. He delivered remarks at the organization’s 15th annual conference to energize and inspire state and local Democrats ahead of next year’s elections.
The coalition’s goal is to elevate and connect the ideas of Democrats who make “sustainable progress.” The group labels Gallego as a lawmaker that’s shaping the future of the party “from the ground up.”
After brutal 2024 election losses, the Democratic Party did in fact seem like it was at “the ground.”
In the year since, the party has examined where its message went so wrong with voters. NewDEAL believes it can learn from lawmakers like Gallego, who outperformed the top of the ticket and had messages that resonated with voters more than former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Gallego, Arizona’s first Latino senator, beat his Republican challenger, Kari Lake, 50.1% to 47.7% in 2024. He was the leading Democrat in the state to win last year, after President Donald Trump secured a 5.5 percentage-point victory over Harris.
He achieved that victory, he said, because he knew what was important to voters and implemented it into his campaign authentically.
“I had to bring a lot of my own experience and override the kind of D.C. hive mind,” Gallego said. “You know your district better than the people that are running your campaign. You may not think it, you may not feel it, but you do. And you have to go with your gut.”
Gallego’s gut told him that he could embrace different parts of his identity.
He said he felt he could earn both suburban and working class voters, white and Latino voters, while simultaneously appealing to veterans, people who were concerned about affordability and those concerned about immigration at the state’s border with Mexico, he said.
“You have to be yourself,” he said. “You have to trust what you know about your state.”
Too many Democrats failed in 2024 because they were focused on making Washington-based donors or those in a political bubble happy, not the people who cast ballots, Gallego said.
With Democrats eyeing the 2026 midterm elections, candidates are likely looking at what were the winning messages in 2025. Democratic candidates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill each won their gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, as voters said they were casting ballots based on the economy, cost of living and affordability.
Gallego argued that their wins were proof that Democratic candidates can do something new and resonate with voters more than they have in recent years.
“When you’re out there and you’re campaigning, No. 1, be authentic,” he said. “If you’re a nerd, be a nerd. If you’re a technocrat, be a technocrat … but don’t be afraid of throwing out issues and seeing where they land, and if they don’t land, move on.”
“Voters are actually more forgiving than you think,” Gallego added.