- Rep. Gallego is locked in a close Senate race with Republican Kari Lake
- NRSC ad slams Gallego for leaving his pregnant wife in 2016
- Recent polls show Gallego Lake leading on the battlefield
The Republican Senate campaign arm is out with a scathing new ad accusing Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego of being a “deadbeat dad” as the battle for the Senate heats up in battleground states.
“One of life’s greatest joys, growing older, but days before that life-changing moment, Ruben Gallego left his family and abandoned his newborn son,” the narrator says.
She continues, “If beaten-to-death father Ruben Gallego were to abandon his own family, he won’t be there for the people of Arizona when it matters most.”
Gallego, a Democratic congresswoman representing Arizona’s third district, is locked in a nail-biting Senate race against Republican firebrand Kari Lake.
The Real Clear Politics average of polls in the race shows Gallego with a six-point lead over Lake.
Arizona is a key battleground in November, not only in the presidential race but also for the Senate seat, as Republicans look to regain the majority.
The NRSC released a 30-second political ad attacking Rep. Gallego for leaving his wife while she was pregnant in 2016
Senate candidate Ruben Gallego speaks at an event with Vice President Kamala Harris on April 12
Gallego is in a close race with Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake
The 30-second ad was published by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
“Arizona women cannot trust a man who divorced his wife when she was weeks away from giving birth to their child,” NRSC spokesperson Tate Mitchell said in a statement.
Gallego and ex-wife Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego split in 2016 while she was pregnant.
Gallego married Sydney Barron in 2021 and they welcomed a daughter last July.
Despite their divorce, Mayor Gallego, a Democrat, endorsed Gallego late last year in his bid in the Senate to fill the seat vacated by retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
In her December 2023 endorsement, Mayor Gallego said he would do an “excellent job.”
Rep. Gallego’s attorneys have been fighting with the Free Beacon to keep his divorce papers from being made public.
Both Ruben and Kate Gallego have said little publicly about their decision to split, calling it a private matter.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego speaks at the Capitol on April 9. Despite her split with Rep. Gallego in 2016 while pregnant, she endorsed him in the November Senate race
Gallego, an Iraq War veteran, has said it happened at a time when he was suffering from PTSD-induced “outbursts.”
The congressman has been more open about his battle with PTSD. He has said that a desire to be a better father drove him to seek treatment.
Lake has attacked her opponent several times over the timing of his divorce.
“I don’t want to be taught about motherhood by a man who left his wife when she was nine months pregnant with his first child,” she wrote in a post on X last year.
The new ad used images of a pregnant woman and ultrasound images.
It comes as Democrats have come under heavy attack on Lake for their flip-flops on abortion, as the issue took center stage in the Arizona race after the state Supreme Court ruled that an 1864 law banning nearly all abortion could be enforced.
Gallego went after Lake for criticizing the 1864 ban following the state Supreme Court’s decision after she called it a “big law” when she ran for governor in 2022.
Lake responded to his attacks by reposting those who condemned Gallego for his divorce.
One repost said: ‘He is not and never has been pro-woman or pro-family.’
Another repost read: ‘Why did you abandon your pregnant wife, Ruben?’