Does Gallego Win Signal Latino Voting Surge?

Ruben Gallego

By: AZLatinos.com staff

Phoenix– It was not so much that a relatively political newcomer like Ruben Gallego beat Latina political icon Mary Rose Wilcox for the CD7 Congressional seat, but how he did it … and what that might mean for Latino political clout in Arizona.  

Gallego, 34, who grew up in the Chicago area and moved to Arizona less than a decade ago, had served fewer than two terms as a state Representative. Wilcox had more than three decades of elected office under her belt, plus the endorsement of the incumbent congressman, Rep. Ed Pastor – himself the top Latino elected official in Arizona for decades.  

He did it by engaging young volunteers – heavily weighted with Latinos – who went door to door in the sprawling Phoenix and West Valley district, connecting with voters face to face and driving home the message that each vote matters.  

It was a campaign that mirrored the one run a couple of years ago by Phoenix City Councilman Danny Valenzuela in an area with considerable overlap – one that drew the attention of the national media for its embrace of young, heretofore uninvolved Latino volunteers, some of whom were not even eligible to vote themselves.  

Some blamed Wilcox’s loss on her long tenure, which in addition to name recognition can bring high negatives.  Others lauded Gallego’s quick and modern campaign – he was the first to announce (and did so in true Information Age fashion, on Twitter, and he rounded up a plethora of union endorsements.  

Latinos have long  been considered an electoral sleeping giant enormously under-represented in the voting booth – particularly compared to groups like seniors, who routinely top the charts in voting turn-out.  

And Gallego, in his victory speech, talked of a resurgence of political strength, speaking of hope and asking for more to jump on the bandwagon.  

“Join us on this journey,” Gallegos said to cheers on election night. “We are here to bring the American dream back.”  

The question is whether the campaign and enthusiasm is a trend that will grow, or at least continue, or whether it’s just a couple of races that may not indicate anything.

As conservative Republic columnist Doug MacEachern noted, the most interesting Latino race of the primary season in a heavily Latino district could only muster about 24,000 votes among four candidates.  (Compare that to the contested primary in Southern Arizona’s District 2, where three Republican candidates – none of whom have ever been elected to office in Arizona — split more than 58,000 votes.)  

If Latino voters can’t drive more voters than this race, MacEachern pondered, how excited can they really be about engaging in politics?  

Two dots on a chart don’t automatically make a trend, but the convincing Gallegos win, coming after a similar successful campaign by Valenzuela in Phoenix, surely will make Latinos and non-Latinos pay greater attention to the potential for that ethnic voting bloc to take its long-predicted place in Arizona and American electoral politics going forward.  

In an Arizona legislative race of interest to Latino voters, former legislator Rebecca Rios – daughter of former Senate President and current Pinal County Supervisor Pete Rios – bested a field of five candidates, including  Norma Munoz, the incumbent  who was appointed to replace Gallego when he resigned to run for Congress, and Marcelino Quinonez.