Gallego’s Arizona Senate bid gets Hispanic Caucus’s first general election ad buy

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s campaign arm will make its first major general election ad buy on Wednesday, dropping $1.1 million on Spanish broadcast, radio and digital ad reservations for September to support Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in his Senate bid.

The ad buy is the single largest purchase in the history of Bold PAC, the Hispanic Caucus’s campaign arm.

“As the son of immigrants from Colombia and Mexico who grew up poor and took any job he could to help his family make ends meet, Ruben understands what Arizona families are going through. He turned to service, first as an infantryman in the Marine Corps and then as an elected official, because he wanted to give back to the country and communities that gave him so much,” said Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), a former Marine, like Gallego.

“This investment is designed to help ensure that the Latino voters in Arizona who will make the difference in this race know that he’s the one who will never stop fighting for them.”

Gallego, a former Bold PAC chairman, is running against Republican Kari Lake for the seat being vacated by Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who won the seat as a Democrat but later left the party to become an independent.

Democrats are bracing for a difficult Senate election, where they’re all but certain to lose at least one seat of their already-slim majority, and will be defending six other competitive seats where Republicans will be on the offensive.

Though 11 seats held by Republicans are up for reelection, they are all in reliably red states: Only Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) are facing any sort of substantial Democratic challenge.

Beyond the Senate race, Arizona is also a competitive state for the presidential race, and Democrats are on the offensive in the House districts held by GOP Reps. David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani, both rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report.

“A lot of people see Arizona as competitive this election cycle, and no doubt it is, but that is because of years and even decades of work on the ground. It is also very competitive this cycle because we have such a strong candidate on the ballot,” said Victoria McGroary, executive director of Bold PAC.

Though Gallego fought an uphill battle to get buy-in from national Democrats to take on Sinema, he planted a flag early to edge her out to run as an independent — rather than in the Democratic primaries — if she decided to launch a reelection bid.

Now party leadership is all in behind Gallego, a candidate tasked with raising turnout in a critical presidential battleground state.

That buy-in, with investments in English-language media, is allowing Bold PAC to target their resources on Spanish and Spanglish media, an arena currently monopolized by the group.

According to McGroary, the Bold PAC investment is the only Spanish broadcast campaign buy currently in the books in Arizona’s media markets, and reservations are filling up fast.

“We know that the Latino community is going to decide the outcomes of races up and down the ballot, including the Arizona Senate race. And so as we are placing our reservations and designing our strategy, everything is focused on how are we communicating directly with the Latino voters that are going to make the difference in this race,” said McGroary.

“Spanish is a huge priority for us. Spanglish is also a huge priority for us, and making sure that we’re reaching out to the Latino community, especially online, digitally, you know, where folks are getting their news, where they’re getting their information, so that we are connecting with them directly where they are, how they want to consume.”