With the battle for the narrative of who benefits from a three-way race for Arizona's U.S. Senate seat in 2024 raging, the Republicans are launching a double-negative attack ad bank shot against presumptive Democratic nominee Ruben Gallego and incumbent-possible-independent-candidate Kyrsten Sinema. While the attacks against Sinema are predictable ("liberal Democrat"), the NRSC lobbed FALSE invective against Gallego.
Polling is consistently showing Gallego winning the likely three-way race against former Democrat Sinema and Republican frontrunner Kari Lake. What is less clear is whether Sinema draws more from the Republican or the Democrat in such a race.
The National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) announced a digital advertisement - meaning we do not know how much money, if any, is really being spent on it - today. By knocking Sinema as a "liberal Democrat" who votes with Biden, they are trying to prevent Republicans from sliding to Sinema AND they are trying to make it more palatable for Democrat to vote for her.
The attacks on Gallego are also supposed to slide more Democrats to Sinema. However, their pickings in that category were slim.
The first attack was that he "ripped off immigrants". This laughable conclusion cites an Arizona Republic article from this past March, which details Gallego's small involvement in helping a man who was going to create a bank focusing on the needs of undocumented immigrants in the Latino community. The bank never got off the ground, and the man is repaying the six investors. Gallego did not recruit investors, according to the cited Corporation Commission Order.
The second attack was calling Gallego a "deadbeat dad". That term has a very specific definition in the public sphere as someone who has not paid their required child support. There have been no allegations by Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego that her ex has ever had such an issue, and in fact, both have indicated that their parenting of their young son has been amicable.
Fact Check Conclusion: The NRSC has lobbed two FALSE accusations at Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.
The ad was first reported on and linked by Politico.
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