Kari Lake and Ruben Gallego’s Bruising Debate: Five Key Moments

Arizona Senate rivals Kari Lake and Ruben Gallego, currently a Democratic House Representative, clashed repeatedly on Wednesday in what is expected to be their only face-to-face debate of the campaign.

The pair exchanged fiery barbs over a range of issues including abortion, U.S. aid to Ukraine and whether Republican Lake legitimately lost the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election during the event organized by the nonpartisan Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.

Lake and Gallego are vying for the Senate seat occupied since 2019 by Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who was elected as a Democrat and remains aligned with her old party for committee purposes.

There are currently 51 Senators aligned with the Democrats versus 49 Republicans, with the GOP hoping to take control of the upper chamber after a disappointing performance at the 2022 midterm elections. Sinema is not seeking reelection and the battle for her seat is widely expected to be one of the key contests determining which party controls the Senate from January 2025.

Polling suggests Gallego enjoys a comfortable lead, with recent RMG Research and Redfield & Wilton Strategies polls putting him ahead by 10 points and six points respectively, although both also put Donald Trump narrowly ahead of Kamala Harris, by four points and one point respectively, for the presidential election in Arizona.

Speaking to Newsweek about Wednesday’s debate, a Lake campaign spokesperson said: “Tonight’s debate was a clear victory for Kari Lake. Kari was able to effectively expose Gallego’s decade-long radical record in Congress, and lay out her plan to solve the issues that he has caused. Ruben Gallego failed to defend his record or his flip-flops on the issues. We couldn’t be more proud of Arizona’s next Senator, Kari Lake.”

Newsweek contacted Representative Gallego’s Senate campaign for comment via email on Thursday outside of regular office hours.

Here are five key moments from the debate:

2022 Gubernatorial Election

Gallego and Lake clashed over the Republican candidate’s continued insistence that she was the legitimate victory of the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, which she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs. Lake launched a number of legal challenges seeking to overturn the 2022 election but these were rejected in court.

During Wednesday’s debate Gallego turned to Lake, commenting: “She’s still in denial about the 2022 election. I give you one minute, you have one minute, will you firmly tell the people of Arizona did you win or lose that election?”

Lake declined to answer the question directly, instead commenting about water access in Arizona.

Abortion

Gallego targeted Lake over abortion, noting her support for the 2022 Supreme Court judgment overturning Roe v. Wade and her previous praise for a near-total abortion ban in Arizona in the 1860s.

He said: “This is a person who only two years ago, actually less than two years ago, said that 1864 territorial law, a law that said if you were an abortion provider it was a mandatory two-year sentence and they had no exceptions for rape or incest, was a great law … She said she was thrilled when Roe was overturned.”

Lake, who in September vowed she “will not support a federal ban on abortion,” hit back commenting: “I don’t want any woman out there to make that choice because she can’t afford to live because of the votes that people like Ruben Gallego have made that have made our economy practically collapse. It’s on life support right now. So I want to go to the U.S. Senate and pass the most pro-family legislation.”

Ukraine

Lake claimed Gallego had “sold us out to Ukraine” over his House vote in April that backed providing an additional $60 million in military aid to the embattled nation which Russia launched a full scale invasion of in February 2022.

She said: “Ruben Gallego voted to send another $60 billion to Ukraine and after he made that vote he sashayed around the floor of Congress waving a Ukrainian flag.

“I want to ask the veterans out there can you ever imagine standing on the floor of Congress, standing anywhere, and waving the flag of another country? … He sold us out, he sold us out to Ukraine.”

Lake calls IVF ‘UVF’

Lake expressed strong support for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, but referred to it as UVF three times.

She said: “I want to make sure that UVF is protected. I have many friends who are here, they’re my friends today because of UVF and I have many of my friends who have had children and experienced the joy of motherhood and parenthood because of UVF.”

Immigration

Lake hit out at Gallego over comments he made in 2017 when he described Trump’s proposed border wall as “stupid” and instead linked him to the current administration’s immigration policy.

She said: “We need somebody who understands the threat on the border, and I do, and President Trump does, and on day one we’re going to get busy undoing the damage caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Ruben Gallego, who’s voted with them 100 percent of the time.”

Gallego repeatedly asked Lake if she supports deporting ‘Dreamers’—undocumented migrants who arrived in the U.S. as children—to which she replied: “No.”

Lake added: “President Trump wanted to make a deal when it came to Dreamers. You said no.

“Unfortunately, the radical Democrats, like my opponent, would rather use people as political pawns. I want to secure the border.”