Sen. Ruben Gallego was blunt when asked if he was running for president in 2028.
"Has it ever crossed my mind? F---ing of course," the Arizona Democrat told NBC News. "I'm an elected official, it crosses my mind. Am I thinking about it right now? Absolutely not."
Gallego, who was elected to the senate last year, is in Bucks County, Pennsylvania to hold a town hall on Saturday. He insisted he was in Pennsylvania to talk about preserving Medicaid and pushing back on President Donald Trump's tariffs, but said to NBC News people have encouraged him to think about a presidential run.
"Big donors, big organizations, well-known political big Democratic operatives that have encouraged me to run. I'm not denying that," Gallego said.
But with his wife expecting a baby next month, Gallego said he is not considering a run.
"I just told you about my third kid coming. I'm just a brand-new senator," he told NBC News. "I need to do both jobs well, and those are two very hard jobs. Being the father is the hardest one."
In Arizona, Gallego won a swing state that also voted for Trump, well outperforming Harris among Latinos, especially young men. He believes he can bring back working class people who have abandoned the party.
"They want to hear that there is a message that Democrats can deliver that can bring the party back to a winning situation — bring back working-class people, because that's where we're really getting f---ed and losing votes," Gallego said to NBC News. "I'm the person that has worked those hard jobs and has had to figure out how to make ends meet, how to string a couple paychecks together, to pay rent and everything else like that. And I think people want to hear from Democrats like me."
Gallego has bucked many in his party by pushing for stronger enforcement of the border and taking a more hardline stance on immigration. He praised the Trump administration for the sharp drop in border crossings since Trump took office.
"I think there's still a lot of elements within our party that take a very knee-jerk reaction to border security and think that any type of border security is somehow acquiescing to the right, when, in fact, the base Democratic voter has a more both nuanced and mainstream position than the Republicans have," Gallego said to NBC News.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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