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Rubén Marinelarena Gallego ( ; born November 20, 1979) is an American politician serving since 2025 as the junior United States senator from Arizona. A member of the Democratic Party, he served from 2015 to 2025 as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona and from 2011 to 2014 as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives.
Gallego was first elected to Congress in 2014. He was critical of Senator Kyrsten Sinema for her opposition to filibuster reform and some Democratic legislation. Democrats and liberal organizations encouraged him to run against Sinema, and in January 2023, Gallego announced his candidacy for the 2024 United States Senate election in Arizona. Sinema did not seek reelection. Gallego defeated the Republican nominee, Kari Lake, in the general election.
Gallego is the first Latino to be elected to represent Arizona in the United States Senate. After taking office on January 3, 2025, he became one of the first two Colombian-American U.S. senators, along with Republican Bernie Moreno of Ohio.
In 2007, Gallego led District 7 Phoenix City Council candidate Michael Nowakowski's successful campaign before serving as Nowakowski's chief of staff. Tone of District 7 race leaves hard feelings. The Arizona Republic. November 10, 2007. In 2009, he stepped down as chief of staff to focus on his campaign for the Arizona State House in District 16, which he won in 2010.Wong, Scott (November 25, 2009). Nowakowski's top aide to run for House. The Arizona Republic.
In 2011, The Arizona Republic named Gallego a distinguished freshman lawmaker. His first successful bill granted in-state tuition status to veterans residing in Arizona. Gallego supported the repeal of Arizona SB 1070. In 2012, Gallego was elected assistant minority leader.
Gallego founded the group Citizens for Professional Law Enforcement to recall Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, citing Arpaio's immigration policies and his use of taxpayer money to investigate Barack Obama's citizenship. The recall failed; Arpaio remained in office until losing reelection in 2016. Gallego worked for Strategies 360 as Director of Latino and New Media operations. He also worked for RIESTER, one of Arizona's largest public relations firms.
Gallego won a five-way Democratic primary with 48.9% of the vote, defeating Mary Rose Wilcox, who was retiring congressman Ed Pastor's choice to succeed him and was backed by a number of progressive groups. Gallego went on to win the general election with 74.9% of the vote. He is the second Colombian American elected to the U.S. House, after Scott Perry.
Gallego served as the national chair of Eric Swalwell's 2020 presidential campaign. He endorsed Kamala Harris after Swalwell dropped out, and Joe Biden after Harris dropped out.
In the 117th United States Congress, Gallego voted in line with Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time.
In 2022, Gallego bought a home near Capitol Hill using a special mortgage loan program for military veterans. He claimed the District of Columbia home as his primary residence although his campaign maintains that he resides in his Phoenix home. Gallego receives a homeowner rebate in Arizona that lowers the tax burdens for residents who primarily live in the state. Politico noted that Gallego "may have to explain why he declared he was primarily a resident of the nation's capital".
Though he had previously embraced his progressive background as "a fierce liberal combatant", he moved to the political center in his 2024 campaign to woo swing voters. He once called Donald Trump's border wall plans "stupid" and accused Trump of "scapegoating immigrants". His campaign emphasized his Marine Corps service and combat experience in Iraq, positioning him as a moderate voice on national security issues to appeal to independent voters. He distanced himself from progressive positions he had held in his House career, focusing instead on economic issues and border security. The New York Times wrote, "Gallego has built a reputation as a blunt-spoken liberal who is politically in tune with young progressives and lacerates his opponents with profane social media posts." Republicans in Arizona highlighted his co-sponsorship of the Medicare for All Act, his support for ending the Senate filibuster, and his suggestion to "take a scalpel" to military spending. In 2018, Gallego rallied alongside Bernie Sanders, and in 2022 he called himself "a true progressive voice in Congress". By 2024, he no longer embraced the label "progressive". He let his membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus lapse, which he claimed was a financial decision.
On November 9, 2024, Decision Desk HQ projected that Gallego had beaten Lake in the Senate election in Arizona. On November 12, the Associated Press also projected that he had defeated Lake. Gallego significantly outperformed Kamala Harris, winning by 2.4% while Harris lost the 2024 United States presidential election in Arizona by 5.5%.
During the government shutdown of October 2025, Vice President JD Vance called for revisiting Reagan-era emergency care standards, saying that many Americans had experienced situations where "illegal aliens" unable to speak English received care before citizens in emergency rooms. In response, Gallego told Semafor, "We are open to passing laws that deny benefits, subsidies, or any assistance to individuals in the country illegally", but he raised concerns about the practical implications, saying that if emergency rooms were forced to turn away patients who couldn't provide identification, the people most likely to be denied care would be those who appear Latino or Asian.
After the killing of Renée Good amid Trump's mass deportation campaign, Gallego opposed Abolish ICE and compared it to defund the police. He said that Americans want a "slimmed-down ICE"
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In January 2026, after federal immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, Gallego announced he would vote against the Department of Homeland Security funding bill. In an Fox News op-ed, he called Pretti's shooting "murder", writing that agents "shot over 10 times in five seconds" while Pretti was "lying on the ground, unarmed, and posed no threat". Gallego contrasted the agents' actions with his military training to deescalate situations and said he would not vote "to give ICE more taxpayer money to terrorize our communities". Gallego and Senator Mark Kelly introduced the Stop Excessive Force in Immigration Act of 2026, which would establish use-of-force standards emphasizing deescalation, require body camera, and mandate reporting on force incidents.
Gallego married Sydney Barron in 2021. Barron is a lobbyist for the National Association of Realtors. Gallego and Barron have two children together.
In 2021, Gallego and Jim DeFelice wrote They Called Us "Lucky": The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq War's Hardest Hit Unit, a memoir of Gallego's service in the war as a member of the U.S. Marines Third Battalion, Twenty-Fifth Marine Regiment, Lima Company.
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