Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), the 2024 Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate in Arizona, is facing increasing scrutiny over his Mexican father’s criminal behavior, both past and present. Jose Angel Marinelarena was arrested on March 3, 2024, for battery after assaulting his landlady in Chicago, Illinois. Additionally, Gallego admitted last week that his father is a “convicted drug dealer.”
According to an arrest report obtained by investigative journalist Laura Loomer, Jose Angel Marinelarena punched Edyta Jagas twice in the face this past Spring after the woman confronted him over unpaid rent. Additionally, the 69-year-old Marinelarena, a Mexican immigrant, has a prior conviction for drug trafficking with alleged ties to the violent Juarez cartel in Mexico. Gallego claims that he has no relationship with his father.
Gallego’s Republican opponent, Kari Lake, has repeatedly blasted the Democratic Congressman for his support for the Biden-Harris government’s open borders policies. In addition, Lake has raised Marinelarena’s ties to the Mexican drug cartels, suggesting Gallego and his father’s relationship might not be as distant as the Congressman suggests.
“We need to be calling out what [Gallego] is about. I want to confront the cartels… I want to end the cartels,” Lake said at a news conference last Saturday. “He will never confront the cartels; he is controlled by them. He has close family members who are drug traffickers.”
Polling in the Arizona Senate election shows a tight race. The latest survey has Gallego narrowly leading with 50 percent of the vote to Lake’s 46 percent. Meanwhile, President Donald J. Trump has consistently led Vice President Kamala Harris in the state—raising concerns among Democrats that Trump’s coattails could be enough to secure a win for Lake as well.
Image by Gage Skidmore.
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