As Democrats awoke to defeat last November, one candidate bucked the trend: Reuben Gallego, a former Marine and veteran, who narrowly won a Senate race in Arizona against Trump ally Kari Lake. Gallego made notable inroads with Latino and working-class voters — demographics that largely swung to Trump — positioning him as a potential frontrunner for 2028.

This week, he’s setting himself apart from fellow Democrats by taking unorthodox stances on immigration and courting unexpected allies, including a major MAGA donor. The question now is whether these moves will be seen by the Democratic base as a bold effort to expand the party’s reach — or as a betrayal, echoing Republican talking points and cozying up to the wrong crowd.

On Monday, Gallego released an extensive policy blueprint that invoked sovereignty and security from crime and drugs, underscoring the need to secure the southern border while leaving pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who meet certain criteria. As Gallego sees it: “We don’t have to choose between border security and immigration reform. We can and should do both.”

The blueprint comes on the heels of his controversial support for the GOP-backed Laken Riley Act — an anti-crime and immigration enforcement bill opposed by most Democrats, which Gallego defended as aligned with the priorities of his Arizona constituents.

Gallego’s new plan, however, is not substantively different from the centrist positions that moderate Democrats have run on in the past, including Joe Biden’s 2020 platform, which similarly advocated for fusing conservative and liberal stances. The true challenge, as the Biden team found out, emerges when it’s time to govern. In reality, entrenched interests, known as “the Groups” (i.e., NGOs and “community organisations” who claim to speak for grassroots constituencies), have been known to exert considerable influence against genuine reforms, which is why Biden pivoted to virtual open border asylum policies. At this stage, then, Gallego ought not be judged by the sharpness of his plan but by his ability to resist the inevitable backlash from the powers that be within the party. Judging by his willingness to call out “these immigration groups” as being “largely out of touch with where your average Latino is,” he appears ready to have that fight.

The policy announcement comes on the heels of Gallego’s Saturday visit to Pennsylvania (adding yet more fuel to 2028 speculation), in which he explained his earlier appearance with venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, a big booster of the Trump administration and vanguard of the “tech Right.” The Arizona Senator pushed back against what he described as the Democrats’ obsession with purity and asserted the need to build “alliances with people that we may not agree with 100% of the time.” A Gallego-led push to make Democrats more responsive to border security concerns — and more open to ties with Silicon Valley — wouldn’t necessarily mark a Rightward shift, but rather a return to the party’s stance of a decade ago, when it won under Obama: firmly rooted in the political centre.

Though other 2028 aspirants, chiefly Gavin Newsom, have also begun to walk back extreme positions, Democrats who’ve been in office as long as he has (as well as Biden alums like Pete Buttigieg), carry too much baggage. Gallego is new enough to the national spotlight that he is not saddled by an unpopular record and can define his political brand more freely. Having locked horns with both MAGA firebrands like Lake and “the Groups,” he is well-positioned to chart a course toward a new American centre.

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Michael Cuenco is a writer on policy and politics. He is Senior Editor at American Affairs.

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