Journalists’ Roundtable: Sen. Gallego goes to Iowa, 2028 presidential buzz grows

It’s Friday, which means it is time for another edition of Journalists’ Roundtable. This week, “Arizona Horizon” host Ted Simons was joined by Howie Fischer from Capitol Media Services, Jim Small from Arizona Mirror and Jeremy Duda from Axios Phoenix.

This week’s topics:

• Senator Ruben Gallego planning trip to Iowa, a key 2028 presidential primary state
• Another candidate joins race for open seat in Congressional District 1 (CD1)
• Department of Economic Security renews appointee’s $170,000 contract despite layoffs
• Unspent funds in Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) sparks debate
• Lawmakers defend law requiring 24-hour wait for abortion
• Famous political cartoonist Steve Benson dead at 71

Senator Ruben Gallego planning trip to Iowa, a key 2028 presidential primary state:

Howie Fischer: “I think he’s trying to raise his profile, I think he sees that somewhere down the road…having a progressive hispanic person on the ticket, perhaps even as a vice president would be helpful…it’s a possibility but I think he’s just trying to raise his profile.”

Jeremy Duda: “I think they are looking for new faces, I think that’s why you’re seeing a lot of attention on Senator Gallego right now…for years he was in this very blue district…now that he’s statewide, he ran on a very centrist moderate message…he’s pushing a lot of the messages looking to kind of correct some of the things a lot of democrats think it cost them last year.”

Another candidate joins race for open seat in Congressional District 1 (CD1):

Jim Small: “David Schweikert has been vulnerable for several cycles now, I think Democrats have had the District on their short list for quite a while trying to take it out…if the tides shift and you can be that person who is right there then you can be the one to knock off that person.”

Unspent funds in Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) sparks debate:

Jim Small: “There is not oversight on it, by design…there are not many guardrails on who can get the money or what the money will be spent on, by design…this is working the way that the Republicans who built the system want it to work which is to essentially work as a parallel school system, and essentially rob from the government and give back to the people.”