EDS: Cronkite School journalists profiled candidates for Phoenix City Council and the Maricopa County sheriff race. You can find all the profiles here. 

By Armond Sarduy
Special for Cronkite News

• Candidate name: Kate Gallego
• Political affiliation: Democratic
• Position sought: Second term for mayor
• Age: 43
• Career: 62nd mayor of Phoenix, Phoenix City Council District 8

“Keep Kate Gallego our Mayor.” Those signs are sprinkled across Phoenix as Gallego is seeking another term in the Nov. 5 election.

The mayor officially launched her re-election campaign on May 23, asking voters to give her four more years to work on the city’s economy, sustainability, parks and public safety. In a video announcement on social media, she took credit for notable achievements through her tenure, including a $65 million investment by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. for a north Phoenix plant; a new medical school at ASU’s downtown Phoenix campus; and ongoing efforts to improve homelessness and heat resilience efforts.

“We’ve done all of this while making record improvements to our city’s parks and infrastructure, prioritizing public safety and supporting our first responders,” Gallego said in the video.

“Join me as we continue our work building a Phoenix of the future: a sustainable, thriving city where anyone can get ahead,” Gallego posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

But her journey started in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Who was Kate Gallego before her career in public service?

According to the Albuquerque Journal, Gallego is the daughter of attorneys Jim Widland and Julie Neerken and was raised Jewish.

In a 2018 interview, she told Phoenix Magazine that she suffered from asthma as a child, which made air quality important to her, as well as issues related to fairness.

“It seems unfair to have bad air quality and breathing problems,” Gallego said.

Her childhood experience eventually influenced her to attend Harvard University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies.

After graduation, Gallego moved to Phoenix in 2004 to work a slew of jobs, including positions with the Arizona Democratic Party and the Arizona Office of Tourism. Gallego also worked for Salt River Project in strategic planning and economic development and with former Arizona Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.

In 2010, she married Congressman Ruben Gallego, now a U.S. Senate candidate.The couple divorced in 2017, before the birth of their son, Michael.

‘The city could do a better job’: How Gallego took on politics

She told Phoenix Magazine in 2018 that her frustration grew with politicians while working for SRP.

“I felt like we could do so much more on economic development and that we ought to be more intentional about how we grow and where,” Gallego said. “I also felt the city could do a better job providing even services to every part of the city. I felt like we ought to invest in infrastructure everywhere, and that every part of the city deserved great amenities.”

In 2012, she earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Through her education and experience, she found her way to public office after being elected to the City Council in 2013 – the only woman at the time. Gallego represented District 8, which includes parts of downtown and south Phoenix.

She was reelected in 2017 after running unopposed.

But Gallego had her eyes on a higher seat: mayor of Phoenix, a position that was up for grabs after former Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton resigned to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gallego was first elected mayor in November 2018 in a special election, defeating then fellow City Council member and Democrat Daniel Valenzuela. She would become the second woman elected mayor of Phoenix after Margaret T. Hance, who served 1976-1983.

“I don’t think it ever crossed my mind that she would be running to be mayor of Phoenix,” her father said in a 2019 Phoenix New Times interview. “I thought she would do something where she showed leadership, it just never dawned on me that she would come to Phoenix and run for mayor.”

Gallego ran again in November 2020 and won her first full term.

Merissa Hamilton, a Libertarian write-in candidate, was Gallego’s closest opponent. Hamilton received 26.29% of votes, while Gallego received 60.7%.

Gallego could not be reached for an interview. The following information comes from her campaign website, as well as previously published comments.

Housing

In an effort to create affordable housing, Gallego supported a measure allowing single-family homeowners to build a casita in their backyard. The mayor and council voted 8-1 to approve it in September 2023.
“It is now much easier to build a casita at your Phoenix home,” Gallego said.

In May, Gallego, along with the City Council, approved more than $9 million in federal funding to help create or preserve hundreds of affordable housing units. The money will go toward six different properties across the city that will create 279 new affordable units and save 153 units as affordable housing.

“In Phoenix, we are working with urgency to ensure that everyone has a safe, affordable place to call home,” Gallego said in a written statement. “The critical federal funding we approved today will enable developers to build or preserve housing across the city so more families in our community can access stable housing for decades to come.”

Phoenix officials aim to create or preserve 50,000 affordable housing units by 2030.

Transportation

In June 2022, the Phoenix City Council unanimously passed the Transportation Electrification Action Plan, known as the “EV Roadmap.”
The goal: 280,000 electric vehicles on Phoenix streets by 2030.

“We often call it the EV Roadmap because that is exactly what it does – it charts a path for us to get 280,000 EVs on Phoenix roads by the year 2030,” Gallego said in a statement. “EVs matter because they are the road to our future.”

The plan also wants to increase EV use by installing 500 public charging stations, converting some city vehicles to electric, and more.

“The future of mobility is happening now in Phoenix, and we are investing to be top in the nation for a concentration of manufacturers and parts providers that will create quality jobs for our residents,” Gallego said.

Climate change

During her tenure as mayor, Phoenix has taken steps to counter the extreme heat, which is aggravated by climate change.

In 2020, Gallego introduced the “Cool Pavement” program to reduce the impact of the “urban heat island” effect.

Through the program, a light-colored coating is applied to the existing pavement to reflect sunlight and absorb less heat. It results in a surface that’s cooler than traditional asphalt, like sunscreen for the road.

In 2021, she supported the first Heat Response and Mitigation Office to address the growing issue of urban heat. She told Constructing a Sustainable Future in an interview that she believed “people are policy” in government and wanted to allocate the right staff to respond to the crisis.

“For heat, it became apparent that we were facing a governance gap. It wasn’t clear who was responsible for [the] heat,” Gallego said. “We wanted a permanent office to ensure full-time focus on heat and to serve as an organizer of ideas we receive from residents and city employees.”

Mayoral elections in the city of Phoenix are nonpartisan, although Gallego is a member of the Democratic Party.

She’s running against Matt Evans. If either candidate fails to get more than 50% of the vote in the election, a runoff will be held on March 11, 2025.

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