Republicans have long counted veterans as reliable GOP voters. But U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat who has made multiple trips to Texas this month, is working to bring them into the Democratic fold ahead of the upcoming midterms as President Donald Trump pursues an unpopular war in Iran.
Gallego told a veteran-heavy crowd of 300 at San Antonio’s Stable Hall this week that the Trump administration has been “the worst to veterans in the history of this country.”
“The working class of America are going to war for the bone spur elites of this country,” he said, referencing the medical condition that exempted Trump from the Vietnam War draft. “And it’s disgusting.”
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Gallego, a Marine Corps veteran who deployed to Iraq in 2005, has emerged as a prominent Democratic messenger on Latino outreach and veterans’ issues during his first term representing a long-red state in the Senate. He previously rallied with Democratic gubernatorial nominee and state Rep. Gina Hinojosa in Houston days before the March 4 primary and has traveled the country stumping for other candidates as Democrats grow increasingly optimistic about their chances in November.
In an interview with Hearst Newspapers, Gallego pointed to his electoral success in Arizona as a model for Texas. While the former state representative and congressman once called himself a progressive, he went against his party to support stronger border security measures during his 2024 Senate campaign. He won that race by 2.4 percentage points, outperforming Harris by more than 7 points.
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“Not too long ago, people used to talk about Arizona like they used to talk about Texas, a state that wasn’t going to change,” he said at a town hall hosted by progressive advocacy group VoteVets on Monday. “People didn’t want to believe in it. But I’m telling you, it’s coming.”
Attendees listen during a VoteVets town hall with Sen. Ruben Gallego at Stable Hall in San Antonio on March 23.
Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News
Republican voter Glenn Sammis, a 78-year-old Army veteran and former chaplain, asks a question during the town hall on Monday night. Sammis, who said he won’t renew his membership in a Republican organization until “it’s the Republican party again,” asked how he can get his senators’ attention. He told said in an interview that Trump should have sought Congressional approval before going to war.
Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News
No Democrat has won statewide since 1994. But the party is nonetheless optimistic that a midterm election expected to be bruising for the GOP can be their chance.
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Gallego made the case that Trump’s campaign against Iran will help. He called it a “stupid war” and compared it to the U.S.’s nearly nine years of combat in Iraq.
“The most patriotic thing you can do for veterans is to not send us to stupid wars,” he said.
The town hall comes at a pivotal point for the U.S. military, as thousands of marines deploy to ships in the Middle East as part of Trump’s joint offensive with Israel against Iranian targets. Pentagon officials are planning to deploy roughly 3,000 airborne troops as well, according to media reports.
The death toll from the war had risen to more than 1,500 people in Iran, more than 1,000 people in Lebanon, 15 in Israel and 13 U.S. military members by Tuesday, according to the AP.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has framed the conflict as a limited campaign aimed at neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program and military capabilities. He rejected comparisons to Iraq, saying it is “not a regime-change war.”
Gallego’s comments stand in sharp contrast with those of Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, who have supported Trump’s actions in Iran.
Cruz urged the president to launch the attack on Iran in a one-on-one conversation the day before Trump did so, he said in an interview with the podcast Triggernometry on Sunday.
“The regime is weaker than it ever has been,” Cruz said he told Trump after the president asked his advice during a one-on-one conversation during Trump’s visit to Corpus Christi. “There are very few things on planet Earth that would improve American national security as much as seeing this regime collapse.”
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Cornyn said on Feb. 28 that he was proud of the strikes against Iran and believed it would be a “pretty short” campaign.
Meanwhile, Democrats have jumped at the chance to criticize Republicans for rising gas prices that have resulted from the instability in the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 40% of voters support military action in Iran, and more than half of Republican voters oppose sending U.S. ground troops into the country, according to a poll of 1,002 voters released March 9 by Quinnipiac University.
Gallego argued the administration has failed to clearly define its objectives and warned of the long-term human cost of war, recounting his best friend’s death while they were both serving in Iraq. Two audience members shared they had lost siblings in Iraq, and another, the wife of an Army veteran, lamented the suicides of two San Antonians outside of the local office of Veterans’ Affairs.
Lidia Martinez asks a question during a VoteVets town hall with Sen. Gallego in San Antonio on Monday night.
Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News
Leonard Volellinger asks Sen. Gallego a question during the town hall held at Stable Hall on Monday night.
Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News
“We need to make sure the people of this country understand what the true burden of war is, because it doesn’t end,” Gallego said at the rally. “I don’t want any other human, any other American, to have to go through that again.”
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Gallego also criticized the Trump administration for reducing the VA’s workforce by around 30,000 staff members in 2025, which took place after it originally planned to lay off 83,000 workers, the Washington Post reported.
Local Republican leaders disagree. Bexar County GOP Chair Kris Coons argued voters overwhelmingly view Republicans as stronger on the military and urging patience on VA restructuring.
Veterans “might feel a pinch in the beginning because of the restructuring, but I believe the overall plan is to make it more efficient,” Coons said in a phone interview with Hearst.
Coons said she was supportive of the strike and its objectives. Asked if she felt the campaign was worth the sacrifice of American lives, she said, “I don’t think (the military) looks at it like that.”
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“They take an oath to protect us, and they know what that entails,” she said. “We hope there are as few people lost as possible, and that’s the ultimate goal.”
Democratic State Rep. Josey Garcia, an Air Force veteran from San Antonio, also attended the town hall, as did John Lira, a former Democratic Congressional candidate who deployed to Iraq in the same battalion as Gallego.
Adam Castillo, with Northwest Democrats, at the VoteVets town hall with Sen. Ruben Gallego at Stable Hall in San Antonio on Monday, March 23, 2026.
Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News