Friends: This week, I spoke to the Democratic National Convention about my service in the Marines, how that made me who I am today, and why I am running for U.S. Senate.

And now, I am asking you to make a split donation to my campaign and Jacky Rosen’s – to defeat Donald Trump and Kari Lake in Arizona and defend all the progress we have made together.

My unit was the hardest-hit Marine battalion of the entire war. But the fight didn’t end there. Instead, my brothers and I found that we had a whole other fight ahead of us: the fight to get the care we were promised. The care we earned.

But I never lost hope. I took on the work myself. I figured out how I could get my guys recognition, their services, their disability payments. I went to Congress to change the system, to make sure it lived up to the promises we make to the people who serve, and to their families.

I slept by a burn pit while I was in Iraq, and countless others did the same. Guys I deployed with, healthy, strong guys, came down with serious illnesses because of those burn pits.

After a long, tough fight, we passed the PACT Act to provide benefits for veterans with those toxic exposures. And now, more than a million veterans from multiple generations are finally getting the help they need.

Trump had four years to get that bill done, and he didn’t. He dodged the draft himself and made some other guy take his place. He called fallen Marines from World War I buried in France “suckers” and “losers.” Just last week, he insulted the few who earned our nation's most sacred military honor, the Medal of Honor.

He and Kari Lake want you to believe our military and our veterans have no greater champion. But they don’t care about us. Theirs is the same record that landed my guys back home needing to scrape and claw for PTSD treatment, for health care, for basic dignity.

They have no place leading this nation, and after all the progress we have made together over the last few years, it is on us to do everything we can to defeat them. That’s what I told the audience at the Democratic National Convention, and that is why I am running for U.S. Senate in Arizona.

But I can’t do it alone. In everything I’ve accomplished in life, I’ve always had a team behind me. You are a critical part of that team, friends. And today, I need your help.

Please, split $5 between my campaign and Jacky Rosen’s. Trump is rallying his supporters alongside Kari Lake, and we have to raise a ton of resources to defeat them and defend Arizona.

Thank you. Semper Fi.

Ruben