As election season hits its final stretch, and politicians are at each other’s throats even more than usual, a group of well-meaning Arizonans has an ambitious message:
Let’s all just get along.
A new video series called “AZ Together” pairs Arizonans on opposite sides of the political aisle — or university rivalry — to encourage people to listen to those they disagree with.
One of the professionally produced videos pairs former Democratic Congressman Ron Barber with former Republican Congressman Matt Salmon. Another brings together student leaders from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona.
The message across all four pairings is largely the same: You can disagree with someone politically and still respect them.
It’s a worthwhile message, and one our political discourse could certainly use more of. Unfortunately, it feels a bit at odds with the current political reality.
After a protester was punched in the face at a Trump rally on Monday, the president said the woman “needs to go on a diet” as she was dragged out of the venue. And Republican gubernatorial hopeful Andy Biggs said during a recent interview that Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ supporters would be “thrilled” at the prospect of him being physically harmed.
It’s a considerably uglier political landscape than the wholesome videos acknowledge.
But Barber knows that better than anyone.
In 2011, Barber was critically wounded in the assassination attempt on then-U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords. He’s championed political civility ever since, including by co-leading the Arizona Democracy Resilience Network, one of the organizations behind the new video series.
But despite the increasingly hostile political climate, Barber hasn’t lost hope.
“I’m an eternal optimist, and I believe that we can change what we’re dealing with right now, if only we will sit down and have a conversation,” he said.
A handful of politicians set that example in the AZ Together videos, which is notable given the less-than-civil political environments some of them have to navigate.
One of the videos features Republican Pinal County Recorder Dana Lewis and Democratic Rep. Janeen Connolly, for example. Lewis has navigated years of election conspiracy theories, including accusations from a county supervisor that election officials rigged his own primary defeat.
Connolly serves in a Legislature where a physical fight nearly broke out on the last day of this year’s legislative session.
Both are regularly surrounded by considerably less reasonable political figures. Yet in the video, Connolly says:
“Don’t try to just win an argument with someone you disagree with. Try to understand them.”
While Connolly, Lewis and their civility-minded counterparts may have no trouble sitting down for a respectful conversation, it’s harder to imagine some of their colleagues doing the same.
And those colleagues keep getting reelected.
Some Arizona politicians have found a new use for the fear of political violence: a shield against criticism.
Biggs accused Hobbs’ supporters of wanting to “annihilate” him over campaign ads accusing him of protecting pedophiles. The ad’s allegations stem from legislation that stalled under his leadership, which would have reined in a police force tied to a polygamous sect in Colorado City.
Meanwhile, Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of the influential conservative group Turning Point Action, invoked the murder of his friend Charlie Kirk while responding to online criticism.
“I had to watch my best friend get murdered in broad daylight because of ideology you give a pass to and you’re upset because there are independents who support Republicans?” Bowyer wrote on Twitter in response to a post alleging he was behind a campaign text that presented a Republican slate of candidates as an independent voter guide.
That complicates AZ Together’s call for dialogue across political divides. Instead of engaging with their critics, some political figures are using fears of political violence to portray those critics as threats.
“Anyone who contributes to the notion that violence is coming is not helping us to overcome the problem,” Barber said.
But Barber has hope that voters are getting tired enough to make a change in November.
“The only reason that the voters vote for us is because they want to get things done for them, and they don’t want the chaos and the vitriol,” he said. “It’s saturating and it’s uncomfortable, and people want something different.”
Presidential seal (of approval): While U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs heads to Bullhead City today to speak at President Donald Trump’s rally for the MAGA faithful, his Democratic rival, Gov. Katie Hobbs, got a shot in the arm from former President Barack Obama, per Brahm Resnik at 12News. Obama lauded Hobbs’ work on issues like affordability and said she “knows how to bring people together to get things done.” Hobbs said she was “deeply honored” to have Obama’s endorsement. Biggs, on the other hand, might have a more awkward encounter with his presidential backer after he removed the most prominent references to Trump on his campaign website, like erasing “Trump endorsed” from his campaign logo, KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez reports.
Crow to take over?: Ted Simons, the longtime host of Arizona PBS’ “Arizona Horizon” is retiring at the end of the year, ASU announced. Simons does some of the best interviews in the state, and his calm presence will be sorely missed. His departure also raises questions about who will replace him (ASU says it’ll conduct a national search) and whether the new face will be able to assert editorial independence from ASU President Michael Crow. ASU owns and operates the station, and the school has at times applied pressure on the editorial operations of the station, as we’ve reported several times.
Our art intern, ChatGPT, made this one for the August 7, 2025, edition.
Not exactly true: The Hobbs campaign keeps hitting Biggs for voting against a 2012 bill in the state Legislature that would have blocked sex offenders from being security guards or private investigators. But the Hobbs team is omitting some important facts, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer points out. Biggs did vote against the bill, but only after a last-minute amendment left the bill riddled with loopholes, a point he made during the floor debate at the time.
Love is weird: Former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema says she fears that her ex-boyfriend, employee and bodyguard Matthew Ammel will kill her if he doesn’t stay locked up, 12News’ Sean Rice reports. Ammel tore up her home in August in the latest edition of this affair-gone-wrong. At a hearing on Monday, Sinema’s lawyers said that Ammel has continued to try to contact her, including by asking a bail bondsman to get her to pay his $25,000 bond. Sinema instead requested he be held without bond, and the judge bumped his bond up to $100,000, saying Ammel had violated a court order prohibiting him from possessing weapons when his electronic monitor tracked him to a gun shop, where he went to get “a large hunting knife engraved.”
Breaking through: Two Diné television journalists will be the first all-Native American anchor team on a commercial newscast in the U.S. when they take to the air on Arizona’s Family this month, according to the Navajo Times’ Krista Allen. Colton Shone joined “Good Morning Arizona” in 2022, following stints anchoring in Tucson and Albuquerque. Now, he’ll be joined by Charly Edsitty, who started her new job on Monday after time spent reporting in Flagstaff, Phoenix and Houston.
“I am very used to being the only Native voice and the only Native perspective in the newsrooms that I’ve worked in, so I’ve had to really toughen up and learn how to speak up, and speak out, and push back, even when I’m usually the minority perspective,” Edsitty told the Navajo Times.
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This is the kind of campaign shenanigans we can get behind.
A guy running for a seat on the Yavapai College District Governing Board is taking advantage of the fact that candidates have wide latitude to put up signs in random places during campaign season.
So far, Ryan Jones has placed 70 signs in and around Prescott that have nothing to do with the college.
Instead, he pulled a few hundred bucks from his campaign account to make neon orange and green signs that point toward the nearest Flock camera.
The signs read “FLOCK CAM HERE: Private AI Cams Tracking YOU,” much to the delight of the local Reddit community.
“I would say it is a little bit of a stunt that’s got way more attention than I expected, but it’s something that I’m passionate about. It’s something that I believe that you should speak up about when you have the ability to do so,” Jones told the Daily Courier’s Alan Hunt.
