Following the money

Defund the politicians … He’s good for it … And the view from the nosebleed seats.

Yesterday was the quarterly campaign finance deadline, offering the first peek at candidates’ fundraising hauls since the real campaign season began. 

So where do the candidates stand? Who still has the cash to fuel them through this critical final stretch and who is broke? 

Today, we’re diving into the numbers in seven of Arizona’s hottest primaries. 

Our art intern, ChatGPT, knows how much politicians like money.

U.S. Senate Primary

Technically, we’re not really looking at the fundraising haul for the primary here. Kari Lake has her three-way race for the GOP nomination as locked up as Ruben Gallego’s one-man race for the Democratic nomination. 

And while Lake’s current $10 million fundraising haul dwarfs that of her closest Republican challenger, it’s nothing close to the nearly $32 million Gallego has raised. Gallego and Lake will head into the starting stretch of the general election with $9.2 and $2.8 million on hand, respectively.¹

CD1 Democratic Primary

Andrei Cherny continued to dominate the fundraising race in this six-way Democratic primary to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. David Schweikert.

Cherny pulled in nearly $375,000 in the last three months, leaving him with almost $700,000 in the bank. But Conor O’Callaghan has more than $810,000 in the bank, despite raising less this period and throughout the campaign. 

Marlene Galan Woods and Amish Shah have both cracked $1 million in fundraising this campaign cycle but are running low on fuel in the final stretch, with just under $500,000 and roughly $350,000 in the bank respectively. 

Andrew Horne and Kurt Kroemer trail the pack, both in total fundraising and cash on hand. 

And that cash on hand is going to be important for whoever emerges from this bruising congressional primary. Schweikert’s war chest is up to $1.5 million. 

CD8 GOP Primary

There’s a clear front runner in the crowded Republican primary to replace retiring congresswoman Debbie Lesko in the West Valley’s CD8, at least financially. 

Blake Masters is crushing his closest competitor, Abe Hamadeh, thanks to a $3.5 million loan Masters made to his own campaign. 

Hamadeh has actually raised more money from actual voters than Masters, but he only has a measly $160,000 left in the bank. Masters still has $1.2 million cash on hand. 

The remaining four campaigns haven’t crossed the $1 million threshold, and have little left to sustain them through the final stretch of the campaign. 

House Speaker Ben Toma has raised about $800,000 and still has more on hand than Hamadeh. Former Congressman Trent Franks has raised a grand total of about $400,000 for his campaign, and state Sen. Anthony Kern has brought in about half that. 

But the winner of this primary won’t have to spend much energy to capture the seat in November in this solidly Republican district.

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LD1 Senate GOP Primary

Former lawmaker and failed congressional candidate Mark Finchem has raised the most in this three-way primary for Republican Sen. Ken Bennett’s Senate seat in Legislative District 1.

Thanks in part to Donald Trump’s endorsement, Finchem has raked in roughly $330,000, though he’s burned through that quickly and only has about $33,000 left. 

Challenger Steve Zipperman has also out-raised Bennett, pulling in about $160,000 to wage his campaign, with roughly $85,000 still in the bank. 

Bennett meanwhile, has only raised about $80,000 to defend his seat and has about $66,000 of that left in his campaign coffers.

LD7 Senate GOP Primary

Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers is one of Arizona’s most prolific fundraisers and most controversial lightning rods. 

She has raised roughly $800,000 this cycle² and has about $100,000 left in the bank to fend off her primary election challenger, Republican Rep. David Cook. 

Cook has raised just about $135,000 this election and, thanks to a rollover from a previous campaign, still has about $115,000 in the bank for the home stretch of his inner-party challenge.

 And while Cook has been outspent six-to-one, an independent group called Arizona First has spent more than $250,000 in the last few weeks attacking Rogers on his behalf. 

LD17 Senate GOP Primary

Former lawmaker Vince Leach is out-raising Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack in his quest to regain the seat that he lost to her in the 2022 primary. 

Leach has pulled in roughly $120,000 for his campaign and still has more than $76,000 to blast out his message in the final weeks of early voting. Wadsack, meanwhile, has raised a little less, about $68,000 and has just $22,000 of that left. 

Maricopa Recorder GOP Primary

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer has been spending big bucks to defend himself against two cash-strapped opponents. 

Republican lawmaker Justin Heap has spent about $50,000 so far in his quest to unseat Richer, and he still has about $80,000 cash on hand. Challenger Don Hiatt raised about $30,000 and has $10,000 of that left.

Richer has already spent $270,000, or about four times as much as his competitors combined. In his war chest, he still has about $180,000, which is more than the two challengers raised for their entire campaigns combined.

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Pressure campaign: County officials in Arizona were bombarded with text messages from Republican lawmakers pressuring them to get rid of vote-counting machines, Votebeat Arizona’s Jen Fifield reports. In one case, state Sen. Sonny Borrelli told Mohave County Supervisor Travis Lingenfelter to ask for a vote on hand-counting ballots, which Lingenfelter proceeded to do. But only after Borrelli hooked him up with a lawyer who promised to represent the board for free. That didn’t quite work out for Cochise County Supervisor Peggy Judd earlier this year after she was indicted. 

Talking about talking: The conversation about how to talk about politics took a turn after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Substacker Robert Robb tore into the “unpersuasive or stupid” rhetoric that dominates national politics. He doubts the pause in overheated rhetoric will last more than a week or two. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said “dehumanizing rhetoric” was a “disease” that affects both parties. She chastised liberals for how they frame a second Trump presidency, saying “to frame it as an existential threat to the future of democracy is threatening democracy itself,” KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez reported. Gov. Katie Hobbs said “we have to stop inflaming this kind of rhetoric,” but said she wasn’t “going to get into that” when she was asked about calling Kari Lake “dangerous,” KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reported.  

Lowering the bar: Arizona doesn’t have enough lawyers, so the Arizona Supreme Court lowered the minimum exam score to conditionally admit people to the State Bar, the Arizona Luminaria’s John Washington reports. But if prospective lawyers only meet the lowered score, they’ll have to work under supervision for two years before they can be fully admitted to the Bar. Other states, like Oregon and Washington, are addressing lawyer shortages of their own by using apprenticeships instead of the Bar exam.  

It wasn’t me: Cyber Ninjas’ former CEO Doug Logan says state senators, like former Senate President Karen Fann, were the ones who delayed a records request for information about the so-called audit of the 2020 election, the Arizona Republic’s Robert Anglen reports. Logan said he asked the Senate “repeatedly” to help produce the records, but they refused. That statement from Logan could help the Republic recover $690,000 in legal fees. A state judge ruled in April that Cyber Ninjas alone were liable for legal fees, but the Republic is arguing the Senate should also be liable for the fees.

Swing state vibes: It was a big day at the Republican National Convention, with plenty of Arizona angles to the event. Kari Lake took the big stage Tuesday night, telling the crowd that the fake news has “worn out your welcome” at the event. 

• Religious themes are all over the Republican National Convention, and the response to Trump surviving the assassination attempt, the New York Times reported. Tyler Bowyer, a delegate from Arizona and all-around conservative wingnut, was quoted saying it was a “miracle” that Trump didn’t die. 

• Three of the “Everyday Americans” set to speak at the convention are from Arizona, Axios Phoenix reports. Border rancher Jim Chilton, David Lara from the Yuma Union High School District, and Sara Workman, a single mother who recently moved from California. 

• Arizona delegates want to swap ideas with their counterparts in Wisconsin on how to turn their states red again in the upcoming presidential election, KTAR’s Danny Shapiro reports. 

• Arizona delegates cheered for Trump’s pick for vice president, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, even if some of them didn’t know much about him or his anti-Trump past, Cronkite News’ Amaia J. Gavica reports.

• Immigration was set to take center stage at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports.

• And some Arizona delegates stayed home to avoid “the bitterness, the fighting,” as the Arizona Republic reports. 

Last month, some of Arizona’s MAGA delegates to the RNC planned a coup against Donald Trump, arguing they needed backup plans to replace him as the Republican nominee and potentially replace him with former national security adviser Michael Flynn in case Trump was sentenced to prison time. 

Now, the Arizona delegation is stuck in the very back of the convention (it’s more like a closet of the convention, really), the Washington Post notes. 

The nosebleed seats are a rarity for swing state delegates, and many of them saw it as a punishment for last month’s disloyalty. 

1. U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has twice as much in her defunct campaign account as Lake. And that’s even after Sinema repaid donors about $4 million since she’s not running, as the Republic reported.

2. For a legislative seat that pays $24,000 per year.