Prepare your retinas
The politicians want your eyeballs … A 90-day stay keeps the ban away … And the Tea Party’s text thread is piping hot.
Memorial Day marks the official opening of campaign season — and the monthslong relentless onslaught of political TV ads bombarding your retinas.
U.S. Senate candidates Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake both announced major TV airtime “reservations” yesterday, the first major investments of their campaigns.
Lake touted a $10 million ad buy that national Republicans helped pick up the tab for, considering her emaciated campaign coffers didn’t have anywhere near $10 million on hand as of the last reporting period.1 The ad focuses on the border, which Lake hopes to make the defining issue of the race.
Gallego’s $19 million advertisement splurge also represents almost double the amount he had on hand as of the last campaign finance reporting period. As a relatively unknown candidate in the race with no statewide campaign experience, his ability to win will depend on how well he can define himself as a pragmatist and Marine early, before Lake has the opportunity to plaster the airwaves with attack ads about him.
Ad reservations, however, aren’t necessarily a guarantee that the ads will play. Campaigns can reserve the time early to get the best slots and save money from last-minute buying. And it allows them to cancel or adjust the ads as the dates get closer.
Both campaigns have already been up on TV, to some degree. We’ve seen quite a few Gallego ads while streaming, and exactly one Kari Lake ad so far this year. Now they’re entering the airwaves in full force.
Political candidates and PACs are expected to spend nearly $1 billion in Arizona this election year. And with an open U.S. Senate seat and the rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who won with the slimmest of margins in 2020, it’s no surprise that we’re one of the hottest markets for political advertising in the nation.2
It’s part of being a swing state.
But these days, candidates often don’t even represent the largest portion of spending. Many, if not most, of the ads you’ll see this election cycle will be coming from outside groups trying to sway your vote or opinion on an issue or candidate.
Gallego’s massive reservation of $19 million reservation, for example, is the largest airtime hold of any U.S. Senate candidate in the nation. But it’s still less than the $23 million that the Senate Majority PAC has set aside in Arizona to boost his profile.
Lake, meanwhile, has not garnered the same level of support from major conservative groups. While the National Republican Senatorial Committee is floating the bill for part of her $10 million ad buy in Arizona, other top conservative funders have skipped Arizona on their map so far.
Conservative group One Nation put $70 million into ads in five battleground Senate races, but not Arizona. Likewise, the Senate Leadership Fund, the Mitch McConnell-aligned super PAC, is spending tens of millions in a handful of top states, but not Arizona.
And that’s just the money for U.S. Senate candidates. Arizona is also home to fiercely contested ballot measures, a half-dozen congressional primaries, at least two intensely competitive congressional races in November — not to mention the presidential race.
On the bright side, the onslaught of ads means we can do another round of watching political ads all day and writing about it.
Stay put: The Arizona Supreme Court granted Attorney General Kris Mayes’ request for a 90-day delay in implementing the near-total abortion ban, and the earliest it can go into effect is Sept. 26, according to Mayes. The superseding 15-week ban will take effect 90 days after state lawmakers adjourn for the year, so abortion law in Arizona largely depends on when that happens.
Deadly summers: At least 645 people died from heat-related complications last year — making heat the 10th most common cause of death in Arizona. Public health experts are concerned about another round of deaths this summer as meteorologists predict similar conditions, per Phoenix New Times’ TJ L'Heureux. State officials are trying to be more prepared this year by setting up cooling centers, but the real issue is a lack of housing to keep people inside. ASU research Professor Dr. Pope Moseley told ABC15’s Patrick Hayes the heat’s impact may be greater than what data tells us, as “we're only counting about 10% of the people who are sickened or hospitalized related to heat," when people come in with underlying health conditions.
Second place: New figures from the White House show Arizona is second to Texas in getting the most public buy-in tied to President Joe Biden’s “investing in America” plan after receiving $15.4 billion through several federal funding packages, the Republic’s Russ Wiles reports. Corporations have invested $120.9 billion in the state, mainly for semiconductor manufacturing, but that all comes with concerns about a growing federal deficit, increased water use and pollution.
Instead of federal grants, we rely on you to keep operations running. Throw us a subscription, and you’ll be number one in our hearts.
Hobbs on the hook: A group of families is suing the state over a lack of oversight on sober living homes after their family members were lured to the facilities that fraudulently bill Medicaid for services they don’t provide. The families’ lawyer said while the practice happened with little oversight under Gov. Doug Ducey’s administration, Gov. Katie Hobbs isn’t doing much better, KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez reports. Mayes has only recovered a fraction of the $2.8 billion she said the state Medicaid agency paid to bad actors, and state Legislators are facing roadblocks to implementing new reforms.
A hot mess: The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management reported 25 human-caused wildfires in Pinal County from April 1 to May 9, while nine wildfires were reported during the same period last year, 12News’ Kevin Reagan reports. The department thinks it’s due to "abnormal fuel loading" in western Pinal County that’s making it more difficult to put out fires, but the heightened activity is "definitely raising eyebrows and causing concerns.” The state’s expected to see more wildfires this year, and the Republic has a running list of the ones currently burning.
Helpless on the highway: Arizona’s Department of Public Safety says it's facing the worst staffing crisis it has ever seen, and troopers are quitting over increased workloads, per ABC15’s Rachel Louise Just. The department is trying to fill about 500 positions while 480 troopers are currently assigned to highway patrol and often have to rely on other law enforcement agencies to respond to emergencies.
"It's tough for me as someone that's in a leadership position to open my emails every Monday to see how many people have died on our roadways every weekend," said Jeffrey Hawkins, president of Arizona State Troopers Association. "Sometimes it's nine, 10, 11: and I can directly relate that to not seeing anybody on the road."
It’s for InSuRrEcTiNg: The Arizona House Ethics Committee is meeting Wednesday to take up the case of the Democratic lawmakers screaming “shame” at Republican Rep. Matt Gress and others after the first failed attempt to repeal the territorial-era abortion ban. Freedom Caucus Republican Reps. Jacqueline Parker, Barbara Parker and David Marshall filed the complaint, alleging that Democratic Reps. Oscar De Los Santos and Analise Ortiz engaged in a “riot” and an “attempted insurrection.”
We’ve got a couple of exciting real-life events coming up next month that you should put on your calendar.
Come down to Valley Bar on Tuesday, June 11, at 7 p.m. for our biggest “drinking with politicians” event yet.
We’re tossing back a few with former Speaker of the Arizona House Rusty Bowers and Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman in Valley Bar’s Music Hall where we’ll swap war stories from the frontlines of defending democracy.
And boy, do those two have some tales…
The event is free and open to everyone! No tickets or RSVP required. Just show up thirsty!
Also next month, we’re partnering with our friends at LOOKOUT, Arizona’s best LGBTQ+ publication, for a live event that they refused to call “The Gay Agenda.” Instead, we’re going with “The future of queer politics, from the perspective of those who served.”
But it should be fun even without the cool name we suggested.
So join the Agenda and LOOKOUT on Saturday, June 8, from 3-5 p.m. at Boycott Bar for the political edition of their ongoing “summer solutions series” that will focus on subjects important to the daily lives of Arizona’s LGBTQ+ population.
We’ll have smart panelists like former Democratic lawmaker Daniel Hernandez, former GOP lawmaker Steve May, Daniel Scarpinato, the former chief of staff for Doug Ducey, and Bridget Sharpe, director of Human Rights Campaign-Arizona.
The RSVP is open now for our paid subscribers. Use the code in the footer of today’s email. Otherwise, the RSVP will be open to everyone on Thursday. But space is limited!
Scott McMahan, who runs a Substack to reveal his “full-time research into the deep state’s information warfare targeting conservatives,” posted audio of a call he had with Republican state Senator Justine Wadsack, who he said tried to talk him out of hosting former Pima County Republican Party Chair Shelley Kais on his show.
McMahan got hold of a text where Wadsack called Kais “a cancer,” and the senator wasn’t happy someone leaked her text in what she refers to as “the Tea Party thread.”
The phone call that ensued afterward quickly unraveled after McMahan told Wadsack he planned on using the call even though she said it was off the record.
Wadsack's ending remarks on the call were perfectly on-brand: “By the way, be sure to tell Shelley Kais she’s the f*cking queen of evil.”
At the end of his podcast commenting on the call, McMahan added he’s endorsing Vince Leach, Wadsack’s primary opponent.
Officially, the announcement was that she purchased $675,000 in ads that will start today and she “plans to reserve” another $10 million for the fall.
And the price of advertising during campaign season in a newly minted swing state wreaks havoc on local businesses who rely on advertising, as Rachel Leingang once wrote in this fascinating piece in the Republic.
Thank goodness I have no means of being subjected to all those ads because I have no TV.
Yeah, TV ads in the last months of a presidential election cycle in a swing state are very expensive - and what makes it worse is that the $/vote number is incredibly high. It's an incredibly inefficient way to change anyone's mind or turnout any less likely voter. Those who can pay it still will, because maybe the few new votes you get might make the difference. But if $/vote is the metric, personal contact with voters is much more efficient. And some ads can actually hurt the candidate supposedly being favored (negative vote change).