Presidential Material

Vote in the least important election of your lifetime! ... Bring back Leezah Sun! ... And apply to be our prompt-writing intern!

Tuesday is the deadline for independents to register with a political party if they want to have a say in who ends up on the November 2024 presidential ballot. 

What’s the point, you ask, considering the whole thing seems like a foregone conclusion? 

Fair question. 

Most of the “serious” candidates on the Republican ballot have already dropped out of the race. Several endorsed Donald Trump. Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and even obnoxious rich guy Vivek Ramaswamy realized they had no chance and have already called it quits, although their names will still appear among the nine on the Republican ballot. 

Our art intern, ChatGPT, has been hard at work preparing dozens of submissions for Maricopa County’s “I voted” sticker contest.

All the votes and prayers you could send to the lone remaining Republican candidate you’ve heard of who isn’t Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, probably aren’t going to save her campaign. 

And although Joe Biden has six Democratic opponents on Arizona’s Democratic primary ballot, there’s no question about who will be the Democrats’ nominee. 

So why bother voting? 

Well, there are some interesting characters on the ballot. And if you’re not happy about having to relive the 2020 election, voting for anyone but Biden or Trump sends a statement that you want better options. 

But remember — independents can’t vote in the presidential primary. (You can click here to change your registration and change it back any time you like.)

If you do vote (and you should!) you’re gonna need to know who these random names on your ballot are. 

We’re here to help. 

Before we get to today’s rundown of the lesser-known candidates on the 2024 Arizona Presidential Preference Election ballot, we are legally required, as an all-inclusive Arizona politics newsletter, to tell you about the time when former Tucson Weekly editor Jim Nintzel realized that the only real requirement to run for president in Arizona was to get a two-page form notarized. 

So he drafted dozens of Arizona weirdos to run for president in 2008 and 2012 as part of a “reality journalism competition.” They had televised debates and everything. Sure, some of the people running today are odd, but Nintzel’s “Project White House” candidates make today’s candidates look as polished as Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy. Lawmakers finally changed the law in 2012 to stop Nintzel from doing it again after one of the Project White House candidates showed up to a ceremony in “a chicken suit or something,” as former Secretary of State Ken Bennett recalled.

Here’s a fun story Hank wrote about it nearly a decade ago.  

Republicans

Besides the aforementioned dropout governors, and Haley, who is still in the race as of this writing, there a few other non-Trump Republicans you can choose from. 

Ryan Binkley, a first-time office-seeker from Texas, is a pastor and CEO who’s running on a platform of cutting spending, especially on healthcare, and unifying the GOP. He’s trying to avoid the conspiracy crowd, he says. 

“If I wanted to be on the news more every day, I would say crazy stuff like we should get rid of every corrupt department and that we should fire everyone in the CIA … I don’t want to say things to gather the attention of the conspiracy crowd,” he says. 

John Castro is most famous for his many lawsuits attempting to keep Trump off the ballot, including in Arizona. He’s an unlicensed lawyer who was recently arrested on 33 felony counts related to alleged tax fraud for his clients. He’s suing Trump for $180 million, alleging that the former president was engaged in a conspiracy with the IRS to “monitor, surveil, and harass” him.

David Stuckenberg, an Air Force veteran, clean water tech CEO and first-time candidate from Florida, is also running. 

“I think Biden won the election. Now, I think there were irregularities that still have not been explained. And so there is a good number of the U.S. electorate who still does not believe that Biden is the legitimate president. I reject that. He is the legitimate commander in chief.” he told the Tampa Bay Times.

---

DEMOCRATS

On the Democratic side, it’s also pretty slim pickings. But if you want to vote against Biden, here are a few of your options. 

Stephen Lyons, a plumber from Maryland, has a pretty cool website that looks like a bad dating app profile.

Gabriel Cornejo is running on a platform of ending corruption by banning members of Congress from trading stocks and instituting retroactive term limits, among other plans. And he wants to “legalize ALL recreational drugs.”

Marianne Williamson is an author and activist who suspended her campaign against Biden last week after coming in third in the Nevada primary behind Biden and “none of these candidates.” She got about half as many votes as “none.”

Dean Phillips is the only “real politician” challenging the president on the Dem ballot— he’s a moderate congressman from Minnesota who’s not running for reelection. Instead, he’s trying to toughen Biden up ahead of November, he says, but he’s not making friends among his fellow Democrats as he takes some sharp shots at the president from his own party. 

Doing it again: Democratic precinct committeemen in the West Valley’s Legislative District 22 took a little too long to pick their three potential replacements for Democratic Rep. Leezah Sun after she resigned, so now the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is appointing a citizens’ commission to re-do the selection process, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. State law says PCs have to choose a potential appointee within five business days or the duty goes to a commission. 

Not doing it again: Maricopa County Supervisor Republican Clint Hickman has had enough — he announced yesterday that he won’t run for re-election this year. He joins fellow Republican Supervisor and election realist Bill Gates, who also isn’t seeking re-election after the last rough couple of years of defending democracy. 

Lawmaker/Realtor/carpetbagger: Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack says people really want to know what political district homes they’re considering buying are in, and she thinks she’s not allowed to tell them so she drafted Senate Bill 1581 to force real estate listing to include political district information, the Capitol Times’ Hannah Elsmore reports.

Election theft 101: Republican lawmakers shut down an attempt from their colleague, Rep. Rachel Jones, to hand over Arizona’s electors to the Republican presidential nominee no matter who voters choose. Capitol Scribe Howie Fischer has the details of her plan to steal the election. At one point, team Kari Lake endorsed the idea.  

“Wouldn’t we be guilty of exactly what we accuse the other side of doing, stealing an election?” Republican Rep. Alex Kolodin, one of the Republicans who opposed the idea, asked.

YIGBY: Religious groups took to the Capitol yesterday asking lawmakers to force city zoning changes via a bill they’re calling “Yes in God’s Backyard” that would allow affordable housing to be built on church property, per KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young.

 “We have churches with empty spaces on their lots that could help families in need by being developed into affordable housing. We could build housing that helps seniors, and low-income folks and veterans," Bishop Jennifer Reddall of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, said. 

Foodporn: Gov. Katie Hobbs plans to sign this year’s version of the “Tamale Bill” to allow people to sell home-cooked meals, after vetoing it last year, Schutsky reports for KJZZ. And the Phoenix New Times’ Stephen Lemons takes a deep dive into HB2583, one of this year’s legislative attempts to regulate porn on the internet. 

Our art intern, ChatGPT, requests your assistance in coming up with concepts for Maricopa County’s “I voted” sticker competition.

The comments are open to all today. Send us some ideas.

We’re gonna print out some of the best ones and give them to subscribers. We call this one “Cyber Ninjas.”