Primary Prepping: LD25 House Republicans
The Tucker Carlson conservatives … Drug money swept … And shrooms are easy to grow.
Four Republicans are battling for two state House seats representing a sprawling Republican stronghold that stretches from the California-Arizona border to the western outskirts of the Valley.
Next year’s Legislative District 25 representatives will include at least one new face. Current Rep. Michael Carbone is seeking reelection, but his seatmate, Rep. Timothy Dunn, is running for the district’s Senate seat.
Candidate Gary Garcia Snyder has run failed campaigns for legislative seats before while newcomers Nick Kupper and Steve Markegard bring vastly different, but intriguing, backgrounds.
All four candidates espouse America-first, conservative politics, and at least two of them have connections to Tucker Carlson.
The primary election winners will face one Democratic challenger in November in this conservative district where Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly two-to-one.
Michael Carbone
Carbone, the incumbent representative, is vying for his second term after he was first elected in 2022.
What does he do?: Carbone has worked in construction, finance and real estate but mainly provides financial consulting services for schools. He’s also the president of Carbone Group, which appears to sell lawn equipment, per his Facebook page.
Fun fact: Carbone used to go by “Michael Jorudd,” and when backgrounding him as a candidate for a county board seat in Illinois, the Daily Herald found out he pleaded guilty to reckless driving and was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,500. Carbone told the newspaper he never did any jail time.
Campaign website: www.carboneforaz.com
Gary Garcia Snyder
Snyder lost a race to current LD23 Sen. Brian Fernandez in the 2022 general election. He started a campaign for a Senate seat in 2020 as an independent, but dropped out of the race.
Career experience: Snyder is the sports committee secretary for Fuerza Migrante, a binational activist organization for Mexicans who live abroad, according to his LinkedIn. He also operates the Southern Winter Baseball League.
Fun fact: Garcia announced on his Facebook page he will be featured in Tucker Carlson’s “First compelling Conservative Full Length Film/Documentary.”
Campaign website: www.electsnyder.com
Nickolas "Nick” Kupper
Kupper is an Air Force veteran and currently freelances as a paralegal for Military Backpay, a group of lawyers representing service members who were discharged over refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, per his LinkedIn.
Plus: Kupper himself refused to get a COVID shot while enlisted in the Air Force but was able to retain his benefits and retire after a legal injunction on the vaccine mandate. His LinkedIn lists a 20-year stint as the director of operations at the United States Air Force.
Fun fact: In addition to appearances on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Newsmax and “Firebrand with Matt Gaetz,” Kupper was also a contestant on American Ninja Warrior.
Campaign website: www.kupper4arizona.com
Steve Markegard
Markegard is a precinct committeeman and state delegate for the Republican Party who says he’s “not a politician, [he’s] a patriot.”
What does he do?: While he’s currently retired, Markegard spent more than 40 years working at industrial, commercial and marine insulation businesses and eventually started his own insulation business.
Fun fact: In his answers to Ballotpedia’s candidate connection survey, Markegard said the book “The Patriot” and the film “We Were Soldiers” best describe his political philosophy.
Sweep away: Gov. Katie Hobbs and lawmakers can officially sweep the opioid funds that Attorney General Kris Mayes tried to stop them from sweeping, per a Maricopa County Superior Court judge. The judge said there was no evidence that the plan to use that money in the prison system violates the terms of the opioid settlement agreement. But he added that if the spending ultimately does violate the terms, the AG might have recourse. Mayes says she’ll be monitoring “every penny” to ensure it doesn’t risk future settlement payments, per 12News’ Joe Dana.
We have to monitor “every penny” of our budget too! Help us get more pennies to monitor by upgrading to a paid subscription today.
Forgetting the keys is a serious crime: The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office held a press conference to address the stolen security fob from the Maricopa County elections center, saying there was no evidence the theft was politically motivated, KTAR’s Kevin Stone notes. That didn’t stop the conservative radio host Garrett Lewis and others from declaring “they’re trying to steal the election again in Maricopa County.” And if you missed the whole episode of the stolen fob, check out Jen Fifield’s rundown in Votebeat, which notes that the suspect suggested to detectives that he took the keys and fob by mistake.
“Detectives spotted the lanyard in his car at his house and then, after executing a search warrant, found the security fob on top of a dresser in the master bedroom.” Fifield writes.
A shooting on Fifth Avenue?: Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is now part of two new groups fighting election disinformation, one Republican and one bipartisan. She still plans to vote for Donald Trump, the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl reports. Meanwhile, Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer announced after last night’s debate that he plans to vote for Joe Biden this year after supporting Trump in 2020, the Republic’s Sasha Hupka reports. And Richer’s main opponent, Republican Rep. Justin Heap, has voted in less than 60% of the elections he’s been eligible to vote in and was briefly registered as an independent, Fourth Estate 48’s Dillon Rosenblatt reports after combing through Heap’s voter registration records.
“I will vote for him," Brewer said. "He’s the Republican nominee.”
Water’s for fighting: After lawmakers swept $333 million from the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority, its director Chuck Podolak told Lauren Gilger of KJZZ’s “The Show” that the sweep required a two-thirds vote, which it didn’t receive. But he wouldn’t comment on whether WIFA will sue over it, saying they’re just asking lawyers for options right now. In Southern Arizona, a group of activists is suing the Department of Water Resources, asking it to declare the Upper San Pedro River Basin an “active management area” which would allow for more restrictions on groundwater pumping, the Daily Star’s Tony Davis reports.
Prevailing = minimum: The City of Phoenix’s “prevailing wage” ordinance, which establishes a minimum wage for city contractors, is illegal, a Maricopa County judge ruled this week. Courthouse News’Joe Duhownik reports that lawmakers have preempted cities from adopting prevailing wage ordinances, but Phoenix and Tucson have both tried anyway and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego vowed to fight the ruling.
Sheep = life: Sheep farmers in Cameron, on the Navajo Nation, are scared to raise, butcher or eat their sheep because of the 100 abandoned uranium mines in the area that have not been cleaned up. Mutton is a staple in Diné society, and even the local restaurant imports its mutton because it doesn’t trust local sheep are safe to eat, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports.
Governing is dirty business: Trash collection is getting more expensive in Phoenix and the city may have to raise rates in anticipation of budget deficits, the Daily Independent’s Mark Carlisle reports. And in Scottsdale, the sewer budget has become a hot topic in the city council and mayoral races, the Scottsdale Progress’ Tom Scanlon writes.
Democrats in Southern Arizona’s Legislative District 17 are hosting a “Drag Extravaganza” fundraiser at Tucson’s Unscrewed Theatre today at 3 p.m. to benefit challengers to Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack and Reps. Cory McGarr and Rachel Jones. Tickets start at $75.
You can also tune into the Republican primary debate for Maricopa County Sheriff this afternoon at 4 p.m.
And after mercilessly mocking Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2022 for refusing to debate her, Kari Lake won’t join her U.S. Senate GOP primary opponents on the debate stage tonight at 6 p.m. (Still, we’re pretty excited to see Elizabeth Jean Reye.)
You can check out our entire political calendar here. Add it to your own Google calendar here.
And send us events through this form, or email us at info@arizonaagenda.com. As long as it’s Arizona politics-related and has all the info, we’ll post it.
Narcotics police are busting more magic mushroom growers, which police told AZFamily’s Nicole Crites is because legalization is on the horizon.
The story is full of great quotes, including from magic mushroom researcher Sue Sisley who cautioned that eating ‘shrooms is “kind of like Russian Roulette.”
“These mushrooms are not to be played with, and they can take you into some very dark rabbit holes,” Sisley said.
The whole story reminds us of another, prescient quote from a Republic story we cited a while back:
"You can grow these (magic mushrooms) under your bed in a shoebox for pennies," Gary Smith, president and co-founder of the Arizona Cannabis Bar Association, told the Republic’s Ray Stern. "Once the public finds that out, it's game over."
"The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office held a press conference to address the stolen security fob from the Maricopa County elections center, saying there was no evidence the theft was politically motivated, KTAR’s Kevin Stone notes. That didn’t stop the conservative radio host Garrett Lewis and others from declaring “they’re trying to steal the election again in Maricopa County.”" Walter Ringfield Jr., who took the fob, is a political independent and advocate of unity who has a TruthSocial account where he retweets Trump-supporting figures like "catturd." In 2017 he proposed to build a sculpture on the ASU Mall that consisted of the word "UNITED" with the faces of various famous people on each letter based on his survey of ASU students about famous people they respected. The figures he chose for each letter of UNITED, respectively, were Barack Obama, Pat Tillman, John Lennon, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Zuckerberg, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
So bottle-blonde carpetbagger Jan Brewer is going to knee-jerk vote for Chump. This should shock nobody. Her Party-Line mantra is so tiresome.