Reporting for chaos duty

The fireworks we missed … Don’t call her veto queen … And that’s quite a surge!

Our art intern, ChatGPT, created this inspirational poster to help motivate us to get back into the swing of things.

MAGA Math

President Donald Trump signed his “Big Beautiful Bill,” and it has a lot of ugly consequences for Arizonans.

All of Arizona’s Republican congressional delegation voted to pass a massive national spending plan that dedicates $3.7 trillion to tax cuts throughout the next decade and an estimated $170 billion on immigration enforcement. The largest single spending item is $46.5 billion for a high-tech border wall, per the Associated Press.

But the fiscally conservative party wouldn’t spend all that money without a means to pay for it, right? Right?…

Republicans cut Medicaid, food assistance and student loan repayment aid to offset costs, while still adding more than $3 trillion to the national debt. Some 360,000 Arizonans could lose their health insurance.

The federal bill passed right after state lawmakers went late into the year to pass their own state budget.

But with all the federal cuts, that brand new state budget may need some tinkering.

Gov. Katie Hobbs said Arizona doesn’t have enough money to cover the difference of federal cuts, the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger reports.

"It's billions of dollars that we don't have," Hobbs said. "Even if we cut every single thing in the state, we don't have the money to backfill all these cuts."

The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association estimated the spending cuts will put 55% of the state’s hospitals in a deficit and slash services like obstetrics and behavioral health.

Five rural hospitals could close. And the Arizona Food Bank Network said new work requirements to receive SNAP, which used to be called food stamps, could cut 190,000 Arizonans from the program.

Hard-right Republican U.S. Reps. like Andy Biggs and Eli Crane spoke against the bill’s deepening of the national deficit, but voted for it to appease the MAGA base.

It passed the Senate on a 50-51 vote with Vice President JD Vance as the tie-breaker, and passed the House (for a second time) on a 218-214 vote.

Meanwhile, Democrats plan to lean on the devastating effects of the bill to sharpen their 2026 election prospects.

Raising revenue to replace Raúl

Voters in Southern Arizona will head to the polls next Tuesday to elect their next member of Congress.

Yes, there’s technically a general election in September, but the July 15 Democratic primary will really decide who goes to D.C. in this deep blue district formerly represented by Raúl Grijalva.

We got our first peek at the candidates’ fundraising numbers last week. (Yes, it is absurd that in this incredibly tight special election timeline, we only get one campaign finance reporting deadline before the primary.)

Democratic former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez is narrowly leading the pack with just shy of $1 million raised so far, thanks in large part to donations from political PACs.

Adelita Grijalva, the odds-on-favorite to replace her father, isn’t far behind, with a little less than $850,000 raised so far.

Newcomer Deja Foxx is predictably trailing in the money race, but not by a ton. She has raised a respectable $600,000, and still had $100,000 in the bank as of the reporting deadline to spend for that final push — nearly as much as Grijalva and far more than Hernandez.

“All of this was done in under 90 days, without the help of inheriting a fundraising list and she does not take a dollar in corporate PAC money,” Foxx noted in her press release announcing her numbers.

”Despite claims that she ‘inherited her dad’s donors’ 94% are new to her campaign and had not previously donated to Congressman Raúl Grijalva,” Grijalva said in hers.

Technically, it’s a five-way Democratic primary.

But the other two Democrats in the race — Jose Malvido and Patrick Harris — either didn’t bother to file their campaign finance reports or didn’t raise enough money to trigger the requirement that they report.

Like a popsicle on the sidewalk

The Arizona Democratic Party continued melting down during our break, as top statewide officials announced they were ditching the state party completely in favor of working with the tiny Navajo County Democratic Party as their main fundraising apparatus.

If you haven’t been following the saga, the very short version is: Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Robert Branscomb pissed off all of Arizona’s Democratic state and federal elected officials a few months back when he sent out an open letter accusing them of trying to sabotage him, while heavily implying that racism was a factor. (He’s the first Black chairman of the party.) Arizona’s traditionally bickering leftist leaders fired back, calling on him to resign — he has not resigned and has so far dodged attempts to forcibly oust him.

Last week, Gov. Katie Hobbs, AG Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced they would pull a page from the John McCain/Doug Ducey playbook and sidestep the state party.

The Democrats directed donors to instead give to the Navajo County Democratic Party, which will run their “coordinated campaign.”¹

It wasn’t a terrible idea, considering the Arizona Democratic Party still doesn’t have a budget, after another bureaucratic meeting snafu last week kept the executive committee from voting to adopt one.

Also last week, all 15 county party chairs penned a “no confidence” letter describing Branscomb’s brief tenure as a “crisis of chaos with a degree of instability and upheaval.”

The state party is holding a meeting next week where state committeemen will vote on ousting Branscomb as chair.

While we were on break, we learned the Agenda had landed another “best of” award.

We’re Arizona’s “Best Political Publication,” per Phoenix Magazine.

Yes, that’s us — sandwiched between Arizona House GOP spokesman Andrew Wilder who won “Best Press Guy,” and “Best Campaign Glamour Shot,” which obviously went to Scottsdale Mayor Lisa Borowsky.

Both undeniable picks — clearly these people know their stuff!

Thanks, Phoenix Magazine!

We’ll add it to the wall of plaques, including two other best of awards from Phoenix Magazine and a pair of “Best Newsletter” awards from the Phoenix New Times.

Not to mention the actual awards for our journalism, rather than our altogether pretty awesome product.

It was a welcome bit of love in a week that was mostly spent trying to figure out how much money we’ve made (read: spent) this quarter, planning out what we can for the next quarter and making big decisions that we don’t have the time to think through while chasing stories and meeting deadlines.

Which brings us to this quarter’s big decision:

To paywall or not to paywall?

We’ve been reporting and writing this newsletter for almost four years now — showing up in your inbox (almost) every weekday with Arizona political chaos, occasional insight, and maybe even a laugh or two.

And we’ve done it all mostly for free.

Starting this week, the Arizona Agenda is putting up some paywalls.

We’ll still send out a few free posts per week, or free sections of the newsletter. We’re going to experiment with it and see what mix feels right.

But paid subscribers to the Arizona Agenda will get more. More scoops, more explainers, more behind-the-scenes stories.

To paywall or not to paywall is a problem we’ve been debating since literally month three of the Agenda. (Technically, that’s when we were contractually obligated to start paywalling some content, an obligation we mostly ignored.)

We still don’t really want to put up a paywall.

We’re doing it because good journalism takes time — and time costs money. We’re a tiny team working very hard to cover a state full of wild headlines and weird politics — and we want to grow. We want to hire. We want to keep this strange little newsroom alive.

Thousands of people read the Agenda for free every day.

If even a small percentage of our free readers upgraded to a paid subscription, we’d be in a totally different place right now — like, maybe with someone who isn’t us figuring out how taxes work.

We’ve held off on a paywall because we wanted as many people as possible to enjoy the Agenda. But it also has never felt fair that paid readers get the same number of editions per year as free readers.

In the nearly four years we’ve been debating this question, we’ve also launched the Tucson Agenda and three weekly policy newsletters, the A.I. Agenda, Education Agenda and Water Agenda.

They will all remain free of paywalls for the foreseeable future, which gives us some confidence to pull the trigger on paywalled editions of the Arizona Agenda.

So… If you’ve been reading and thinking, “I should probably subscribe at some point” — this is that point.

Thank you!

Setting records: Gov. Katie Hobbs set a record with 174 vetoes during this year’s legislative session, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers reports. That could be because just 10 bills sponsored by Democratic lawmakers made it to her desk. The all-powerful committee chairs, who are Republicans, blocked the vast majority of Democratic bills from getting a hearing. In the end, the Legislature approved 439 bills and Hobbs signed 265 of them. Hobbs said breaking her own record for vetoes wasn’t her goal and she signed more bills than she vetoed, KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez reports. But she said she wouldn’t “stand by while extremists in the Legislature” go after everything from being able to cast a ballot to reproductive freedom. In fact, Hobbs views the just-ended session as being about as good as could be expected in a divided government, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. She pointed to a new water law, more money for childcare and raises for state police and firefighters. She also had to concede on allowing businesses to shield more of their equipment from property taxes and she didn’t make any headway on scaling back the school voucher program.

Even policy professionals struggle to follow all 1,700+ bills per year. That’s why we built Skywolf, a legislative intelligence service for Arizona political pros. Request a demo this summer!

Welcome, for now: As dozens of immigrants wrapped up the naturalization process on Independence Day, the Trump administration included a “welcome message” for immigrants who do it “the right way,” the Republic’s Laura Gersony reports. At the same time, Trump officials are pushing to denaturalize people who get caught up in the administration’s wide-ranging crackdown on immigrants.

Suiting up for a crackdown: As Trump officials are trying to get rid of Latin Americans in the U.S., they’re also adopting the political tactics of Latin American dictators, Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller writes.

“The masked men seizing people from the streets. The browbeating and threats against judges. The targeting of critical news outlets. The companies, law firms, and universities forced to bow and pay tribute or face punishment. The leader using his power to enrich himself and his family. The cult of personality that dominates our politics,” Steller writes.

Journalists are right up near the top of Trump’s target list. Help cover our legal fees, bail money, or a plane ticket home from Gitmo.

Action, reaction: While federal officials wield tremendous power when it comes to immigration, local groups in Arizona and across the country are creating rapid-response networks that spring into action whenever they hear about an ICE raid, the New York Times reports. It’s a “new breed of activism” that’s rooted in old strategies, like those that emerged in 2011 after SB1070 and during former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s days of racial profiling.

Time for a few push-ups: A new billboard on Grand Avenue in Phoenix doesn’t make President Donald Trump look good. At all. California-based artist Karen Fiorito has been making fun of Trump for years, and her current project, “Swamp King,” shows a flabby Trump wearing a crown while sitting in the “swamp” he vowed to drain during his 2015 presidential run, the Phoenix New Times’ Morgan Fischer reports.

“They hate being made fun of,” Fiorito said of Trump. “It’s the thing they hate the most.”

Deja Foxx’s popularity is soaring in the Congressional District 7 special election — according to Foxx.

She has surged by 25% over the past five weeks, she says, making it effectively a two-way race between her and frontrunner Adelita Grijalva.

We have no doubt that Foxx has surged in the polls — a month ago, few people had heard of her, and since then, she’s been a darling of the media.

However, 25% is a stretch.

And the methodology of that poll — which Foxx paid for — leaves us highly suspicious.

The main problem? The pollster, which is generously labeled a “B-” pollster by the Silver Bulletin (formerly FiveThirtyEight), used Facebook ads to promote the poll, leaving us with the distinct feeling that this is a poll of Foxx’s online friends. The poll also over-samples women and young people.

But for fun, let’s assume the poll is correct: Foxx is polling at 35% to Grijalva’s 43%. (Third-place contender Daniel Hernandez is at a paltry 9%, according to this poll.)

That’s still an eight-percentage-point spread separating Grijalva from Foxx.

The poll has a 4.5% margin of error.

But in polling, the margin of error is applied to each candidate — meaning that eight-percentage-point spread between Foxx and Grijalva puts the race, technically, within the margin of error.

And a poll showing you eight points behind a week before the election isn’t exactly something to brag about.

1. A “coordinated campaign” is a campaign finance gimmick that allows a party to accept large contributions from fat cats and coordinate spending that money with the candidates — as opposed to an independent expenditure campaign which cannot coordinate with candidates.