Secret Santa: Destined for D.C.

The Agenda's intern is going places.

The Agenda team is spending this week working on some projects for 2026.

But since you probably missed a few of our 200-and-something editions this year, we’re resurfacing our favorites, along with a few words about why we like them.

It’s kinda like our Secret Santa gifts to each other.

Today, Hank has dug through the archives to find Agenda intern Alysa’s coverage of this year’s hottest election.

“The Foxx news spin” is what we in the news business call a “quick-turn” story about the results of the July special primary election in Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 7.

And it was the first story where I got a real sense of the kind of reporter that Agenda intern Alysa Horton is.

She’s bold, clever, determined and hopelessly obsessed with politics.

And most importantly, she’s fun to party hop with!

The special election to replace Raúl Grijalva in CD7 was the main event of the otherwise off-season political cycle in Arizona. And Alysa wanted to be in the thick of it.

So she volunteered to trek down to Southern Arizona to join me and Joe Ferguson at the election night parties.

First stop was social media sensation Deja Foxx’s party — where Foxx delivered a concession speech via Zoom, which became the lens for Alysa’s postmortem of her congressional campaign.

The piece holds up as a capstone for that moment, but the real reason I chose it was the joy of watching Alysa work. She beelined for Foxx’s mom and got rejected for an interview, she nearly got washed off the road during a flash monsoon and she finished up this story soaking wet, through chattering teeth.

It was kind of a disaster of an election night! But Alysa was a trooper through it all.

Bouncing around with Alysa was a blast, and seeing the evening through her eyes made me a little nostalgic for my first election parties in Tucson. It was clear she had caught the politics bug that got me so many years ago — God help her.

While Foxx wasn’t destined for D.C., Alysa is. She’s leaving Arizona in January to finish up her master’s degree in the nation’s capital.

Her unique perspective, strong voice and can-do attitude will be sorely missed here at the Agendaverse.

But I’m sure that if she doesn’t have the good sense to leave this business now, she’ll have a very bright future in journalism.

Help us promote Alysa to “D.C. correspondent” by clicking this button.

The Foxx news spin

Teen Vogue reporters don’t vote.

Alysa Horton, Jul 16, 2025

At 25 years old, Deja Foxx’s lack of experience in traditional politics was the driving narrative that brought supporters and foes alike to follow the Gen Zer’s campaign over the last 100 days.

Foxx was a fresh face in a race that amounted to a match-up between two of the most worn names in Tucson politics. And as Democrats struggle nationally to decide why their party got trounced by President Donald Trump, Foxx provided a glimmer of hope that the answer wasn’t, in fact, more of the same.

Her campaign, which she documented daily on social media, especially her preferred channel, TikTok, inspired a whole universe of Washington-centric think pieces comparing her to Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and, more recently, New York mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani.

As recently as yesterday, Politico was still declaring her the “influencer (who) could actually win a seat in Congress.”

In the end, she didn’t even come close.

Foxx’s run for the Congressional District 7 seat left vacant by Arizona’s longest-serving member of Congress, Raúl Grijalva, came to a quick close Tuesday night.

Early ballot results showed the congressman’s daughter, Adelita Grijalva, won by an enormous margin. The Associated Press called the race within minutes of the first round of ballots being counted. The other candidates didn’t stand a chance.

The poor showing was a devastating blow to the few dozen Foxx campaign volunteers who eagerly awaited Foxx’s arrival at her election party in Tucson on Tuesday night.

Instead, the social media-savvy politician made her first appearance via Zoom. It was a brief moment of prioritizing her online following over her boots on the ground volunteers that spoke volumes about the campaign’s priorities.

Only later did she make a brief appearance in front of the fewer than 100 mostly young supporters who showed up.

“I know that everybody in this room shares the core belief that we picked possibility over predictability,” she said. “The people that we inspired are better off because we were in this race. That doesn’t go away after one election.”

Win — or in this case — lose, Foxx’s campaign used her age as a call to Democrats to bring younger voices to the party’s future.

That message was popular with national reporters and columnists who followed the campaign, and even some celebrities who latched onto Foxx’s moment of fame.

But it never landed with Southern Arizona voters.

Instead, Tuesday night’s results offered a testament to the strength of the Grijalva brand in Tucson — and the steady lifetime of public service that the Grijalva family represents.

Grijalva didn’t just win. She dominated to a degree that surprised even her supporters.

At the Grijalva victory party at the El Casino Ballroom in South Tucson, the dance floor was popping — packed with more young Tucson voters than the entire Foxx election party.

The future congresswoman made the rounds with open arms, thanking her supporters and promising she’ll strive to carry on the legacy of her father.

“This campaign was not about one individual, it was not about social media likes,” Grijalva told the crowd.

Still, it’s likely not the last time Foxx will catch the eye of national outlets. She’s proven herself as a valuable asset to Democrats — with a social media following Love Island contestants can only dream of — even if CD7 residents aren’t ready for a “political influencer” to take office.

Where Foxx is headed next might be unknown, but she’s clearly headed places… just not Congress.