The Republican primary for a state Senate seat representing Scottsdale and Fountain Hills has been rife with cringy AI-produced videos, claims of interdimensional travel among “Teletubby-type” aliens and bitter attacks from both candidates involved.
But there’s another wrinkle to the story that makes it all even stranger than we thought.
Enter former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — once a foremost right-wing figure in American politics who, at 94, is clinging desperately to his erstwhile relevance.
Initially, Arpaio publicly supported challenger candidate Robert Wallace — a former Turning Point employee who was fired weeks ago after he refused to drop out of the race — in his bid to unseat 19-year lawmaker and Senate Majority Leader John Kavanagh, one of the most prominent GOP figures at the Capitol.
Notably, Arpaio refused to give Wallace an official endorsement but agreed to say he “supported” Wallace in a semantic pseudo-endorsement.
A graphic still on Wallace’s campaign website, along with the stock images of flowers that appear when you click on his endorsements.
But days after the Arizona Clean Elections debate we hosted for the two candidates in May, Arpaio reneged on his support for Wallace and issued an official endorsement for Kavanagh.
So what really happened, and what convinced Arpaio to flip-flop?
We asked Arpaio. He told us that he was confused about his semi-endorsement and thought Wallace was running for a municipal office in Fountain Hills.
“It wasn’t a reversal. I didn’t know (Wallace) was running against (Kavanagh). I thought (Wallace) was running for mayor or council. I didn’t realize he was running for the same office (as Kavanagh),” Arpaio told us.
But a 26-minute recording of a phone call between Wallace and Arpaio — which the candidate released on Twitter a few days after Arpaio endorsed Kavanagh — tells a completely different story.
At one point, Arpaio even says of Kavanagh: “It’s time for him to go.”
The call between the two took place on May 11, three days before the debate. In the tape, Arpaio coaches Wallace on attacks to throw at Kavanagh — which are mostly focused on Kavanagh’s lack of public affection for the former sheriff.
And while we weren’t going to take it for granted that the recording — created by an interdimensional traveler who seems pretty good at using AI — was real, Arpaio didn’t deny that the call took place, and the details in Wallace’s call log match the date and length of the phone conversation.
First, some quick background
The primary battle between Kavanagh and Wallace has been one of the messiest — and most ridiculous — races in Arizona this election cycle.
Kavanagh is one of the Capitol’s longest-serving members — and one of its most powerful. He’s played a key role in negotiating the past several budgets with Gov. Katie Hobbs’ staff, and sponsors a large cadre of bills every year.
If Kavanagh wins and Republicans keep their majority in the Senate, he has a chance at becoming president of the chamber, since current Senate President Warren Petersen is leaving to run for attorney general.
Wallace, a leader in Arizona’s Gays Against Groomers chapter, decided to launch a challenge against the senator last year, arguing Kavanagh’s entrenched status at the Capitol made him part of “the swamp.”
But Kavanagh quickly got to work attacking Wallace — mining the challenger’s podcast, “Spiritual Realities,” and social media footprint for an embarrassment of opposition research riches.
He launched a website cataloging what he calls Wallace’s “many wacky & bizarre beliefs,” like:
Wallace’s claims of interdimensional travel sessions involving “Teletubby-type” aliens and “reptilians”
Wallace’s reference to 18th-century Swedish polymath Emanuel Swedenborg’s theory of “spirits who actually derive a sense of joy from a person spending an abnormally long time sitting on the toilet”
Wallace’s belief — based on a dream — that he was reincarnated from a previous life as a Black “gangbanger”
Kavanagh has made the contest about Wallace’s beliefs, also posting a fair number of obnoxious AI-generated videos about Wallace to his Twitter account.
Wallace, for his part, launched a competing attack website — StopKavanagh.com — stocked with videos of Kavanagh’s media appearances and critiques of his work as a lawmaker.
So, what did Arpaio say in the call?
In the video he posted to Twitter, Wallace said he knew Kavanagh and Arpaio previously had beef.
He recalled having invited Arpaio to a Log Cabin Republicans quarterly meeting at his house in September 2023, but Arpaio declined to attend because Kavanagh would be there.
And based on the tape, it seems Arpaio was primarily pissed off at Kavanagh for not showing him enough public love.
In the recording, Arpaio said Kavanagh had just called him and expressed outrage at the former sheriff supporting his opponent.
“He’s gonna get dirty with you with all his sly remarks and all that shit. So he called me and he really was shitty when he saw your ad,” Arpaio said to Wallace. “When Kavanagh called, I kind of reminded him how he ran away from me 14 times.”
We asked Arpaio about this statement — which he made several times throughout the tape.
“Who said he ran away 14 times?”
You did, we responded.
“Oh, I did? Well I don’t know if it’s running away, but he sort of avoided me.”
Some of Arpaio’s other gold nuggets from the call include:
“You’re not dealing with big-talent politics — you’re dealing with a bunch of nuts here.”
“If he says he’s a former cop, ask him what he did as a cop. He was a New York transit cop. That’s it. He keeps bragging.”
“Boy he went crazy when he saw your picture. I told John, ‘Well, that was great. That was a great picture of me.’”
“When Joe Arpaio says he’s gonna do something politically or otherwise, you can take it to the bank.”
“You gotta be able to hold your own, because he blows up. He’s just blow up (sic). He hung up on me and called Ashley (Arpaio’s assistant).”
And on Kavanagh and Congressman David Schweikert:
“They’re so stupid, they hang themselves. They think they can get away with everything, those two — especially Kavanagh. It’s time for him to go.”
Arpaio also seemed to be upset, the tape indicates, that Kavanagh said he wouldn’t be coming to Arpaio’s upcoming 94th birthday party in a month (he did attend, per coverage of the sleazy occasion by Phoenix New Times’ Stephen Lemons) and abruptly hung up on Arpaio.
But after the debate, Wallace said he received news from Arpaio’s assistant that he was rescinding his support and wanted Wallace to remove the graphic touting it.
Kavanagh said he didn’t get the sense his call led to the reversal.
“I didn’t actually ask him to unendorse Wallace and endorse me,” Kavanagh told us. “After he saw all of the crazy stuff that Wallace was saying, he withdrew and endorsed me. I didn’t go to him plotting against the Wallace endorsement.”
Wallace alleged that Arpaio was worried about Petersen’s campaign, per the video he posted on Twitter, claiming that Arpaio told him several times that he was “threatened.”
“All I know is that he was threatened, and he used that word almost five times. So he had to — he was being forced, under duress… to withdraw support from me,” Wallace said, adding he understood Arpaio wouldn’t want to say that publicly. “Maybe privately he will appreciate the fact and the truth that he was coerced into doing this.”
Petersen told us he had nothing to do with the reversal, and that as Senate president, he doesn’t “weigh into legislative primaries.”
We asked Arpaio if he was threatened. That got him riled up.
“Nobody threatens me — you put that in your pipe. No one threatens me, from presidents down,” an irascible Arpaio fumed. “Everybody wants my endorsement anyway — not just Robert. Just check the public record, check the polls, check everything about me.”
Well, even if we’ll never know what really happened, we know that he’s still the same Sheriff Joe.
Dems get some bad press: The New York Post is reporting Sen. Ruben Gallego had sexual relationships with two younger staffers who worked on Capitol Hill (but not for Gallego) during his time as a congressman. The relationships apparently were consensual and occurred while he was unmarried, according to three unnamed sources. So far, Gallego's response has been that he’s “not going to engage in gossip.” Another Arizona Democrat is in much more serious trouble. The former vice chair of the Arizona Democratic Party was arrested on a burglary charge, David Iversen reports for KTAR. Phoenix police say Brianna Westbrook, the first openly transgender person to serve as vice chair of the state Democratic Party and a candidate for Congress in 2018, forcibly entered the home of her ex-partner while carrying a knife.
Family ties: The McCain family is going to host a fundraiser for Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in September, per MS NOW’s Vaughn Hillyard. The Republican family’s ties to Hobbs run even deeper, according to the Atlantic’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, who cited a source saying Hobbs offered the office of lieutenant governor to Jimmy McCain, the son of former Sen. John McCain. Hobbs also appointed the younger McCain to the Arizona Board of Regents last September.
Taking it to court: Arizona’s political scene has turned into its own legal drama. Joseph Chaplik, a former Republican state lawmaker who’s running in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, filed a defamation lawsuit against the Conservatives for Effective Government super PAC for a political sign that used an AI-generated image of him and an advertisement he says misrepresented his role in a child pornography bill, Morgan Fischer reports for the New Times. Also, backers of the Protect Education Act are suing over the Republican-approved language that will appear on the ballot, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. The description of the act “misrepresents the initiative’s provisions” and casts the measure “in the worst possible light,” a lawyer for the groups backing the measure said. And a judge said Republican lawmakers can defend a voter-approved border security law if Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes won’t. Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro said they’ll defend Prop 314, which goes into effect this week, from an ACLU lawsuit claiming the law would lead to rampant racial profiling.
Burning through cash: Two Republican candidates for governor are exhausting their campaign funds for the primary, per Fischer. U.S. Rep. David Schweikert used up $1.2 million, leaving him with around $43,000. Scott Neely, who garnered a large sum of funds from the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, only has about $218,000 left, out of the $1.1 million he raised. Both candidates used a good chunk of their funds to go after Republican rival U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, who still has more than $1.2 million to use in the general election against Hobbs.
Ominous sign: The FBI is investigating shots fired at an ICE building in Phoenix, Brian Petersheim Jr. reports for AZFamily. One person reportedly fired several rounds at the exterior of the building near Central Avenue and Palm Lane on Tuesday. The FBI hasn’t released any more details, but the shooting appears unrelated to a protest nearby that day.
Back in February, a bill from state Sen. John Kavanagh struck us as a little odd.
He’s introduced an eclectic mix of bills over the years, but this one — which would ban sky-altering chemicals — seemed particularly weird.
Kavanagh said he introduced the bill because his constituents were concerned about chemtrails, even though he said: “I haven’t seen any evidence either way on chemtrails.”
It seemed like an odd way to defend your own bill. Then, earlier this week, the light bulb went off.
He posted his latest “Kavanagh’s Korner” video, where he asks his constituents to send him ideas for legislation.
The video gives off some solid “Have you been in an accident? Do you need a lawyer? Call now!” vibes.
But it’s a nice acknowledgement that he understands he works for the public.
Also, he’s really having some fun with the AI images in his video, like this one showing what the state Senate looks like after the session’s over.
