The Daily Agenda: Arizona is the belle of the ball
Sometimes we miss being a campaign flyover state ... It's all been Turning-Point-ified ... And it's gallows humor season.
As Arizona takes its place at the center of the political universe, it’s more important than ever that Arizonans know how government works and what our politicians are doing. We got you covered.
You probably noticed that we don’t sell advertisements to boost our bottom line. We don’t have sponsors expecting favorable coverage. We don’t have donors or corporate overlords dictating what we write.
We rely solely on your paid subscriptions to keep this small newsroom afloat. It’s not the easiest way to build this business, but it’s the best.
But in order to keep doing this, we need your support. We’ll make it easy — become paid subscriber today and get 30% off your first year. Just click the button.
In the final stretch of the 2022 midterms, the eyes of the nation — and its recent presidents — are fixed on its newest swing state: Arizona.
At a rally in Laveen yesterday, former President Barack Obama joined Arizona’s statewide Democratic slate (plus former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords and Mesa Mayor John Giles, a Republican) to energize the Democratic base.
Calling conspiracies and heated rhetoric a poison to society, Obama painted Democrats as the party of working people and declared Republicans aren’t interested in solving problems — they just want to “own the libs” and win Donald Trump’s approval by claiming the 2020 election was rigged. The phrase that “democracy is on the ballot” is more true in Arizona than anywhere, he said.
“If you’ve got election deniers serving as your governor, as your senator, as your secretary of state, as your attorney general, then democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona,” Obama said. “That is not an exaggeration — that is a fact. And that should transcend party labels.”
And he took a few direct shots at GOP U.S. Senate nominee Blake Masters and especially gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, harkening back to his 2016 interview with the former newscaster, saying at the time, she didn’t seem like someone who would go on to push debunked COVID-19 remedies, declare an invasion on the border or claim the 2020 election was stolen.
“Listen, if we hadn’t just elected somebody whose main qualification was being on TV, you could see maybe giving (her) a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?” he said. “Well now we know. … This isn’t a reality show.”
Not to be outshined, Trump responded with his own impromptu “tele-rally” for his Arizona candidates. He hammered on “insecure elections,” the open border and the slumping economy, and patted the backs of Lake and Masters, “two spectacular people,” who have both said they would have attempted to thwart Biden’s legitimate victory in Arizona two years ago. Lake and Masters both complimented the former president in return, with Lake telling Trump she “can’t wait to get your back in the White House.”
“Vote Kari Lake into the governor’s mansion — the last thing she wants is a mansion, she wants to work,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, current President Joe Biden warned in a prime-time speech from Washington that democracy may not survive if America backs election-denying candidates who insist that if their side loses, any past and future elections are just shams.
“Instead of waiting until an election is over, they’re starting well before it. They’re starting now,” Biden said. “They’ve emboldened violence and intimidation of voters and election officials.”
And in case there’s any question these races have national implications, Trump is increasingly warning he’ll “probably” get on the 2024 presidential campaign trail soon. These days, any path to the White House goes straight through Arizona. The politicians that voters elect this year will sign off — or not — on the outcome of Arizona’s 2024 presidential election.
As the politicians did their politicking, the people who run elections prepared for more in-person voters than 2020 and tried to tell the public about how election results will roll out, all while constantly batting away the latest conspiracy.
They expect some lines, which would be normal, Maricopa County officials told reporters yesterday. There will be small hiccups; there always are. There will be political actors who attempt to make mountains out of molehills.
All the attention confirms what we’ve been saying all along: Arizona is the center of the political universe. Presidents, both current and former, know it, too. Our press conferences now have reporters from all over the world asking about the state of American democracy. The people who run our elections have become household names, both in admiration and in ire.
It’s trite to say the decisions we make next week couldn’t be more consequential, but it’s true. It’s perhaps the only thing both parties agree on these days.
Correction: Tuesday’s edition incorrectly stated that the automatic recounts of each race close enough to trigger a recount under the new recount law would run consecutively. They will run simultaneously, though the 15 counties may not necessarily do their recounts at the same time. Additionally, the piece incorrectly characterized how the hand recounts are triggered, saying that political parties could call them. They are automatically triggered — the parties are charged with providing volunteers or not to carry out the recounts.
It ain’t McCain’s party anymore: The Turning-Point-ification of the Arizona Republican Party began in 2019, when Kelli Ward surrounded herself with Turning Point USA acolytes who helped her win the party chairmanship and her 2021 re-election (through voting fraud, her opponents say), the Republic’s Richard Ruelas writes in his latest dispatch from the Turning Point beat. The story recaps the last three years of inner party battles, both at the highest and lowest level of the party.
Just don’t influence elections against them: While Republicans like Kari Lake, Abe Hamadeh and state Rep. Jake Hoffman take aim at the press corps for attempting to “influence the election,” the Daily Star’s Tim Steller reminds readers that’s literally our job, and it’s also what their friends in the right-wing media do.
“We shouldn’t act as if all candidate positions have equal merit. That would be offering false balance to candidates who are out of balance,” Steller writes.
Last chances: A pair of condemned Arizona men are appealing their death sentences. The Associated Press reports that lawyers for John Montenegro Cruz are arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that jurors in his case weren’t told that he could receive life in prison without parole if they didn’t give him the death sentence. Lawyers for Murray Hooper are requesting the Maricopa County Superior Court judge give him a new trial, saying they’ve discovered new material facts in the 1984 conviction. He’s sentenced to be executed Nov. 16.
It’s like a blood sport now, dude: The New York Times explains why campaign data geeks are having such a hard time figuring out what this year’s election turnout will look like. There are a lot of factors, but broadly, it’s a midterm election, where Republicans traditionally outvote Democrats, but there’s also the abortion issue energizing Democrats. And people are much more tuned into politics these days than in the past.
“It’s like sports now, dude,” said Ian Danley, a Democratic organizer in Arizona.
Let it burn: Prop 310, which would increase sales taxes statewide by 1/10th of a penny to pay for rural fire districts (which also do ambulance service for Valley residents who crash their cars in rural Arizona) isn’t exactly a slam dunk, the Payson Roundup’s Pete Alshire reports based on polling from Data Orbital.
Next gig?: U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is pressuring the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to replace its leader and board, Axios reports, and our own Gov. Doug Ducey is rumored to be angling to take over.
Liberal bastion Mesa, Arizona: Mesa Mayor John Giles, a Republican, has been publicly supporting Democrats in key races because his fellow Republicans have fallen too far down the election conspiracy rabbit hole, Axios Phoenix’s Jessica Boehm reports. Giles appeared at the Obama rally in Phoenix and has faced vitriol from the GOP over his aisle-crossing. Giles penned an op-ed for Deseret News about why he’s backing Dems.
The entourage: Steve Bannon, who was just sentenced to four month in jail but remains free while he appeals, made a surprise appearance at a Lake campaign rally Tuesday night. Lake declared him a “modern-day George Washington.” And former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the Democrat who became a Republican, is backing Masters in the Senate race, saying he’s not a double-speaking politician like Mark Kelly.
What science, specifically?: AZFamily’s Dennis Welch scored a half-hour sit down with Lake that dove deep into her policies, remained cordial and didn’t turn into a circus. The two talked about the border, fighting the feds, local and state tax policy, education vouchers, vocational training and a host of other topics, including her “inclination” to support lifting the school aggregate expenditure limit. While she wouldn’t say who would be her border czar, she indicated she would clean house at the Department of Health Services and fill it with “doctors who understand… science.”
Still fanning the flames of conspiracies: Arizona Senate President Karen Fann took to the Conservative Circus radio show to react to Mark Brnovich’s interview on 60 Minutes, saying she was flabbergasted with his comments because the Senate is still doing its audit. She talked smack about Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and the Republicans on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Require media literacy education in schools: That Arizona Catholic Tribune newspaper that is neither a newspaper nor run by the Catholic Church is one of many attempts by politicians and their backers to mislead voters, and it’s probably coming from Metric Media, Mary Glen Hatcher writes in the Green Valley News. The piece includes some helpful media literacy pointers at the bottom.
Never mind: Pinal County supervisors voted down a plan to do a full hand recount of their upcoming election ballots, à la Cochise County. Meanwhile, in Cochise County, a hearing is set for Friday on a lawsuit against that county’s hand count, while Recorder David Stevens claims he has enough people from different political parties to staff the volunteer count, the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl reports.
The long game: As reproductive rights advocates gear up for an initiative to protect abortion on the 2024 ballot, they worry that if voters this year approve Propositions 128, 129 and 132, which all take aim at the initiative process, they’ll make it far more difficult to pass a pro-abortion initiative in the future, the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez writes.
Double whammy: Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Capitol cop Brian Sicknick, who died of a stroke after suffering injuries on Jan. 6, declared in a new ad from The Republican Accountability Project that “My son died because of people like Kari Lake” who spread election conspiracies. Adding insult to injury, former D.C. cop Michael Fanone landed a viral moment on MSNBC yesterday while talking about the new ad, saying he’s gotten to know Gladys, and he’s glad she spoke out because “Kari Lake is a piece of shit.” For her part, Lake was classy when asked about the ad, telling a reporter she feels for the mother, but she was nowhere near the Capitol that day.
Steep punishment: One Phoenix police officer was suspended for eight hours and two others received warning letters over the “challenge coin” that showed a protester being hit in the groin, which became one of many scandals facing the department in the past few years, ABC15’s Dave Biscobing reports.
Another twist: Daniel Mota Dos Reis, the man who allegedly burglarized Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign office, is not in the country legally after coming to the U.S. from Portugal as a student in 2018, 12News’ Joe Dana reports. Police released him on bond before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could issue an immigration detainer.
Come for the kettle corn, stay for the politics: The Washington Post traveled to state and local fairs in swing states to talk to fairgoers about who they were voting for and why. At the Arizona State Fair, among the “hot Cheetos-covered burgers and Cinnamon Toast Crunch churros,” the paper talked to voters concerned about health care, the economy and water.
When a reporter from The Guardian tried to ask secretary of state GOP nominee Mark Finchem about his long history of voting by mail and more recent history of attempting to outlaw voting by mail, Finchem lost it.
After accusing the reporter of “blathering bullshit” at him, he started screaming “you are a fraud” repeatedly and then stormed off.
Finchem was pretty proud of the exchange — he posted a screenshot of himself mid-scream, with a threat: “Prepare to be prosecuted.”
So Trump thinks there is a mansion for Arizona’s governor? More misinformation😂 Bannon with Lake literally made my mouth drop. Really a modern Washington??? These people are cra-cra doubled.