The Daily Agenda: Show us the money

We've got hot races ... Dumb uses of water ... And dumb uses of sunshine.

Arizona will be ground zero for flipping the U.S. House and Senate in 2024, and this weekend, congressmen and D.C. wannabees put their cards on the table, filing campaign finance reports showing just how much money they’ve raised in their quests to represent the people. 

Arizona’s potential three-way Senate race will be one of the most expensive and closely watched races in the country. And we’ve got nearly enough competitive districts to single-handedly swing the narrowly divided U.S. House to Democrats or ensure it remains in Republican hands. 

While fundraising isn’t the end-all-be-all of campaign strategy, it’s a good indicator, especially this early on, of which campaigns have real juice behind them and which do not. This weekend’s campaign finance reports, which cover fundraising from April 1 to June 30, offer the first real glimpse of some candidates’ fundraising prowess, considering many of the would-be congresspeople¹ have only entered the races in the last few months. 

“The (campaign finance) reports are the M.R.I. scan of a campaign,” as Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist, told the New York Times for a profile of presidential fundraising². “It’s the next-best thing to breaking into the headquarters and checking the files.”

At least five of Arizona’s nine congressional districts face potential shakeups, either in the primary or the general election or both. And that’s not to mention the U.S. Senate race, where we’re still awaiting confirmation from the headline acts: Kyrsten Sinema and Kari Lake, neither of whom has officially announced they’re running.  

U.S. Senate

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego outraised the independent Sinema in his bid to replace her in the U.S. Senate by a nearly two-to-one margin this quarter. He pulled in around $3.1 million to her $1.7 million in the past three months, his second consecutive quarter outraising her. Most of her haul came from PACs while most of his came from individuals. But Sinema hasn’t announced whether she’s officially running yet, despite spending around $800,000 this quarter. (Gallego spent much more: $2.1 million.) 

And Sinema still has around $10.7 million in the bank after this quarter’s haul, while Gallego only has about $3.8 million. Still, the slow fundraising has Politico questioning her future and declaring the “representative has shown considerable momentum.”

The only Republican officially in the race so far, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, raised a paltry $600,000 and spent nearly half of that. 

Congressional District 1 

Five Democrats are lining up to challenge Republican Congressman David Schweikert in the Valley’s uber-competitive CD1. But defeating an incumbent won’t be easy: Schweikert raised about $581,000 this quarter and has $634,000 cash on hand. 

Democrat Andrei Cheny, the former leader of the state party, is leading the pack among Democrats, if you don’t count self-funders. He raised $628,000 so far and has $558,000 cash on hand.

Democrat Amish Shah wasn’t far behind, with more than $550,000 raised this quarter and about $380,000 left cash on hand.³

Andrew Horne has the most cash of the Democratic challengers, but he’s funding his own campaign. He raised less than $140,000 but loaned his campaign another $750,000. 

Marlene Galán-Woods, the widow of former Attorney General Grant Woods, raised a little over $300,000 so far, though she entered the race later than the two men. 

And Democrat Kurt Kroemer raised about $220,000, though more than half of that came from his own pocket. 

Congressional District 2 

U.S. Rep. Eli Crane hasn’t drawn much of a challenge yet, despite residing in an ostensibly competitive district. Crane has nearly $600,000 on hand and raised about $620,000 last quarter.

His blow-out victory last year in the former Democratic district may scare off serious Democratic challengers. So far, only Democrat Lindsay Bowe has entered the races, and she has raised less than $10,000. 

Congressional District 3 

There’s a clear financial frontrunner in the four-way Democratic primary to replace Gallego in the West Valley’s CD3. 

Yassamin Ansari, a member of the Phoenix City Council, raised more than double her nearest competitor. She pulled in $510,000 in the past three months and has more than $412,000 cash on hand. 

Raquel Terán, the former state Senator and leader of the Arizona Democratic Party, raised just $205,000 and spent roughly a quarter of that. 

Laura Pastor, another Phoenix City Council member and daughter of Ed Pastor, who held this congressional seat for decades, raised a mere $116,000 since launching her bid.

And water board member Ylenia Aguilar raised just $60,000 in her bid to replace Gallego in this solidly Democratic district. 

Congressional District 4 

Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton has a limited war chest so far to defend himself in his semi-competitive district. This quarter he raised about $325,000 but only has about $420,000 in the bank. 

But that’s still far more than his closest GOP challenger. Kelly Cooper, who challenged Stanton last year and lost, raised $78,000 this quarter and closed with $145,000 cash on hand — if you don’t look at the additional $655,000 in debt he’s dragging. 

Republican Dave Giles also says he’s running again in the district, as he has in every election since 2016, though his campaign finance reports would suggest otherwise. 

Congressional District 6 

Freshman Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani was Arizona’s most prolific fundraiser in Congress this quarter, pulling in $661,000 in his bid to hold onto his competitive seat in Southern Arizona. He has a healthy $1.6 million on hand as he heads into his first re-election bid. 

Former state lawmaker Kirsten Engel, who is seeking a rematch after narrowly losing to Ciscomani last year, has some catching up to do. She raised $425,000 this cycle but ended the quarter with just $355,000 cash on hand. 

And Engel has already dispatched one Democratic challenger. Jack O’Donnell, a Tucson businessman who worked for Trump’s casinos in the 1980s and wrote a book about it, dropped out of the race and offered to support Engel, her campaign confirmed.⁴

Probably not the best use: The Washington Post dives into the Saudi Arabian-owned alfalfa farm in northwestern Arizona, detailing how “Arizona’s lax regulatory environment and sophisticated lobbying by the Saudi-owned company allowed a scarce American resource to flow unchecked to a foreign corporation.” For a long time, the state didn’t even know how much water the company was using, since former Gov. Doug Ducey’s administration was “cautious of tangling with a powerful company.” Gov. Katie Hobbs is now preparing plans to not renew the Saudi company’s lease when it expires next year, and the implications could be wide-reaching. 

These things take time: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren was in D.C. recently asking a U.S. Senate committee for more money and time to build a pipeline that would provide a reliable supply of water to 250,000 people, Cronkite News’ Lillie Boudreaux writes. The pipeline was first authorized in 2009, but it’s still years from completion and way over budget. And the Daily Star’s Tim Steller hopes Tucson doesn’t have enough water to meet the 100-year assured supply rules when the state completes its survey of the area in a year or two, since that would shock people into taking the problem seriously, he writes. But it’s unlikely since Tucson has already done so much more than the Valley in terms of conservation. Elsewhere in the Star, Tony Davis has some details about the proposals that a state water advisory committee is considering as it attempts to rewrite the state’s groundwater laws.

Still hot: Phoenix broke its daily high temperature record on Friday when we hit 118 degrees, the Republic notes. And while that is super hot, the Valley mostly has air conditioning, which isn’t the case with other places getting hit by the heat wave, Cronkite News’ Lauren Irwin and Erin Murphy report.

Manifesting a lawsuit: The Phoenix Police Department is still enforcing an obscure ordinance that allows officers to arrest people for dressing scantily or flagging a car on the street, which it deems “manifesting the intent to commit or solicit prostitution,” the Phoenix New Times’ Katya Schwenk reports. The ordinance became a flashpoint in 2014 after police arrested Monica Jones, a transgender activist and social work student, but 450 people have been cited since then. More than half of them are Black. Similar laws have been found unconstitutional elsewhere, Schwenk notes. 

Do not hire: Kari Lake and Mark Finchem’s lawyers got slapped with a $122,200 fine for backing the candidates’ meritless lawsuit trying to ban electronic voting machines in the 2022 election. Retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who consulted for the case, has to pay about $12,000 of that, while the rest will land on the other members of their legal team: Andrew Parker of Parker Daniels Kibort and Kurt B. Olsen of the Olsen Law Firm, Reuters reports. Failed Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh won’t get yet another day in court, Capitol Scribe Howie Fischer writes, as a Mohave County Superior Court judge threw out his request for a new trial. Hamadeh is appealing to the Arizona Supreme Court. And Cochise County Supervisors got some good news when, in a draft opinion ahead of oral arguments in their case Tuesday, a Court of Appeals judge said they should be able to do a hand recount of all ballots, Votebeat Arizona’s Jen Fifield reports. 

Disrupting the two-party system: Fischer has more details about Chuck Coughlin’s plan to end partisan primary elections in lieu of pushing a ranked-choice voting system. Coughlin said the open-primary idea polls better than ranked-choice voting, but Fischer notes it’ll still have to do better than lawmakers’ ballot referral that would preempt an open primary. Assuming Coughlin’s plan can get on the 2024 ballot, the one with more votes takes action if voters approve both.  

Not in Suprise’s backyard: NBC News dives into NIMBYism and rental rates in Surprise, where neighbors are fighting against a new 388-apartment complex that would house people earning as little as $39,000 or $56,000 for a family. 

“The Phoenix area has experienced some of the biggest housing cost increases in the country, with rents up 41% since the start of 2020 and home prices up more than 50%, according to Zillow. At the same time, homelessness in the region has increased 36%,” NBC notes. 

We finally found an apartment complex we could actually afford as newsletter writers! Unfortunately, it’s in Surprise and it may never get built. Help us afford our unaffordable housing by subscribing today!

Give them the stink eye: The Republic’s Yana Kunichoff tags along on one of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne’s education boot camps where his office teaches teachers how to stare misbehaving kids into submission. Discipline has been a centerpiece of Horne’s administration, and he has faced his fair share of it over the years — including a lifetime ban from the Securities Exchange Commission and a $10,000 fine from the Clean Election Commission for breaking campaign finance laws. 

The temperature in Phoenix this weekend was somewhere between hot enough to cook eggs on a skillet on the sidewalk, but not quite hot enough to bake cookies in the sun. 

1. State politicians, it should be noted, are off the hook for this campaign finance deadline. They no longer have to regularly disclose how much money they raised in non-election years — meaning we won’t know which state lawmaker got money from which lobbyist whose bill they sponsored until next year. 

2. FWIW, Donald Trump raised around $35 million this quarter, while his closest competitor in the GOP, Ron DeSantis, raised about $20 million. Joe Biden raised about $72 million this quarter, the Times notes.

3. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this newsletter accidently left Shah out of the CD1 roundup.

4. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this newsletter failed to note Jack O’Donnell had quietly dropped out of the race.