The Daily Agenda: Two elections on Election Day
The Daily Agenda: Two elections on Election Day
And the other one is super important to Democrats ... This American Life visits Magazona ... And good luck, Dick Weed.
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The Navajo Nation is the most solidly Democratic voting bloc in Arizona, and this year’s heated contest for Navajo Nation president could be a big boon to statewide Democrats — assuming the election goes on as planned.
The Navajo Nation holds its presidential election at the same time as Arizona’s gubernatorial election. But it’s a wholly separate election run by a sovereign nation that doesn’t necessarily need to happen on the same day. And after drama with the primary election, several of the losing candidates are calling for a full do-over, which could uncouple the Arizona and Navajo election dates and decimate voter turnout for statewide Democrats.
This year’s Navajo presidential election features incumbent Jonathan Nez, a 47-year-old who was vice president before he won the presidency in 2018, and Buu Nygren, a 35-year-old construction firm manager who has an MBA and PhD and ran for vice president in 2018 on a ticket with presidential candidate and former president Joe Shirley. He’s also the husband of state lawmaker Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren.
Through strict COVID-19 regulations, Nez led the Nation from being one of the earliest hotspots in the world for the virus to one of the safest. But Nygren argues that the tribe’s pandemic policies went too far and harmed business. While Nez is favored to win, he only racked up about 17,000 votes in a 15-way primary election to Nygren’s roughly 13,000. That’s a 9-percentage-point lead, though the non-Nez vote in the crowded primary was 64%.
But the Navajo Nation primary was muddled with problems. And at the request of several losing candidates, the Nation held an unprecedented full recount, finding a handful of irregularities and uncounted votes, but not enough to change the outcome of any race.
Now, several of the losing candidates are calling for a redo of the primary election. Ethel Branch, the former Navajo Nation Attorney General and a candidate for president in the primary, is spearheading the effort and is circulating an online petition and wrote an op-ed about it. She recently filed a new complaint to the Navajo Nation Election Administration calling for a revote this week, the Navajo Times’ Donovan Quintero reports. They could vote on it this week.
Her revote bid seems unlikely1 to succeed considering the Navajo Nation Supreme Court has already denied one bid to force a revote.
Somewhere between 85% and 95% of Navajos vote Democratic, the strongest Dem voting bloc in Arizona. Navajo turnout was credited with helping Democrats win Arizona’s presidential and U.S. Senate races in 2020.
A hot tribal presidential race that turns out even a few thousand more votes is a big boon to Democrats on the non-tribal ballot. If turnout goes up in a swing district by 10,000 votes, it won’t change statewide outcomes much, because at best, one party may pick up 10% more votes, or about 1,000. If turnout on the Navajo Nation goes up by about 10,000 votes, Democrats statewide would net around 8,000 of those votes.
Conversely, if the Navajo Nation changes its election date or pulls its marquee race off its ballots, it could spell disaster for statewide Democrats.
Tell your friends: Today is the deadline to register to vote in this November’s elections. Early voting begins on Wednesday. If you haven’t registered to vote, you have until 11:59 p.m. to get on it! Use this link.
Worth a listen: This weekend’s episode of “This American Life,” the iconic podcast, dives into the “precinct strategy” promoted by Steve Bannon and how that strategy is playing out in Phoenix, particularly as it applies to Republican Kathy Petsas in Legislative District 28. The podcast follows Petsas as her party’s precinct committeemen revolt against her for not denying the results of the 2020 election and as she manages a massive number of new people who want to become PCs despite not voting before. It also delves into poll watchers and observers being trained in advance of this year’s elections to look for anything suspicious, who flag many normal things as suspicious. (For the record, though, despite what the episode says, we’ve never heard anyone call Arizona “Magazona.”)
Housing crisis news: Advocacy groups want the Arizona Legislature to repeal laws that hinder affordable housing progress in cities. Candidates for city councils around the Valley weigh in with their ideas for improving housing problems in advance of local elections. The City of Tucson will launch a new online reporting tool for residents to complain about homeless encampments, which may result in cleaning up the camps, moving people out and getting them services. And two more cities — Mesa and Peoria — will consider short-term housing restrictions now that the Legislature let cities do more on that issue.
He was just a witness: On CBS News, Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem shares details about his interview with the January 6 committee and what he gave to the Justice Department for its investigation. Finchem said his interview was “months ago” and lasted a few hours. He also still won’t say whether Joe Biden was legitimately elected, instead using words like “he is the president” rather than that Biden won and that Biden is “apparently” the president.
Two more props to watch: There are 10 ballot measures you’ll have to decide on this November, as we’ve previously run down here. For more insight into Prop 209, a measure that would cap interest on medical debt and make other changes to how debt is treated, check out this story from the Republic’s Stephanie Innes. And for more on Prop 308, which would grant in-state tuition rates to undocumented Arizonans, check out the Arizona Daily Star’s Danyelle Khmara’s story on the measure.
Who does this?: A herd of free-roaming horses was found shot to death in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, spurring an investigation and a reward from horse advocacy groups for information on the killings.
Horne wasn’t part of the Trump rally: The race for state superintendent of public instruction between incumbent Democrat Kathy Hoffman, and former state superintendent (and then ousted state attorney general) Tom Horne has stayed relatively low-key among the statewide races this year. KJZZ’s Bridget Dowd profiles the race between Hoffman and Horne, which has focused on school test scores and culture-war topics.
All this for hockey: Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport sent fliers to Tempe residents (Tempe-ans?) raising concerns about an entertainment district planned for part of moving the Arizona Coyotes to Tempe, which includes apartments that would hear flight noise, 12News’ Joe Dana reports. Tempe Mayor Corey Woods called the fliers an “alarmist tactic.” The two cities have clashed over the proposed Coyotes development.
A dangerous way to travel: Two recent incidents at the border involved migrants being brought into the country hidden in cattle or horse trailers, the Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi reports. She notes that other instances of people being trucked in tight, enclosed spaces for long durations have led to deaths of migrants.
Weak hit: The Daily Mail attempts to tie gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs to a tradition in her high school in the 1980s that sounds as problematic and offensive as high schools in the 1980s often were. The so-called “slave day” involved seniors making freshmen do menial or embarrassing tasks. The outlet does not prove any direct involvement by Hobbs in the practice, but rather notes that she was a student leader while the day was practiced at the school.
A 10th candidate filed to run in the Legislative District 22 Senate free-for-all write-in race to replace Democratic Rep. Diego Espinoza, the Yellow Sheet Report reports. His name is Dick Weed.
An election do-over wouldn’t be totally without precedent, however. In 2014, when former lawmaker Chris Deschene was running for Navajo president, he faced a lawsuit over his eligibility that claimed he wasn’t fluent in the Navajo language, which is a requirement to hold the office. The lawsuit sought to uncouple the Navajo election date from the statewide election date, former Deschene consultant Stacy Pearson said. But that didn’t ultimately happen. Instead, Deschene was disqualified from running days before the election. The election went on as planned with Deschene’s name on the ballot, though that race wasn’t tabulated. The election was re-done in April 2015 without Deschene’s name on the ballot.
Thanks for the article on the Navajo Nation elections. Interesting!
I am so grateful you guys featured our podcast. Thank you. I read your newsletter avidly every day! It is so good! And I am embarrassed you called me out on "Magazona" ... I saw an activist use it on Telegram ... once ... and I liked it but I have never heard or seen anyone else say it besides that one time! I was hoping it wasn't just them! Anyway, thank you so much, what a compliment.