The Daily Agenda: We're calling it a concession

It’s just the ballot that matters ... Introducing Kari Lake of the Left ... And your city is not run by morons.

Housekeeping: As our longtime readers know, we strive to strictly follow the federal holiday schedule. It a matter of respecting our laws. So we won’t be publishing on Memorial Day. But we’ll be back in your inboxes Tuesday.

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When Kari Lake made her “big announcement” this week about her new “ballot chasing” operation, she wrapped it in tough language about how the Democrats are cheating and her team can play by those rules, too. 

But there’s nothing new, novel or tough about “ballot chasing” — both parties and every competent campaign have chased ballots for as long as people have been voting by mail. And by pinning her future electoral hopes on a ballot chasing operation, Lake acknowledged that the problem last year wasn’t fraud — it was her awful campaign.

“I’ve got an army of moms and dads and citizens behind me who are ready to chase ballots. Because if it’s just a ballot that matters, then we can chase ballots too. We’ve got to work in this rigged system, and we can do it,” Lake told reporters at her press conference. 

But let’s unpack those three sentences a little. 

First, a brief explanation of “ballot chasing” is in order. When someone receives a mail-in ballot, that’s public record. Both political parties and all major campaigns follow that data closely. They know whether you’ve returned your mail-in ballot or not, and they know if you voted early in person. Smart campaigns want their supporters to turn in ballots immediately so they can cross them off the list and the campaigns don’t have to spend time and resources by sending more mailers and calling voters to remind them to cast their votes.¹

There are already many armies of moms and dads and citizens who “chase ballots” every election cycle, both on the left and right. The state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee put great effort into chasing ballots every election cycle. Even Lake’s losing campaign, presumably, was tracking and chasing early ballots — at the same time as she was attacking the process and her party was going to court to try to ban early voting altogether. Now Lake and MAGA activist Merissa Hamilton want to start their own operation, and they need your donations.

But perhaps the most telling part of Lake’s statement is her revelation that “it’s just a ballot that matters.” Yes, that’s how elections work. The ballots are the only things that matter.  

Candidates don’t win elections by being the loudest or having the most Twitter followers. Candidates don’t win by forming the longest caravan of cars or the biggest floating parade of boats. Candidates don’t win because the polls favor them, because their side has the most registered voters or because their supporters create the best rallies. 

Candidates win elections by getting the largest number of voters to cast ballots in their favor. Lake knows this. And she knows that at the end of the day, that’s why she’s not governor. 

Whether Lake lost because people simply didn’t like her and didn’t agree with her policies, or whether she lost because her supporters didn’t actually vote, is a matter for debate. What’s not up for debate is that when every legal vote was counted, when every possible lawsuit was filed and every appeal was exhausted, Lake simply did not get as many votes as Gov. Katie Hobbs. 

That’s why Lake wrapped her mundane announcement about a standard get-out-the-vote operation in language about pushing the envelope within the “rigged system.” For years, Lake and her compatriots have warned their supporters the system is rigged — warnings that almost certainly led some of her supporters to sit out the “rigged” 2022 election. Now she’s promising to “work within the rigged system.”

In those three sentences, Lake provided the closest thing to a concession speech we’re ever going to get from her: an acknowledgment that she would be in the Governor’s Office today if she had simply won more votes. 

Dems making moves: Democrat Marlene Galán Woods, a former journalist at Fox10² and the widow of former Republican Attorney General Grant Woods, announced she’s running against Republican David Schweikert in a video that gives off some real “Kari Lake of the Left” vibes. She joins a crowded Dem primary in competitive Congressional District 1 that already includes former Arizona Democratic Party Chair Andrei Cherny, Democratic state Rep. Amish Shah, orthodontist Andrew Horne and Kurt Kroemer, a former member of the Bowie, Maryland, City Council. 

• And Democrats now have a four-way primary to replace U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego in the Democratic stronghold of CD3. Ylenia Aguilar, a member of the Osborn School District Governing Board who was formerly undocumented, got into the race Thursday, joining Phoenix City Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari, former state Sen. Raquel Terán, and Hector Jaramillo, who sits on the Glendale Elementary School District Governing Board. 

• Finally, Democrat Jack O’Donnell, who wrote a book about his time working in Donald Trump’s Atlantic City casinos, is seeking the party’s nomination to take on U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani in CD6, the Republic’s Ryan Randazzo notes. Democrat Kirsten Engel, who narrowly lost to Ciscomani last year, has already announced she’s running again for the Tucson-based district. 

All that’s left is MAGA: 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary loser Karrin Taylor Robson announced in a press release yesterday that she won’t run for U.S. Senate, sending moderate Republicans scrambling for a Republican who can represent them. 

No kindergarten for you: Gov. Katie Hobbs canceled a $50 million grant that her predecessor had given out to fund all-day kindergarten for school voucher recipients, saying it was an illegal giveaway under the state Constitution and an impermissible use of the federal American Rescue Plan funds that paid for it. State Treasurer Kimberly Yee, who would have administered the grant, called it a “politically driven and belligerent decision.”

The shakeups never end: Hobbs’ Chief of Staff Allie Bones resigned yesterday “effective immediately,” making her the latest of many high-profile departures in the fledgling administration. Bones was a longtime personal friend of Hobbs, though Democratic allies of the governor had frequently complained that Bones was the source of many of the problems that have plagued the office.

If at first you don’t succeed: After Pinal County election workers screwed up the count last year using machines, supervisors want to try counting ballots by hand next year. That probably won’t create the faster, more reliable results that the supervisors hope it will, VoteBeat’s Jen Fifield writes. 

They leave us so quickly: The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors hopes to appoint someone to replace Democratic Rep. Flavio Bravo, who was appointed to the Senate, before the Legislature reconvenes on June 12, the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington writes. But supervisors in Pima County³ may have another seat to fill if lawmakers decide to oust Democratic Rep. Stephanie Stahl-Hamilton, who faced an ethics hearing yesterday for hiding Bibles at the House. 

Still less than Arpaio:  Maricopa County officials approved spending up to $350,000 to defend a former prosecutor, April Sponsel, as she deals with complaints from the Arizona Bar. The county fired Sponsel after she accused protesters in 2020 of being members of the made-up “All Cops Are Bastards Gang.”

Maybe they really thought it was a hoax: Despite having one of the lowest Covid vaccination rates and one of the highest death rates in the country, Gila County keeps using Covid relief funds for everything but Covid, Peter Aleshire reports for the Payson Roundup. 

The driest desert city: The City of Tucson and Tucson water supplier Metro Water agreed to leave 125,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead over the next three years in exchange for $50 million of federal funding provided through the federal Inflation Reduction Act, the Republic’s Clara Migoya reports. 

Not enough money: Cochise County elections officials needed more money to cover employee salaries and benefits, despite losing two longtime employees recently, the Herald-Review’s Shar Porier writes. New Elections Director/questioner Bob Bartelsmeyer is being paid $4,500 more than his election-defending predecessor, Lisa Marra, and was also paid $10,000 to relocate from La Paz County.

“When did the county start paying for relocation?” Bisbee resident Fred Miller asked the board of supervisors, which approved an additional $40,000 to the office. 

Are they really “athletes” at that age?: Athletes as young as 4 years old are being discriminated against by trans athletes who are allowed to play school sports, say Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and former UA champion swimmer Marshi Smith, per Capitol Scribe Howie Fischer. 

Where’d everybody go?: Rural officials are surveying young people to figure out why their communities are losing population, Joyce Lobeck writes for the Eastern Arizona Courier. So far, the main response is that they “don’t see a future there.” 

Just like kids in rural towns, we didn’t see a future in journalism for a long time. But you fabulous subscribers have changed our minds about that. Upgrade to a paying subscription now so we continue to have a future in local news!

Cut it or watch it burn: Bureaucratic snarls mean Arizona’s logging industry is on the brink, and it raises the risk of wildfires, Peter Aleshire reports for the Payson Roundup. Logging companies want more federal subsidies and interest-free loans to prop up the industry. 

By October, she’ll want to make America great again: During a visit to Nogales, U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema repeated talking points from border hawks that Border Patrol would be catching more fentanyl if only they didn’t have to spend time processing asylum seekers. Federal statistics on drug smuggling show otherwise, as they have for many, many years. She also erroneously claimed that the Tucson Sector is the only area of the border where more drugs are seized outside the ports of entry than at them, the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger reports.

“More than 96% of fentanyl in the Tucson Sector was seized … at ports of entry so far in fiscal year 2023, per CBP data,” Barchenger writes.

Scottsdale residents are worried that “road diets,” or repainting roads to include bike lanes, would slow police or fire response times, the Scottsdale Progress’ Tom Scanlon reports. Police and fire officials say it won’t be an issue, and Scottsdale City Councilman and road diet supporter Tom Durham is a little insulted that constituents would believe the city council didn’t think of that. 

“‘I’d just like to reassure everyone that your city is not run by morons,’ he said with a scowl,” Scanlon writes.

We also got a real kick out of the Mogollon Monster taking time out of his busy schedule to attend a local groundbreaking ceremony with the Payson mayor. 

1. If you hate the barrage of mail you receive in October of an election year, just cast your ballot early. The mail will mostly stop. 

2. CORRECTION: We incorrectly wrote that Galán Woods worked for 12News. She worked in Los Angeles and at Fox10 in Phoenix, the same station that employed Lake, though it appears their employment didn’t overlap.

3. CORRECTION: We originally said the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors may have another seat to fill. Stahl-Hamilton is from Tucson, so the Pima County supervisors would select her replacement, if it comes to that. It’s been that kind of day.