The Daily Agenda: Wooing the swamp
The Daily Agenda: Wooing the swamp
Swamp creatures for Lake ... Can you apologize via voicemail? ... And Paulson does kind of rhyme with awesome.
While Gov. Doug Ducey is still keeping his distance from his potential replacement, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin — dubbed “the Republican who wants to end the Trump era” — is coming to Arizona to support self-described “Trump in a dress” candidate for governor, Kari Lake.
Ducey hasn’t campaigned (and likely won’t campaign) on Lake’s behalf. And as the chair of the Republican Governors Association, he’s only spending money to tear down Democrat Katie Hobbs, not boost Lake.
But as Lake pivots from outsider candidate pledging to smash the system and drain Arizona’s swamp to Republican nominee who needs money from swamp creatures, she’s spending a lot of time wooing the old-school Republican elites — call them friends of Ducey — that she relentlessly attacked during the primary.
The pivot seems to be working.
Politico yesterday got the scoop that Youngkin is coming to town to support Lake. That’s not terribly surprising, considering Youngkin is eyeing a run for president and wants to appear beside Republicans nationwide. But the line that caught our attention was that Tucson car magnate and Republican check-writer Jim Click connected the two after he invited Lake to speak to a dozen Republicans at his office, and he and his friends were “very impressed.”
Click is a stalwart Republican, but he’s not a full-blown election-denying MAGA warrior. His support for full-blown election-denying MAGA warrior Lake isn’t so much surprising as it is telling.
In recent weeks, we’ve been asking a lot of business Republicans about Lake, and we have yet to find anyone who surprises us crossing the aisle to support Hobbs. Sure, former lawmaker Heather Carter was somewhat surprising. But as far as CEO-level Republicans unwilling to tolerate the rhetoric Lake spewed during the primary election, we haven’t found much.
We mulled this concept over with three mainstream Republican consultants yesterday. None wanted to be on the record, but all confirmed that Lake is working the elite Republican donor circuit hard and is making inroads with the business class.
“You know, I hear from so many people that one-on-one, in a tower in Phoenix, when Kari Lake comes to call, she is inquisitive, charming, and not batshit crazy,” one Republican who won’t support Hobbs but can’t vote for Lake said. “I know some people she sat down with who are like, ‘she's nothing like her public persona.’”
The Lake campaign is smart to try to improve her profile in the chattering class, a second Republican consultant said, considering she’ll need their money. Most are go-along-get-along types that don’t love her, but want to hedge their bets, especially if it looks like Lake is going to win.
“Clearly, she's struggling with the fundraising,” said the second Republican, who is a hard no on Lake. “And so that's why I think she's sort of changing her tune with these business folks, she's got to sweet talk some money out of them.”
While the business community isn’t necessarily afraid of Hobbs, a third Republican consultant said, voting for a Democrat would be a stretch in any year. Many in that crowd are just now meeting Lake, and they’re searching for reasons to support her — some kind of confirmation that she’s not as unhinged as she seems on TV.
And while those few hundred Republicans that make up the serious business and donor class won’t personally make or break her election, they’re influential and can rally the one-third of the Republican Party that doesn’t want a “Trump in a dress” as governor.
“The fact is, for her to win, she cannot afford to lose any Republicans, because I don't think she's going to perform terribly well among independents,” the third Republican, who is supporting Lake, said. “Even if she loses two or three percent of Republicans, it's a problem.”
Not cool: Substacker Judd Legum got ahold of a brochure that migrants who were shipped from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Floridians’ dime were handed that shows they were lied to about being eligible for benefits, such as eight months of cash assistance, assistance with housing, food, clothing, job training and placement, transportation to job interviews and applying for social security cards. None of that, of course, is true. And that could be a big problem. It’s not clear who created the brochure, but lawyers in Boston are calling for a criminal investigation.
Just throw them all out: The Republic’s Joanna Allhands explains how the Judicial Performance Review Commission works, how it decides whether to recommend judges for retention and why it advised voters to fire one judge while another narrowly escaped the same fate.
You gotta try the Israeli tomatoes: Outgoing Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers spoke with Jewish News’ Shannon Levitt about his recent trip to Israel to study the country’s water systems, saying he was impressed with their ability to use reclaimed water and brackish water for agriculture. The Capitol Times’ Haley Tenore rounds up the gubernatorial candidates’ plans for Arizona’s water troubles. And a host of news organizations across the Southwest are working on a collaborative series about the Colorado River as the 100th anniversary of the historic Colorado River Compact approaches. As part of that effort, Tony Davis of the Arizona Daily Star explains how cities are trying to kick groundwater use as river water dwindles.
Swing voters: A new New York Times/Siena College poll shows Democrats still lead with Latinos, but by smaller numbers than ever as Hispanics, especially younger men in the South, are moving towards Republicans based on economic concerns.
Who even listens to voicemail?: Democratic Rep. Brian Fernandez announced on Twitter that he called Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez and apologized after she accused him of telling others he hates her and calling her fat. But Hernandez told the Yellow Sheet Report that he called her from a blocked number and read the statement that he posted online into her voicemail, and she is not satisfied with his apology. House Democratic Leader Reginald Bolding has pledged to conduct an investigation into the comments, at Hernandez’s request, and Rep. Raquel Teran praised the investigation from her position as chair of the Arizona Democratic Party.
At least they can’t ding him for not showing up: Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer fired off a 17-page letter1 explaining why the Maricopa County Republican Committee’s two-page censure of him last month — which criticized him for slow vote counts, the use of felt-tipped pens and “other irregularities” in the primary — was factually incorrect. Separately, the Republican National Committee sent a letter to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office complaining that the county hired 857 Democrats to work the polls on Aug. 2 but only 712 Republicans, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers writes. Finally, Substacker Dillon Rosenblatt requested records of Richer’s attendance at his office and found he spends a lot of time there.
Lame ducks are wild ducks: After failing to win in court with his argument that stopping the border wall construction will hurt the environment, Attorney General Mark Brnovich is now arguing that the Biden administration is acting illegally by failing to consider the population growth caused by immigration. Capitol scribe Howard Fischer notes that in the new legal filing, Brnovich accuses the Biden administration of encouraging immigration as part of its “population augmentation policies.”
A slam dunk like Prop 300: Roughly two-thirds of Arizonans support Prop 308, which would allow undocumented Arizonans to pay in-state tuition to state universities and local community colleges, according to a poll commissioned by the pro-Prop 308 team. The Republic’s Rafael Carranza notes that while that tracks with past polling, Republicans are still about evenly divided on the question. Prop 308 faces no organized opposition, save for ousted Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce and AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward.
Yay?: After much fighting about whether south Phoenix even wanted a light rail line, the south Phoenix light rail line is halfway complete and scheduled to be finished in 2024, Axios’ Jessica Boehm writes.
This campaign ad for Utah state Senate candidate Linda Paulson is absolutely fantastic. We’ve been singing it all day.
H/T to former Arizona reporter Julia Shumway for flagging and adding the appropriate local analysis that “Rodney Glassman’s ‘Sweet Home Arizona’ video is no longer the most cringeworthy musical ad.”
The letter also had 71 footnotes, which we appreciated.
"Migrants who were shipped from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Floridians’ dime were handed that shows they were lied too."
Politicians lied is that news?
"Separately, the Republican National Committee sent a letter to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office complaining that the county hired 857 Democrats to work the polls on Aug. 2 but only 712 Republicans, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers writes."
Hey I called it! The last time you wrote about the poll worker shortage I commented wondering if the shortage was the same for both parties.