New Candidates - Congressional Races

Update on 5/6 to add another CD6 candidate. Thanks to Richard Grayson for the heads-up in his comment...

CD6 news -

Jeff "Mikey" Flake (R-CD6) has a real opponent in CD6. Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) looked, but found that while he thought that Flake was vulnerable to an attack from the right, he was one of the few who thought that way. He's now running for the state senate seat from LD18.

Against Jeff Flake's brother-in-law, Kevin Gibbons. :))

Richard Grayson has been running a semi-quixotic 'write-in' campaign, chronicling Flake's penchant for placing his devotion to an extreme ideology before the interests of his constituents in this blog.

Now, Rebecca Schneider, a librarian and community activist, has filed organizational paperwork with the FEC for a run at the CD6 seat (campaign website here)

She seems to be running a campaign that is somewhat more serious than Grayson's - she has a campaign treasurer *not* named 'Rebecca Schneider.' (That's not a shot at Grayson; he's made it clear that his campaign is rooted in the fact that no other Democrat had stepped up to oppose Flake.)

Based on her website, she seems to be an intelligent, educated (hey, she's a *supervisory* librarian - that implies a familiarity with books that goes far beyond knowing how to reshelve them :)) ), and a progressive, grassroots sort of Democrat.

I wish good luck to Schneider (and Grayson!). She'll need it - Jeff Flake still has well over $900K cash on hand.

Edit to add:

Also running in CD6 is Chris Gramazio of Queen Creek. Based on his website's "about" blurb, he's an intelligent and thoughtful blue-collar Democrat.

Good luck to Gramazio; I hope that after the primary, the runner-up can lend their support to the winner. Whoever faces Flake in November will need the support of the other candidate's base to have any chance of unseating the incumbent.

End edit...


CD5 news -

In a long-rumored development, PolitickerAZ is reporting that Susan Bitter Smith will enter the race for the Republican nomination to oppose Congressman Harry Mitchell in CD5. According to news reports, her official announcement will take place on Friday, May 9, giving her just a few short weeks to gather signatures on nominating petitions and to gather financial support.

Given that she's a long-time industry lobbyist (cable and telecom), the money part shouldn't be much of a problem.

Note: I'm going to have to get some Windex for the ol' crystal ball - I've predicted that she wasn't going to enter due to the late date.

Later!