Racism and bigotry rears its ugly head in AZ Republican primary

[begin sarcasm]

This is so surprising.

[/end sarcasm]

From KJZZ, written by Camryn Sanchez, dated 6/30 -

Arizona superintendent candidate Kimberly Yee calls attack ad 'racist,' blames opponent Tom Horne

A new TV attack ad targets Arizona candidate for school superintendent Kimberly Yee and accuses her of being too liberal. Both Yee and her opponent call it racist.

Yee, a Republican who currently serves as the state treasurer, is Chinese American and is portrayed in the ad with an Asian backdrop, the sound of gongs and the tagline “empress of DEI,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.

[snip]

Yee accused her primary opponent, Republican incumbent Tom Horne, of being behind it.

“Tom Horne and his supporters have clearly put out a racist attack, it’s out of line with Arizonans, and they have nothing but a failed track record to run on, so they’re reverting to racism,” Yee said Monday.

Tom Horne, the incumbent AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction, denied any involvement with the ad, but he's been known to lie.

I'm not a fan of Yee, but I'm more not a fan of Horne - he's a profoundly lousy human being, possibly the worst in AZ politics, and he has a LOT of rivals for the crown..

Yee is partially right when she says "it’s out of line with Arizonans..."

Actually, it's out of line with *most* Arizonans.

Most Arizonans don't vote in Republican primaries.

And the fact that the surrogates (Horne's?) believe that message will persuade voters in an R primary says a LOT about what they think of the character of R primary voters.

During the research for this post, I learned a couple of things.

1. The PAC behind this ad, Arizonans for Election Integrity, utilizes a CA-based company, Liberty Strategic Partners, hasn't registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission (at least, not under that name).  The California Secretary of State (CASOS) has the following information: 

Note: The listed agent here, Jonathan Huey, is listed as the Treasurer of the PAC -

2. There's a quirk in the financial reporting periods for committees that are politically active in AZ.

The post primary report period post dates the Q2 report period but is due *before* the Q2 report is due.

From the AZ SOS -

Initially, I thought they had simply skipped filing the Q2 report, which would be significant, as the expenditures for the ad were in Q2, but the Q2 report is not yet due.

Legislative schedule - week starting 7/12/2026

On the schedule for the week: nada, and I'm guessing there won't be anything until after the primary...of course, there probably won't be much afterward.

With friends like these...

It's not unheard-of for various industrial concerns to try to influence primary elections in AZ, often through PACs and/or membership organizations.

Usually, though, they're not this brazen or sloppy about it.

Note: While my ballot has already been returned and I did NOT vote for either, I do not blame either candidates for the things that will be called out.

On Wednesday, we received some political literature in the mail.  Not an unusual thing in an even-numbered year this close to an election.

At first glance, the lit wasn't unusual - it expressed support for a couple of candidates in LD8 legislative races by saying some nice things about them.

However, upon closer examination, there were a few problems with the lit.

Ummm....some basic copy editing could have found and fixed this.

Then...

Misspelling a candidate's name?

Bush league, at best.  Actually, here in AZ, we might refer to it as "tumbleweed league." 😀

Could have been resolved by reading the candidates' W-2s (or 1099s) or if that's too much work, I don't know, reading THE OTHER FREAKIN' SIDE OF THE LIT!

But neither of those is worse the outright lie on the piece.

"Not For Sale."

Sounds good...except that it's utterly contradicted by the "Paid for by..." statement on the other side.

The Arizona political quote of the year is in!

It's only early July and it's an election year (I'm sure there will be some juicy quotes surrounding the primary and general elections) but the bar has already been set very high by Republican State Representative Quang Nguyen.

From the Arizona Agenda, written by TJ L'Heureux (emphasis added by me) -

Turning Point’s temper tantrum

With less than two weeks to go before the July 21 primary election, the tension brewing within the Republican Party is on high — and it boiled over on Monday night when Tyler Bowyer, the chief operating officer of influential right-wing organization Turning Point USA, went on a Twitter rampage against two GOP lawmakers.

The episode featured naked racism, a hilarious acknowledgment of inconsistency by a Turning Point-endorsed lawmaker and a petulant un-endorsement.

[snip]

“I’m very far-right — I’m just not far-stupid.”

This particular competition is over, IMO.

Legislative Republicans nearly pull off the impossible...

...of course, they failed, but they were negotiating with themselves.

When doing that, it's kind of hard to pull off failure, but legislative Republicans achieved that.

Taking cues from someone who isn't involved doesn't seem to help.

From AZMirror, written by Jerod Macdonald-Evoy, dated 6/29/2026 -

School voucher special session deal is likely dead in the water

A plan by Republican lawmakers to call a special session of the Arizona Legislature to strike a deal with the state’s largest teachers union to kill a ballot initiative aimed at the school voucher program is likely dead in the water. 

In the final hours of the annual legislative session just three weeks ago, Republican lawmakers pushed through a ballot referral that, if approved by voters, would nullify the two citizen-led initiatives aimed at regulating the state’s billion-dollar school voucher program, formally known as the Empowerment Scholarship Account program. 

[snip]

Some long-time ESA advocates are continuing to push for what is now being called the “Biggs plan,” named after Republican Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Andy Biggs, despite signals from the ninth floor that the governor will not agree to that deal. 

Note: this headline was written before signature were due; they're now in, and "likely dead" has become "is dead."

Legislative Democrats noticed, and had something to say.

From their press release -

Legislative Dems Statement on Republican Special Session Failure on ESAs and Ballot Measures Attacking Educators, Fire Fighters and Law Enforcement

Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan and House Democratic Leader Oscar De Los Santos released the following statement regarding the Republican failure – announced today via social media – to come together on a special session to pass modest ESA voucher reforms and to claw back misleading ballot referrals attacking public schools, educators, firefighters and law enforcement.

"Republicans created this mess by rushing harmful and misleading ballot referrals through the Legislature, including an attack on teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers and other public employees who wish to join a union and negotiate the terms of their employment. Today, they had the opportunity to come together and work with Democrats to pull back these rushed and ill-considered reforms and once again, they failed Arizona.

[snip]

What we saw today was a failure of leadership from Republicans in both chambers. While Speaker Montenegro and President Petersen stated they were negotiating in good faith – we now know the truth. There will be no special session. Instead, Republicans backtracked on the terms of a deal which were not only widely reported, but which they themselves put together.

The Arizona Education Association (AEA) noticed, too.

From their press release -

Arizona Labor Unions and Allies Slam “Biggs Deal” that Hurts Working Families and Enshrines Voucher Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in the Arizona Constitution

Today, labor unions and allied groups representing hundreds of thousands of working families, parents, and educators across Arizona released the following statement slamming Legislative Republicans for backing away from bipartisan voucher reforms in support of a so-called “Biggs Deal” that would block basic guardrails for the scandal-plagued ESA voucher program and risk millions of dollars in funding for Arizona school districts by keeping SCR 1032 on the ballot: 

"The Biggs deal is a non-starter that would be horrible for students, educators, parents, and working families across Arizona. When Republican lawmakers approached us with an offer to pass common-sense voucher reforms and drop their three disastrous referrals (HCR 2040, SCR 1032, and HCR 2048), we were open to good-faith discussions. After Biggs and his extremist allies intervened, their involvement left the Republican caucus divided and unable to negotiate in a serious or constructive way. We are no longer willing to participate in what has become a political circus.

My guess is that what happened here is that legislative Republicans floated the special session rumor and offered a one-sided "deal" (one where they gave up nothing while the other parties to the deal gave up all), and when the other parties didn't play their game, brought in Andy Biggs and his merry bunch anti-society cutthroats to take the blame for their own failure.

Legislative schedule - week starting 7/5/2026

One meeting is on the schedule, but it's required, at least in even-numbered years.

On Monday,7/6 and Tuesday, 7/7 - Nada.

On Wednesday, 7/8 

-

Legislative Council meets at 10 a.m. in HHR1.   It's a joint committee, comprised of members of both the House and the Senate.  On the agenda: no bills; a bunch of items regarding "Adoption of Ballot Analysis Pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes, Section 19-124" for 12 ballot measures to be considered by the voters this fall, 10 of which were referred to the ballot by the legislature.  One of the measures scheduled to be proposed by the public, I-08-2026 – Free, Fair and Secure Elections Act, won't appear on the ballot as the organizers chose not to turn in the signatures that they collected.

ARS section 19-124 can be found here.

This meeting should generate some lawsuits - the ballot analyses for the measures proposed by the legislature will almost certainly be crafted in such a way as to favor those proposals while the analysis for the one measure proposed by the public will almost certainly be crafted in such a way as to oppose that measure.

On Thursday, 7/9 - Nada.

R CD1 primary debate

On 6/24, the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (AZCCEC) held a debate between the three Republican candidates vying for their party's nomination to replace R David Schweikert, who is running for AZ Governor, former state rep Joe Chaplik, former NFL placekicker Jay Feely, and businessman John Trobough .

All of AZCCEC's debates are here.

Note: candidate pics are NOT from the moment of the quotation.

From the website of the AZSOS -

Summary: Watching this debate made my general election vote easier.  I was going to skip this race if one of two candidates emerged from the Democratic primary as the nominee.  They are people I would never vote for in a primary.  

However, all three R candidates are lousy human beings, and they showed it here.  Not gonna skip this race in the general.

At the 6:19 mark of the video, Feely stated that "He [Trump] and Jim Jordan asked me to run."

He may be touting their support, but the fact that an (alleged) pedophile and someone known for looking the other while people in his trust were molested themselves is NOT a glowing character reference for Feely.

At 9:39, Chaplik opined that ESAs are good for all Arizonans.

.

At 11:03, Feely blamed Democrats and undocumented immigrants for "affordability issues."

At 29:34, Feely issued a statement that was deceptive at best, and may actually be false.

"The Obama administration detained more American citizens as a percentage than the Trump administration has..."

There one problem with that.  From the American Immigration Council (the numbers from the "first year after President Trump took office" references 2017) [emphasis added by me] -

[snip]

In the first year after President Trump took office, ICE encountered 27,540 U.S. citizens. In comparison, during the last year of the Obama administration, ICE encountered 5,940 U.S. citizens. This trend suggests that some U.S. citizens who may “appear deportable” in the eyes of some U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have become increasingly vulnerable to immigration enforcement in recent years.

2025 numbers here.

At 30:26, Feely then uttered something that's completely false.

"The Democrat Party is paying for those protesters to go there and interact with ICE and to try and get a reaction..."

At 31:38, Chaplik made sure to establish his "I hate immigrants, too" bonafides by pronouncing that "DACA has made the situation worse."

All of them love AI and data centers, but Chaplik's affection is a little more nuanced that the others.  At 38:12, he announced "I'm for data centers" but put them elsewhere, not in CD1.

He's not a huge fan of AI, though, because it has negatively affected him personally.  This also where the debate got a little fiery..

At 38:53, Chaplik stated, singling out Feely "My opponent put a sign up through his shady PAC out of DC that has a picture of me from AI..."

At 39:48, Feely retorted "I think it's disingenuous and he's just lying.  Joe knows that PAC has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my campaign..."

All of this AI/data centers talk led into a discussion of one of the biggest issues facing Arizona, water.

One thing all seemed to agree on was their willingness to blame others for AZ's problem.

At 43:36, Chaplik pronounced "We've gotta stop California from dumping fresh water after they fill their few reservoirs they have into the ocean..."

At 44:00, he followed that up with "...when California is wasting their water because of their Democrat policies we need to make sure that Colorado River water is not being wasted into California..."

He wasn't alone in blaming others -Feely blamed Governor Katie Hobbs for not solving Arizona's water problems.

I shouldn't disregard the third candidate, John Trobough.

I *do* think he will come in third in this three-way primary, but I'm setting that prediction in stone - my prognosticating ability is notoriously bad when it come to R primaries.

At 45:06, he made a mistaken misstatement (at least, I believe it was a mistake) [emphasis added by me) - "We have a choice and we have an opportunity- we can be the gateway to the global economy for the world or we can be the bachelorette party capital of the world.  I actually prefer the latter..."

Gloria Rebecca Gomez of AZMirror has a report here.

Legislative schedule - week starting 6/28/2026

Nada on the schedule for now.

There have been rumors of a special session over ESAs/school vouchers, and they have been dutifully reported by the MSM.

However, there are two things to consider:

1. As yet, there's nothing scheduled.

2. My guess (and it's only that) is that nothing will happen - there's no upside for the supporters of ESA reform.  The special session scam seems like something floated by one or more members of the R caucus looking to shield ESAs from anything resembling real reform.

R LD27 Senate primary debate

On 6/22, the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (AZCCEC) held a "debate" between the two Republican candidates for the R nomination for the State Senate seat in LD27, incumbent Kevin Payne and his challenger, Anthony Kern.

All of AZCCEC's debates are here.

From the website of the AZSOS -

Quotes were used around "debate" because Payne declined to participate and turned it into a Q and A session with Kern.

With either outcome, the R nominee will be a lousy human being.

Payne is already known for his dismissive demeanor toward his Democratic colleagues, often not even acknowledging their existence when encountering one.

Kern can best be described as "fact-dismissive."

At the 40:14 mark of the video, Kern claimed the accused killer of Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson, was a trans Democrat.

At the 41:02 mark of the video, moderator/interviewer T.J. L'Heureux of the Arizona Agenda advised him that wasn't so.

Kern shrugged off reality.

Earlier, he also called Robinson "deranged."  He may be that, I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist who is qualified to make such a diagnosis.  Kern may want to think twice about categorizing anyone, though.

From AZMirror, written by Jerod Macdonald-Evoy, dated 5/5/2021 -

Where was Anthony Kern on Jan. 6?

Newly reviewed footage by Arizona Mirror raises new questions about former Republican lawmaker Anthony Kern’s activities around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as the lawmaker continues to participate in a recount of Maricopa County’s ballots from the 2020 general election. 

Kern has continually insisted that he did not breach the Capitol and no footage or other evidence suggested otherwise. Photos show Kern on the front steps. 

However, footage reviewed by the Mirror shows that Kern was present at other parts of the Capitol breached by protesters. 

Kern, who was an election denier in 2021, doubles down on that today - 

At the 17:40 mark, Kern stated "...What we saw in 2020 was absolutely ridiculous...I still believe that election was absolutely stolen and I will never sway from that because there's enough out there so we do need to get our election and President Trump..."

He never bothered to provide any evidence.

At 18:08, he stated "Elections have been stolen for the past 40 years."

Ummmm about that...

From Ballotpedia -

It's been over 34 years since Democrats controlled the State Senate and over 60 years since the Ds controlled the State House (control of the Senate was split in 2001/2002).

Should someone bother to inform Kern that if "elections have been stolen", it hasn't been by Ds?

Or will he just shrug that off, too?

While this isn't my district and none of these folks will be on my ballot, in an interesting way, watching this did help me with my choice in the CD1 Democratic primary.

Early on, at the 9:29 mark, Kern was asked if there was a Democratic member of the legislature he could/had worked with.

He named one, and that person is one of the candidates running in the CD1 Democratic primary.

If Kern likes a person, I won't vote for that person.

 

The GOP's Dirty Tricks Brigade has a multifaceted game

Rs like to claim they're in favor of free markets, but in the marketplace of ideas, they know their ideas are morally and ethically bankrupt, so they've resorted to deception.

Got a couple of pieces of campaign lit in the mail on Saturday (the mail was delivered very late Saturday, so I didn't pick it up until Sunday).

Not only is Republican operative Risa Lombardo running as a Green Party candidate in an apparent effort to siphon votes from Democratic incumbent Governor Katie Hobbs, she's fronting an effort to reduce the number of voters registered as Democrats.  From the mail -

The website she's urging people to go to. vote.gov, is a federal website controlled by Cheeto (or more probably, one of his sub-grifters).

The Arizona Green Party has disavowed her.

From their website -

Lombardo is the only candidate for Governor on the ballot for the Green Party primary, but the Green Party has thrown its support behind a write-in candidate, Carlos Melendez.  It's a pattern that repeats itself in the contest for Secretary of State, except there, the write-in that they're supporting is Jon Ralston.

From the website of the AZ SOS -

Poison Pills: The Arizona Legislature's parting gift to Arizona voters

It's interesting when elected officials so despise the public who elected them..

"Interesting" = "hypocritical" here.

From KJZZ, dated 6/13, written by Camryn Sanchez and Wayne Schutsky at KJZZ and Howard Fischer at Capitol Media Services -

After deal fails, Republicans send 'poison pill' for Arizona school voucher reform to ballot

Arizona Republican state lawmakers made a last-ditch effort to hijack efforts to rein in private school vouchers on Friday, after a deal with the teacher’s union fell through.

The Arizona Education Association and Save Our Schools Arizona are gathering signatures to put “Protect Education Now” on the November ballot. If they succeed, and the ballot measure gets approved by voters, it would drastically alter the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the state’s universal voucher system.

The measure to protect ESAs referred to the voters was HCR2048.

The Republicans in the lege like to say that the measure is all about protecting military families (really! it is, just ask them!) but it has an anti-voter clause in it -

That clause is all about trying to deceive the into nullifying the Protect Education Act, assuming the voters approve it.

Oh, while the Rs in the lege don't want severability for things approved by the voters, they want it for themselves.  From 2026's HB2991 (though this clause is in many of the legislature's measures) -

While this may be the most egregious example of their contempt for the voting public, it's far from the only example.

From AZ Mirror, dated 6/18, written by Jim Small (emphasis added by me) -

Arizona voters will decide 10 GOP-backed ballot measures in November on schools, elections, taxes

When Arizona voters go to the polls in November to decide who will be the next governor and hold the other statewide offices, they’ll also get to weigh in directly on some of the policy priorities of the Republicans who currently run the state legislature.

In all, legislators sent 10 measures to this year’s ballot, where voters will get the final say. Half of those proposals seek to amend the Arizona Constitution, which requires voter approval. The other half make changes to state law, but were sent to the ballot to avoid a veto from Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who has shattered the state’s record for vetoes during her four years in office.

[snip]

SCR 1004 (2026) — Photo-enforcement voter approval
Amends state law to require local governments and agencies to win voter approval to keep operating speed- and red-light cameras, unless under contract by Dec. 31, 2026. If voters approve the cameras, that authorization lasts for 10 years, after which voters must once again vote on their use. 

Legislative antipathy toward the will of the voters is longstanding and well-documented.

In 1996, the voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to legalize medical marijuana in AZ.

Then the legislature overturned the will of the voters.

So in 1998, the voters passed the Voter Protection Act, all but barring the lege from tinkering with voter-approved measures.

In the many years since, the Republicans in the state legislature have tried to overturn or at least weaken it; usually their efforts are paid for by corporate interests.  They've always been rebuffed.

In some years, the legislature refers something to the ballot that merits support from voters (it's rare, but it HAS happened).

This isn't one of those years.

Legislative schedule - week starting 6/21/2026

Nada on the schedule for now.

There's a holiday (Independence Day) coming up, and a primary election.

My guess is that as elected officials, the majority of the membership of the lege doesn't care about the holiday, unless they believe that a profession of love for that holiday will net them more primary votes.

R Governor primary debate

The Committee to Re-elect Katie Hobbs met on Wednesday, 6/17.  They tried to be clever about though and called it a debate between the Republican candidates for governor.

Seriously, the Citizens Clean Elections Commission sponsored the debate; all of their debates can be found here.

Other observers termed the debate "tame."

Note: I won't use too many quotes in this; most of the things I found most objectionable were typical R talking points/social positions.  Though there will be exceptions to the "no quotes" things, but only one candidate, Scott Neely, embraced his inner wingnut - he started discoursing on robots taking over the economy.

First up: a pic of the person they all wish to depose as Governor of Arizona, Katie Hobbs:

The candidates in the R primary, from the Arizona Secretary of State -

One thing was clear: they're all Republicans, and agree on a few things -

All want to lower taxes and regulations facing businesses.

All despise any programs that benefit average Arizonans but want to expand welfare for the wealthy in the form of school vouchers/ESAs.

All blame Joe Biden for most of the bad things facing AZ, including inflation (Cheeto was mentioned by name just a couple of times, and then only in laudatory terms - it was as if they knew he'd be a heavy weight around the neck on the nominee in the general election, but in the primary, they're seeking the votes of folks who worship him)

Water in  AZ:: There's no water shortage here, just a perception problem.  Otherwise, everything's fine.

[edit on 6/20 to add]

They're all campaigning on a MAGA platform, where MAGA means "Make Arizona Great Again".

[/end edit]

Candidates Ken Miceli and Scott Neely were unabashed about wanting to be governor to enhance their businesses.

Miceli mumbled a lot and gave off a "just happy to be here" vibe.  My guess is that he'll be fortunate to exceed 1% of the primary vote.

Neely was better and more experienced (he ran for governor in 2022).  He received less than 26K votes in 2022; he may surpass that total in 2026 but will still garner fewer than 50K votes.

Current member of Congress David Schweikert likes to use numbers and figures to justify the same old R talking points, but in a "if you can't dazzle 'em with footwork, baffle 'em with bullshit" way.

At the 16:21 mark of the video, he stated, to rationalize his support of new housing projects, "If an acre of homes, particularly if it's an acre of homes that goes that goes into where agriculture was, you actually end up with excess water supply."

My guess is that he'll come in 2nd in the primary; he may actually be running for the Lieutenant Governor spot on the ticket.

That leaves current member of Congress Andy Biggs.

I believe that he's going to win this particular primary, and it's evident that he does, too.

He tried to present himself as a reasonable person with a history of "working across the aisle."

Of course, being Biggs, it should come as no surprise that a couple of the examples that he cited may qualify as "own goals."

One example he cited was his work with former Senator and Representative Kyrsten Sinema.

Problem: she so despised Democrats (and, to be fair, many Democrats despised her in turn) that she changed her voting registration to nonaffiliated.  Last seen: lobbying (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) for a data center.

Another example he cited was working with the late Senator John McCain.

Problem: while he was a decent human being, he was not a Democrat.

The fact that Biggs thinks of working with a decent human being as "working across the aisle" says much about his personal character.

Republican voters shouldn't be worried though - he is still pandering to them.

At approximately 27:55 of the video, he proposed ending AZ's income tax and paying for it by going after fraud in Medicaid, Indian Health Services, and the Medicaid expansion program and selling off other assets like state trust lands.

He, like the others, glossed over fraud in the ESA program.

At 42:28, he observed "the reason you're hearing about it is that they're catching people that fraudulently use ESAs.

There's also tremendous fraud in {garbled} traditional system that we have to come in and find out and get that and stop that."

Evidently, providing facts is so not necessary in R primaries; only assertions are needed.

The next debates I'll watch are the CD1 debates - I'll watch the Democratic debate because I really don't know who I'm going to vote for, and I'll watch the R debate because I expect it to be entertaining.