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.
