Brahm Resnik of 12 News in Phoenix reports that Democrat David Garcia, an education professor who lost to political novice Diane Douglas in the 2014 race for school superintendent, is expected to announce next week that he’s running for governor in 2018. Democrat David Garcia to announce run for Arizona governor:
For the last several months, Garcia had been weighing whether to run again for superintendent, jump into the campaign for governor or just sit on the sidelines.
Thursday’s passage of a sweeping expansion of Arizona’s school-voucher program appeared to give Garcia the issue he needed to propel a campaign for governor.
He posted this tweet Friday hinting at his plans:
Garcia would be the first Democrat to formally enter the race. State Sen. Steve Farley of Tucson has said he is exploring a run.
Any Democrat would face a formidable opponent in Republican incumbent Doug Ducey, who has presided over a period of economic growth, has twice won statewide elections and has access to millions of dollars in campaign cash.
Also, Republicans typically hold a larger turnout advantage in off-year elections than during presidential years.
But Democrats believe Ducey forfeited his claim to be the “education governor” this week with the school-voucher expansion.
That self-proclaimed moniker was always a sick joke.
The governor twisted arms behind the scenes to pass legislation that many education advocates view as an assault on public schools.
Since last year’s campaign for Prop 123, education issues have energized the Democratic base.
Garcia’s defeat in 2014 shocked Democrats. Douglas was widely viewed as a weak candidate, but Garcia underperformed in Democrat-rich Pima County.
Political analysts suggested that many voters had trouble casting a ballot for a Latino candidate. A Latino has not won statewide office in Arizona since Raul Castro took the governor’s race in 1974.
Stay tuned.
pima county democrats won’t vote for a latino? did they vote for rich old white fred duval or terry goddard. duval turned latinos off in 2014 by appealing to republicans who loathe democrats instead of latinos who want to vote democrat. looks like the rich old white democrats think duche is unbeatable so let the latino run and lose! if trump doesn’t bring out democrats to vote what will? the democratic party in this state is a mirage run by the the democratic partys special interests the education lobby. the voters know this and vote republican. identity politic didn’t work for clinton or work in arizona. working class white women won’t even vote democrat!
As long as Charter schools and the like don’t have to adhere to a degree of transparency they will all be great schools, with great scores and success far and above the publics schools.
That closing part demonstrates the Pima County Dems’ dirty little secret quite succinctly.
I’m asking because I’m genuinely not sure what the insinuation of this statement is.
If I think that there’s a real problem with PCD, it’s the machine politics that goes on from TUSD to City Hall to the Board of Supervisors. Any number of wasteful projects for the cronies & politically well-connected get pushed through on a regular basis, while Pima County has high property taxes and the money isn’t making it to fix our roads & schools where it is sorely needed. But the Dems all line up and blue-wall each other for political support rather than being willing to excise those of them who give the rest a bad name.
In an election where Democrats were railing about the supposed influence of dark money, there is no reason why local leaders from Friese to Elias to Rothschild should have been fundraising for Foster after she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar re: ESI contract. But they did, and that’s a problem. That speaks to corruption within PCD.
“Any Democrat would face a formidable opponent in Republican incumbent Doug Ducey, who has presided over a period of economic growth”
Growth that trails most of the country including Ducey’s favorite punching bag California.
And if we have the highest number of students in charter schools and lead in school choice, how come we’re not number 1 in education?
Ducey’s formidable only because TeaPeople don’t know any better and the Koch’s keep him well lubed.
Tom,
Arizona has six consecutive quarters of year over year above average growth.
The left leaning Urban Institute recently ranked Arizona schools 13th.
The National Center for Ed Stats ranked Arizona 1st at increasing the number of high school grads. No other state was even close.
The only variable s we rank low on are cost. And, that’s a good thing.