Brnovich: A Vision for What Arizona Shouldn’t Be

Rep. Jennifer Longdon is the Assistant House Minority Leader representing Legislative District 24 and is running for re-election to the Arizona House of Representatives in the new Legislative District 5.

Election season should be exciting, offering a chance for voters to hear from candidates about their vision for our state. But this year, Arizona’s Republican primary for US Senate is offering far more reasons why certain candidates should not hold top spots in our government.

Watching the Senate primary race playout, the Republican party is giving what seems to be their best attempt to showcase why they are unprepared to hold one of the state’s Senate seats. Sitting Attorney General Mark Brnovich launched his campaign with hopes that his name recognition and background in Arizona politics would launch him to the front of the pack, but the reality has been far from that.

If Brnovich was really hoping to make his way to the general election by way of his record, it would seem he has an unrealistic view on what his tenure as Attorney General shows for his political and leadership capabilities.

Day after day, new reporting comes out detailing the problematic policies, legal battles, issue focuses, and political dynamics he’s led. Just recently, information was released detailing how his office redirected funds earmarked for consumer protection to a host of other legal battles that had little or nothing to do with consumer interests.

While the story is frustrating to voters everywhere, it’s par for the course for how Brnovich has chosen to use resources and time as Attorney General. In the present moment when issues like voting rights, immigration, the pandemic, and reproductive rights are all areas where the Attorney General could take good, pragmatic action, Brnovich finds himself on the wrong side of every policy, or not even paying attention to the right issues at all.

Take his focus on suing tech companies, which has led him down a rabbit hole of wasting time, energy, and resources on something that voters aren’t prioritizing this cycle. Beyond that, if Brnovich really wanted to widen his appeal across the state, he wouldn’t be going after a sector of the economy that provides much needed opportunity and new jobs to hard working Arizona families.

Brnovich may have wanted to paint himself as what the future of Arizona should be, but in reality, he has held us all back. The missteps of his time in office and on the campaign trail have formed the true narrative that he is unfit to meet and address the needs of his constituency.

And Brnovich has the abysmal polling and fundraising numbers to prove it. Once a favorite in the primary race, early polling results have shown him tanking by double digits in the last few months. And his fundraising totals for the cycle – $2.5 million to Jim Lamon’s $13.8 million – paint an even clearer picture about the current state of the race.

As we watch Brnovich and the other Republican candidates search for a path forward, it’s hard to not compare their ideas and candidacy to the other side of the ticket, where Mark Kelly continues to impress constituents and voters in Arizona – and even rising up as a national leader.

Kelly clearly has his head in the right place, focusing on the issues that matter to Arizonans: reducing unemployment, addressing inflation, and steadying the economy. It’s his close attention to the concerns of voters and his clear efforts to make tangible, relevant policy a reality that make him far and away the clear choice in the Senate race.

Brnovich has missed the mark here, and his efforts should serve as fair warning that voters do pay attention – your policy record and how you spend your time in office do make a difference.