Candidate Conor O’Callaghan Discusses the Race for the Democratic House Congressional District One Primary

CD-1 Democratic House Candidate Conor O’Callaghan.

Arizona House Congressional District (CD) One is one of the most watched Congressional races in the country.

A district where, in 2022, incumbent David Schweikert prevailed in a non-Presidential election year by about a point, has Democrats gleeful that this seat can be a pick up on the road to recapturing a House majority in this November’s elections.

So gleeful that there are six Democrats vying to secure their party’s nomination this July to campaign for the seat in the November elections.

Businessman Conor O’Callaghan is one of them.

Regarded as one of the front runner candidates in the primary race, Mr. O’Callaghan graciously took time to discuss the status of the primary campaign.

The questions and his responses are below.

  • How would you assess your chances for victory in the July primary? Please give at least two reasons for how you feel that way. 

“We feel great about our chances in the July primary. It’s hard to limit it to just two reasons. But if I were to pick two reasons, I would say, you know, we are building a broad coalition of support from across the Democratic Party. From the most Progressive people within the party to the more conservative Democrats. We’re really appealing to a wide universe. We have been endorsed by the Stonewall Democrats. We have the only LGBTQIA plus endorsement in the entire race. We have a broader array of endorsers and the most diverse campaign staff. The diversity of our support I’d say is the number one reason why we feel very good about our chances.”

“The other reason why we feel good about our chances is I’m the best candidate but more importantly we have the best team bar none. We have the biggest and best team. I have the entire Adrian Fontes campaign apparatus running my campaign and then some. We took a really great mousetrap and made it even better and we have the resources to finally get this done. I’m the only candidate in the race with more cash on hand than David Schweikert.”

“We have the candidate, the team and the resources to go the distance. So we feel very good about our chances in July.”

  • With regards to the policy issues, what are those two areas voters have been bringing up to you when visiting them at their door or town hall campaign events? please. Please Explain. 

“Abortion rights is unquestionably the number one issue. Now what’s interesting about that issue from the perspective that you just asked is that within the Democratic party, we are all aligned or we’re mostly all aligned? So that doesn’t tend to take up a lot of time at the doors because people know where I stand on the issue and then I’m going to fight for you and make that priority number one for when I get to Washington to protect abortion rights at the federal level.”

“Then I would say the issues that keep coming up over and over again that I think are blind spots for us as Democrats are the economy and the Border.”

“I think we need to be, and I’ve said this on the debate stage; I think we need to be strong on those two issues. I think a risk that we have both in this race against David Schweikert and in other high-profile races here and across the country is if we make this a one-issue race focused on abortion; we may still win because we’re right on that issue unquestionably, but we open ourselves up to losing because we’re vulnerable on other issues that frankly we shouldn’t be vulnerable on so we need to message strongly on the economy.”

“It’s sort of a Tale of Two Cities because you have stock markets that have record highs. You have unemployment near record lows. Unemployment for minorities is at historic lows. Inflation’s come way down. So the economic metrics are great from a macroeconomic perspective, but people are feeling squeezed. People’s wages have gone up but have they gone up commensurate with inflation? The challenge is there are also hidden costs like Affordable Care Act premiums have gone way up. Homeowner’s insurance premiums have gone way up. Auto insurance premiums have gone way up. So there’s all these sort of kitchen table issues and expenses that are squeezing people on both sides of the political spectrum and I think we need to recognize that we need to empathize with that.”

“People, yes using metrics, maybe quote-unquote better off today and the economy is doing well, which it is but people feel worse than they felt a few years ago. That’s because price gouging is still happening. That’s something that we need to lean in hard on and fix. We need to continue to make sure that you know both that inflation continues to trend in the right direction and also push for a higher minimum wage and make sure that working-class jobs frankly pay living wages where people can have a place to live. They can have a car. They can have a cell phone. They can have internet. Without those things, you’re basically disconnected from modern society. We have to lean in heavily on that.”

“The other issue is the border. President Biden addressed it with the executive action last week, as he should. I was actually on BBC News discussing that. You can find that clip online. The bottom line is I don’t think it’s good that President Biden had to address this issue with executive action. I think bipartisan border reform and immigration reform are what’s needed. But the Republicans and Donald Trump have shown absolutely zero willingness to help and so Biden had no choice but to go It alone.”

“People want to blame Biden’s open border policies; Democrats’ open border policies; the Biden border Invasion. That is all completely laughable. Our federal border policies have not changed substantially under President Biden. The only difference is we don’t rip people away from their kids away from their families. We don’t put people in cages but a lot of what Biden’s doing in executive actions are things that Republicans wanted to get done in this bipartisan bill. He’s stepping up to the plate. He’s trying to fix the problem, which is more than we can say for the Republicans.”

“But again, just like protecting abortion rights and just like continuing to boost the economy. We as Democrats are uniquely equipped to actually solve this issue because we have the will and the resolve to do it. And so that’s why it’s just critically important to make sure that we’re messaging properly so that we win the White House when we keep the Senate and flip the House.”

Can you say how Schweikert has failed the district on border security and comprehensive immigration reform over the last 10 years? 

“There’s probably been three real Bonafede attempts at bipartisan immigration reform every single time for different reasons under different iterations of the Republican Party. The Republicans have killed it every single time and Schweikert has been around for two of those. So he is absolutely part of the problem and it’s absurd because even on this most recent effort, you know with Lankford and Sinema that obviously stalled out in the Senate but Schweikert didn’t even take a position on it. I mean, it’s like give me a break. You know, when he does take a position. It’s typically the wrong position like voting to shut down the government or voting against certifying the election results in Pennsylvania or voting against lowering insulin prices. So, it’s probably good that he didn’t take a position because when he does, it’s wrong. Look, this is one of the most pressing issues facing our country. It’s the issue that your party keeps beating the drum about and then this is out there, and you say nothing so he has completely failed this district, this state and this country on the border issue immigration reform issue since he’s been in office.”

Have any of the voters you have spoken with have any opinions on Mr. Trump’s 34 criminal convictions? 

“The 34 convictions thing is interesting, The Democratic primary voters that were primarilyargeting right now have just become even further entrenched if that’s even possible in making sure that Trump doesn’t get elected again. I don’t know that it’s really moved the needle other than all else being equal. It’s just made people even more engaged or even more mad, but I would say that that madness engagement level was already probably at a 9 anyway, so maybe it’s a 9.5 now and we’ll get to a 10.”

“I do think when we talk about Independents, about 90 percent of independents vote either R or D reliably anyway, so only about ten percent of Independents are truly independent and truly kind of flip back and forth between the parties depending on the sort of the mood of the country or their personal feelings at that time. I think for that group, truly undecided people which I don’t think is a large percentage of the voter populace when we talk about the presidential election, I do think it hurts Trump and it hurts Trump because if you genuinely weren’t sure, I don’t see how Trump being convicted of 34 felony counts helps him. It has to move them, again all else being equal, closer to Biden. Like I don’t think anybody who’s again truly undecided ‘well he got convicted of 34 felonies and I really wasn’t sure before but now I think Donald Trump is my guy.’ So, you know, I don’t think it’s a massive impact but it is a slight net positive for Biden’s chances.”

  • Please tell the readers about the composition of your ground get out the vote operation for the primary and, if you prevail, the general election in November.

“I don’t want to give away too many keys to the kingdom here but suffice to say we have a very comprehensive ground- Go TV, battle plan. Our field director is a gentleman named Chris Fleischman. He comes to us from LD4 which is sort of the core, you swing LD within the swing CD within the swing County within the swing state. He’s very well known in our space. I think he’s the best field organizer in Maricopa County. We’re very blessed to have him. We have a huge team of volunteers. Our paid staff are constantly getting out there and knocking as well. We’re also supplementing those efforts with some paid field. Again, I don’t want to give away too much, but we plan to knock on tens of thousands of doors. We’re already making a very good dent in that and we have most importantly the apparatus and the pipes and plumbing to scale that you know, To hit six figures worth of doors for the general election, we’re going to need upwards of 200,000 votes to make sure that we go to Washington and we have the ability to scale up what we’re doing now to make sure that we’re hitting substantial amount of those voters face to face between now and November.”

  • Is there anything not covered in the first three questions that you like to read to know about your primary campaign for Arizona House District One? Please explain.

“It’s been an interesting few weeks. We’ve had two debates. The first debate was fairly benign on PBS. The second clean elections debate got a little bit spicier and all that anybody seems to want to talk about in the mainstream media like the Arizona Republic is how it’s become a two-horse race between me and Marlene Galan Woods. Then there’s also some chatter about how we need a brawler. We need a fighter to take on David Schweikert. I fit that bill. That’s sort of on the positive side.”

“On the negative side, they’re like, well, he’s attacking a fellow Democrat. He’s attacking the only woman in the race. He’s really going after Marlene Woods. And the reality is, first, I’m not attacking Marlene Woods. I like Marlene personally, but when you step into the arena, and you decide to run for Congress or run for office. It is absolutely fair game that your abilities are going to be judged. Also your past record. People you’ve supported. People you’ve donated to. That’s going to be examined. I think it’s absolutely fair game that I tried to shine a light both on Marlene’s past as a Republican for almost 40 years. She was a Republican until 2018 and she supported Jan Brewer and during the debate, she claimed to not remember supporting Jan Brewer. She said I was lying. I was you know distorting the truth and the reality is she max-out donated to Jan Brewer in her 2010 campaign. On Election night, she was literally there. There’s a video and photo of her standing right behind Jan Brewer enthusiastically clapping enthusiastically smiling as Jan Brewer talked about firing Nancy Pelosi and people in the crowd were holding fire Pelosi signs.”

“Just recently, Marlene met Nancy Pelosi and posted a picture with Nancy Pelosi, calling Nancy Pelosi one of her heroes. This is gaslighting voters. It’s hypocrisy and I think it needs to be called out and if I get incoming Flack for doing that, I’m fine taking it because I think voters deserve to know and voters should not be lied to.”

“The same thing goes with Dr. Amish Shah. He voted for Donald Trump in 2016. It’s been reported in the press. He said he switched parties to help Hillary win because he thought she’d have a better chance against Donald Trump. That’s an interesting narrative except that he first registered as a Republican when he moved to Arizona. He was never a Democrat here and for the 12 years prior to that, he was not a registered Democrat when he lived in New York. So again, these aren’t personal attacks. These are just facts.”

“I’m running as a real Democrat who’s from this district for this district. This is home for me. I went K through 12 in the public school system. My wife and I are raising our boys here. They’re in the public school system. This is personal to me. We need to win and I can flip this seat without sacrificing our principles and values and that’s what I’m going to do, and I’m going to keep beating that drum. To victory in November.”

Please click here to find additional information on Conor O’Callaghan and his campaign for the Arizona House CD One seat. 


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