CD7 Congressional Special Election: Grijalva Prevails

In a surprise to just about no one, the five way scrum for the CD7 Special to replace Rep. Grijalva, results in… Rep. Grijalva.

I predicted the result (of which I am not espcially proud, since it was not all that hard to forsee) with some questions about specific outcomes below the bottom line of a win for Adelita Grijalva, which I felt was never in doubt.

Here are the questions I wanted answered by this election:

• Will Ms. Foxx outperform expectations by garnering more than the 5-10% one might expect of an previously unknown, but appealing candidate? Can she out-perform Mr. Hernadez, who is an established name and personality in the district?

So the answer to this is YES. Deja Foxx did outperform expert expectations and established herself as a future poltical force. At 20% of the vote, she outperformed my expectations for her at about 10%. She also embarrassed a much more established Southern Arizona pol in Dan Hernandez, by beating him by about 5 points.

This is deeply embarrassing for Dan Hernandez. I suspect that he will have to take a step back and run for a lower office once again to rebuild his political capital. Losing too many Congressional primaries (including this one to a complete unknown in Ms. Foxx), and the Kelly-Giffords power couple failing to back him and seemingly rebuking his exploitation of his role in the attempted assassination, have significantly reduced his credibility for higher office. If he can’t swallow his pride and realize the need to retrench, he might well have to move on from elected poltics and continue his career down a more remunerative path – which is frankly what he is more interested in anyhow, in my experience.

What Deja Foxx does next will be very interesting to watch and very telling. She has substantially raised her social media presence and political influence as a result of this race. How will she use that increased influence and great potential? Will she form or back a PAC? Will she pursue other media opportunities? Will she run for another office? She also likely has a considerable campaign account remaining to invest somewhere. She would be smart to invest some of those funds in backing a candidate in the CD 6 primary, or perhaps rolling it into a bid for a seat in the Arizona legislature for herself, if she wants to position herself for a significant future in Arizona politics. She’s one to watch, certainly.

• Will Ms. Grijalva clear a plurality of the vote and gain a clear majority of the vote?

She did gain a clear and commanding majority. She has demonstrated sufficient strength in the Grijalva network that I suspect she will never have another significant Democratic primary challenger in her career. Rep. Adelita Grijalva will continue her father’s legacy and build upon it in her own way. I forsee her becoming as much a national force in progressive Democratic poltics in her chosen policy spheres (education? child welfare? Watch for an new post-election interview with Adelita by David Gordon coming soon!) as her father was on the environment, public lands, and natural resources.

I find it a bit disengenuous for people to claim that the ‘establishment’ candidate won in CD7. Certainly, Raul Grijalva has built a substantial and durable political network in Southern Arizona that Adelita was able to mobilize for a commanding victory. That is, I suppose, a victory for the ‘establishment’. But the Grijalva network is not about big donors and special interest service; it’s about working class and middle class people who actually live and work in the district.

What prevailed in CD7 was people power over social media power (Foxx, who had the most likes) and special interests and big money in Democratic politics (Hernandez, who raised the most money). The Grijalvas do politics the way that Democrats say they want politics to work – by organizing ordinary people locally to build political power. So, I don’t see Adelita’s victory as a victory of the Democratic ‘establishment’, but of the best kind of Democratic politics that more Democrats should aspire to emulate if we are to return to our roots in community organizing, unions, and the bread-and-butter, kitchen-table economic policies that truly concern and consistently turn out the working and middle class of this nation to vote for thier own self-interest.

• Will the nototious Grijalva/Hernadez hatchet finally be buried with an endorsement in the General Election by Hernandez should Grijalva prevail in the Primary – or the opposite?

Still waiting… not holding my breath. Interestingly, Dan’s congressional website already seems to have been taken down; one might expect he would continue to use the domain and site to guide his supporters to support Adelita Grijalva, but that seems not to be in the cards…

• Will Mr. Harris – with his quixotic and moderate approach – or Mr. Malvido – with his undenialbly earnest and genuine grassroots campaign – be much of a factor in the race? Can either break the 1-5% one might expect of such outsider, and minimally financed, campaigns?

Nope. And in the case of Mr. Malvido, at least, that is deeply unfortunate. Mr. Malvido has a perspective and experience of American life that is truly missing from Democratic politics. I would not be surprised if Mr. Malvido ended up playing a role in Adelita Grijalva’s district operations; in fact, I will be deeply disappointed if he were not to become better known and more influential in Southern Arizona poltiics.

We’ll see if anyone who has taken up the ‘Cap the Cap’ platform of Mr. Harris makes any better headway than he did himself.

So what is next in CD7?

The General Election is September 23rd. Mr. Buttierez won the GOP Primary and will very likely lose to Adelita by the traditional margin in CD7 of 30 or more points. There are some folks trying to scare up funding for the race by scaremongering – or on the GOP side, holding out false hope – that in a low-turnout special election that the Republicans might do substantially better than normal. There is a kernel of truth there, but Republicans are really just as unlikely to vote as Democrats in such a special election. If the margin for Adelita is less than 25 points, I will do some sort of public penance: maybe I’ll eat a MAGA hat, or something? So, get used to calling Adelita ‘the Congresswoman’, ‘Madame Representative’, or maybe just ‘the Honorable Adelita’, from now on.