The two Democratic candidates for Arizona Secretary of State — Adrian Fontes and Reginald Bolding — faced off at a candidate forum sponsored by the Pima County Democratic Party on May 15. The debate was part of the party’s Discussion for Democracy programs.
An edited audio podcast of their remarks appears below on YouTube.
Edited transcript.
Larry Bodine: Hello, fellow Democrats. Welcome to today’s presentation of Discussion For Democracy presented by the Pima County Democratic Party. These forums will give Democrats running for statewide and federal office the chance to answer questions based on issues that matter most to their constituents here in Pima county.
And we’re so lucky today. We’ve got Reginald Bolding and Adrian Fontes both trying to save democracy by getting elected as Secretary of State. For those of you who haven’t come to a DGT meeting. My name is Larry Bodine, and I’m the President of Democrats of Greater Tucson. Also, I’m a Precinct Committeeman in LD18.
Let me introduce both of you. Reginald Bolding was first elected as a state Representative in LD27 up in the Phoenix area, and now he’s serving his fourth term in the legislature. He’s the Democratic leader of the Arizona House of Representatives. And he’s the founder of the largest Black-led voting rights and community engagement organizations. He’s the executive director and founder of Our Voice, Our Vote Arizona, and the Arizona Coalition for Change. These organizations have registered more than 50,000 people to vote, providing opportunities for young people to engage in politics. So welcome, Reginald.
And we also have Adrian Fontes, who is the first Latino countywide elected official in Maricopa County. He was the Maricopa County Recorder from 2017 to 2021, when all of the 2020 brouhaha started, even amid the COVID pandemic and insurrections at the Maricopa County Recorder’s office and in the nation’s Capital. He set up an elections infrastructure that has led to record voter turnout. In a nutshell, what he did was he improved the mail-in voting system. He implemented text message ballot tracking, also installed 24-by-7 internet cameras at the ballot tabulations center and vastly increased in-person voting despite the COVID protocol.
Let’s turn to you first, Reginald. Would you like to go first?
Reginald Bolding: Absolutely. So my last name is Bolding. So with “B” I’ve been going first for years. That’s fine. I’m used to it now. Good afternoon. Good seeing you all. My name is Reginald Bolding.
Partisanship is at an all-time high right now. Our elections are more partisan than they’ve ever been. It’s no longer about exchanging ideas or how you can make Arizona better. It’s about how I can assure that my team wins at all costs, even if you tear down the system. And what we know is that if we want to change the dynamics of our state, if we want to change the dynamics of that conversation, it begins with electing leaders who are going to lead. To win this race, we will have to make sure that we have a leader who brings three things: leadership, experience, and vision.
Before I tell you about what I do, I’m going to tell you about who I am. I was born and raised in a small town in Ohio, and like more than 50% of Arizonans, I choose to call Arizona home. I was born to a single mom who had no more than a high school education, but her single most important issue in life was to make sure that her three young boys had a better opportunity than she did.
She believed that one generation should do better for the next. And that really provided a lot of hope for myself and my younger brother. We grew up in poverty. And now, from growing up in poverty to now serving as the House Democratic Leader, the democracy helped make that happen.
I spent time here in Arizona in a classroom, and I was a classroom teacher. Then, over 15 years ago, I decided to turn down a full-ride law school scholarship to one of the top schools in this country to become a teacher. And I look forward to telling you a little bit more about myself and my story as we go through the rest of today. Thank you.
Adrian Fontes: Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Adrian Fontes. I’m running for Arizona Secretary of State, and I’m very happy that the Young Democrats here at the U of A who hosted me here before are now hosting us.
I grew up in Nogales. So Tucson has a special place in my heart. In fact, in 1977, right across the street from El Con Mall, I was there the day Star Wars opened. I was at Fred Snowden’s last basketball camp on this campus. And I got the privilege of sitting on stage with Linda Ronstadt at the International Mariachi Concert at the Tucson Convention Center. So Tucson’s really an important place for me. Pima County professionally is incredibly important to me because, after my term as Maricopa County Recorder, I was your Chief Deputy Recorder under Gabriella Cazares Kelly for her first transition, 100 days in office.
And so you’ve got vote centers here in Pima County now because of the information and the wherewithal that we brought down with us from Phoenix. So you’re going to have that ballot tracking system here soon. Because every voter should get a text message or an email if they want, when their ballot gets mailed to them and when it gets returned to the Election Department.
This is the kind of experience that is important. And by the way, experience and electability are the two single most important issues when it comes to this office. Why? Because, as Mr. Bolding said, our democracy is under threat. It’s under attack by the authoritarians and fascists. They want to take your vote away. And for more than half of you, you already know they want to take your rights away.
The bottom line is you’ve got to have someone with the experience and statewide electability. Now I don’t only enjoy memories here, but I enjoy the endorsement of Congressman Raul Grijalva, who was very important for the environment and a lot of folks’ rights. Critically though, we have to communicate with voters, and that’s where electability comes in.
[ Speaks in Spanish]
And this is critical because we got to protect our democracy with candidates who can win. If we can’t win, we can’t govern. So we’ve got to win in November. I’m Adrian Fontes. Thank you.
Larry Bodine: Let me ask you both the same question about democracy being under attack. From what I can see, all sorts of dangers are coming up in the 2022 election. What do you think we’re facing, and how do you plan to deal with it?
Reginald Bolding: Look, we saw when Republicans tried to make it harder to vote when they launched the Fraudit. This is not something that we’ve just seen in 2020 or 2021. We’ve seen this for the last several years. I’ve been on the front lines at the state legislature over the last eight years, fighting for our rights here in Arizona and across the country. Over 900 voter restriction bills have been introduced just this year, with 100 of them coming from our state legislature.
Under my leadership, we’ve been successful in fighting back against those voter restriction bills. And that’s what we’ll continue to do as the next Secretary of State. But, look, the reality is here in the state of Arizona, you have to have someone who understands not only the policy but also has the ability to get things done.
Look, I serve on the House Government and Elections Committee. I’ve been the ranking member of our Education Committee, and literally, out of the last eight years, four of those leading Democrats at the state legislature. Right now, we have the largest Democratic caucus since 1966. That’s because we’ve been standing up and protecting and fighting for our right to vote. So we’ll continue to do that.
Larry Bodine: Adrian, the same question to you.
Adrian Fontes: Thanks. I think there are two grave dangers that we will face in 2022. The first is a continuation of politics, as usual, allowing this information and disinformation to drive the conversation. We fought against that hard of Maricopa County when I was the Recorder there, and we established the protocols here in Pima county to make sure that we advance those protocols. But as Democrats, one of the greatest dangers that we face is a lack of motivation. Why? Because we don’t have candidates for every office here in our house. Our leader has made sure that we cannot take the majority. We do not have enough candidates running for the house of Representatives to take the majority even mathematically.
And that falls under Mr. Bolding’s leadership. We, as Democrats, have to fight hard at every level. We have to run folks at the school board level. We have to run folks at this county level. We have to run folks in every legislative district to ensure that our voters are not disenfranchised and disheartened and unmotivated.
That’s what that lack of leadership gives us. And so, we’re facing dangers from all sides of the political aisle. The most critical one, of course, is the danger that we’re falling slipping slowly into authoritarianism that we cannot ignore. So we’ve got to fight against that. Thank you.
Reginald Bolding: Quick, Larry. I want to respond because I think it’s important for us to be crystal clear, politicians attack people, and leaders attack problems.
And when we have candidate forms, and we’re talking to Democrats about what we can do to improve our elections, what we can do to fight for Arizonans. So it’s going to be important to have a leader who will be able to talk about their vision, experience, and leadership. And as the next Secretary of state, I’ll do that just as I’ll do as a candidate.
Adrian Fontes: Obviously, it’s about leadership, and when you can’t field a team that can even win mathematically, you’re not leading. And we have to call it like it is, folks. Democrats, too long, are comfortable taking second place in this state. And that will not happen when I’m your candidate in November. So we will fight tooth and nail across the entire state as I have done.
And it’s not just about people. It’s about actually strategizing statewide like we did yesterday in Flagstaff and Kingman. Like we’ve done in Quartzite and Winslow and Heber-Overgaard and Safford. This is a statewide race. We have to fight like heck, Democrats. We have to.
Larry Bodine: Let me ask a different question, and that is, I’ll start with you, Adrian. What can the Secretary of state do to improve voter trust in the election?
Adrian Fontes: The things that we did in Maricopa County, and I already have experience actually doing the ballot tracking system, is one of the most critical systems. And it’s promoted by Republicans and Democrats.
Think about this. You sign up to get a text message or email when you’re eligible for an election, and you get a text message when your ballot is being printed. When it gets mailed to you, these are bits of information that come to you. The system is working for you. This is easily generated. It didn’t cost us hardly anything in Maricopa County.
It won’t cost anything for the other counties because we’re already generating that information for every single ballot. So we can do that and let people know when their ballot is coming to them. And when it gets bad, it hugely improves trust. And we’ve got a lot of Republicans who would like that as well.
Democrats can too. We can be much more transparent in the way that we act. In Maricopa County, when I was the County Recorder opened up the doors, and we had legislators from all of the different parties. Everybody was coming in and taking tours. We put those 24 7 cameras into the ballot tabulation center.
We made sure that it was as open and transparent as possible. And that’s why Karen Fann and the Cyber Ninjas could not get at us. We published solid policies ahead of time, and it was the most highly scrutinized election in American history. The one that I ran. And nothing wrong was found with it, except, oh, we got more questions, and they’re going to have questions forever because they don’t have a real attack.
We’ve already been there. We’ve already done that. I have the experience to make sure that counties across the state get the support they need. And then, we will be able to build that trust and support from voters. So we’ve got to start with that experience.
Larry Bodine: Same question for you. If you’re elected to the Secretary of State’s office, what will you do to improve voter trust in the election?
Reginald Bolding: We know that’s extremely important. When voters go to the ballot in November, particularly independent voters and those Republican voters who lean Democrat. They’re going to be looking at someone that they can actually trust to run the election system. As I mentioned, partisanship, we have to make sure that we’re providing a system in place that will make sure, no matter if you’re Republican, Democrat or independent, that you know that we have free, fair and secure elections. And in order for that to happen, they’re going to have a leader that they trust running the Secretary of State’s office. Look over the last eight years, I’ve passed more bills in a Republican-controlled legislature than any other Democrat over the last eight years.
You only do that by building a coalition. That’s the reason why Tucson and Pima county leaders all support me, such as Regina Romero, our mayor Lane Santa Cruz, and Andres Cano. We have so many more Alma Hernandez Rex Scott, we have all of these leaders who are with us, and they’re supporting our campaign — former Congressman Ron Barber — order for you to win, you have to be able to build a coalition.
I’ve run eight elections, primary and generals, over the last eight years. I’ve won every single one of them, primary and general, every single one of them I won. Because I was able to bring people together. The language I speak is working-class people who want to get things done. So that’s what I’ll continue to do as the next Secretary of State.
Adrian Fontes: I think we have to have a correction. Sean Bowie is the Democrat in the legislature who has passed more legislation than any other Democrat in the last several years. So I think that’s important. The second important thing is the Secretary of State doesn’t run elections. Counties run elections. The Secretary regulates elections and helps counties in supporting them.
You’ve got to have the experience of knowing what the job is actually about. If you actually want to get the job done. And I would argue that the Republican board of supervisors in Maricopa, who’ve been extolling the virtues of the system. And even the County Recorder who replaced me, who’s extolling the virtues of the system that I’ve built, has a very strong endorsement of the work that I’ve done advancing the interest of Arizonans.
Reginald Bolding: And that’s important because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say I have the experience of being the county recorder and running elections. And then say, as Secretary of State, you don’t run elections. Look, you either have the experience, or you don’t. The reality is the last five Secretary of State all came from the legislature because what Mr. Fontes has failed to mention is that the Secretary of State is also the Lieutenant Governor here in Arizona. So you have to have someone who understands the state. So for me, I’ve been in rooms, negotiating water, policy wildfires, the opioid epidemic, and tribal gaming policies. These are things that I do currently as the democratic leader, sit across the hall from the speaker of the house, the governor and the Senate president as leader.
And that’s what you need as the next Secretary.
Larry Bodine: I’m going to ask one more question, and then we’re going to turn to you to ask questions. So start thinking about a good one right now. Let’s talk a little bit about getting to the ballot box. One of the wonderful things about Pima County is now we have voting centers, so it doesn’t matter what precinct you vote in. But let’s talk about accessibility in rural areas and tribal lands. What would you do as Secretary of State to make voting more accessible?
Reginald Bolding: This is an extremely important question. And this is also the reason why tribal leaders all endorsed me. And they’re supporting me in this race because they know that in order for you to make sure that you’re going to provide accessibility in tribal communities, you have to understand the policy.
They came out of a policy from the state legislature, and ballot tracking came out of a policy from the state legislature. So for me, it should be as easy as it is when you go to Amazon if you can. If it’s easier for you to know when your package is going to come in the mail, you should know when your ballot is coming.
So what we’ll do is we’ll create a one Arizona policy, but we will work with all 15 county recorders to make sure that, when you received, when your ballot has been. When it’s been received, when you send it back, and when it’s tabulated. So we’ll continue to ensure that happens. And you have to be able to bring people to the table to make that happen.
And that’s what we’ll do. And right now, what we’re seeing with our tribal nations, we have seen a direct attack on our tribal communities because they’re turning out, and they’re voting. In fact, I’ve currently filed a lawsuit in federal court, fighting against a bill that would make it more difficult for our tribal communities.
In fact, I have a history of going to court to fight and stand up. For example, in 2020, I took the state to federal court to extend the voter registration deadline. And during that time, we won, and in 10 days, 35,000 Arizonans were able to vote in the 2020 election because I took them to court. And because I won, and that’s leadership, we need people who are going to fight in real-time for our communities.
Like I’ve done for the tribal communities. Like I’ve done for my district. Like I’ve done throughout the state legislature.
Adrian Fontes: Let’s just correct some things first. Ballot tracking in Arizona came from the Denver election department because I personally brought it didn’t have anything to do with the Arizona state legislature. Look at statutes. You got to look at who actually did the job. And I did that job, and I’m not going to let anybody else take credit away from my programmers, my staff in Maricopa County and that bipartisan team.
Moreover, vote centers came out of the elections procedures manual, which is not a legislative act that comes from the Secretary and the attorney general. Yavapai County has been doing it since 2012, but that did not come out of the legislature. And so what we have to do is give credit where credit is due.
Leslie Hoffman, the Republican County Recorder in Yavapai County, brought vote centers into Prescott and the parts of Sedona that are under her jurisdiction. It didn’t come out of the legislature. So here is the deal, folks. The reason that Republicans like working with me is that I’m not going to hide the truth.
And I’m not going to misinform and disinform, and they’re going to get the straight scoop from me, straight data from me. They’re going to get the information they need to make informed decisions. And when they do, they cut big checks to benefit our voters, including more access on reservations.
Including making sure that our data systems are secure enough, and ensuring making sure that the fundamental architecture of those systems can support rural communities. These are the things that we have already worked on when I was at the Maricopa County Recorder. We didn’t sit and make big policy decisions and horse trade with the other side and get shut out of the negotiation
I did the job. My team did the job, and I’m ready to do it again for all of Arizona.
Reginald Bolding: One thing, Larry, that’s extremely important. And I respect the work that you’ve done at the County. And you were County Recorder during two elections, 2018 and 2020. If you notice, Mr. Fontes never talks about the 2018 election. Under his leadership. We didn’t have one voting machine, not two, not three, but 62 voting machines weren’t able on day one for people to actually cast their vote. So hundreds of voters were disenfranchised under your leadership in Maricopa County.
And then when a constituent told you, why were they disenfranchised? You told them to go F off. That’s not the type of leadership that Arizonans want. So we have to make sure that Democrats have someone they can fight for and believe in. You can be assured that Republicans. They’re going to use that against you if you were the nominee. And that’s why we have to make sure that we have someone who has experience working together and who has the experience to make sure that we can bring coalition.
Adrian Fontes: I have to answer that because it’s just flat wrong. This is a personal attack here. Because the problem that we had in 2018 wasn’t during the general election. It was during the primary that made Maricopa County run five elections in presidential cycles. And in non-presidential cycles, we run four elections every single year because we have special districts.
Arizona has election days in March, May, August, and November every year. You should know that if you’re going to be running for Arizona Secretary of State and moreover, the incident where I asked someone to go and do something to themselves that was unkind had nothing to do with that election.
Check the record, Mr. Bolding, that was in the fall of 2017. And it was to a Democrat running for office who was insulting my staff. I will not let my voters or my staff be misrepresented. I will not allow Democrats to have their votes hidden away. I will not allow any of Arizona’s voters to be disenfranchised if I can keep it from happening.
And I will not apologize for my passion because my passion is about free and fair elections and telling the truth. At least one of us in this primary believes in that. All right, I’m going to end it right there.
Larry Bodine: Let’s take a question from the audience.
Audience member: Are you prepared for the death threats, violence, vitriol, the accusations that Katie Hobbs has endured since the 2020 election?
Adrian Fontes: In 2018, one of my children brought an anonymous package from my porch into the kitchen counter.
When my then-wife called me up and said, were you expecting a package? I asked her what the return address was. There wasn’t one. I told her to leave the house and take the kids. And they evacuated houses all the way around. This was in 2018, and the bomb squad came and cleared the package.
I’ve had several death threats against myself and my staff. I even had one of my staff members pulled out of the lobby at the election center in Maricopa County, who had to be physically pulled back away from the crowd. So we’ve already dealt with this. I’ve already dealt with it. My children had go-bags packed up so they could leave the house at a moment’s notice.
In fact, my then-wife actually moved them out of the house for several days. Am I prepared? You’re darn right. I’m prepared. This old Marine just wants to report for duty in another uniform. I’m ready. I’ve been there. We need the experience, and we need some Democrats who are actually going to fight for us. And that’s what you’re going to get when I become the candidate.
Reginald Bolding: Oh, it’s been pretty well chronicled that you have a number of elected officials who faced death threats. And I can recall when I drove to my house with my daughter in the backseat. We pulled up; it was a bright red package that said Representative Bolding on it.
I called the number two in command at the city of Phoenix police department and said, hey, we have this package that was just dropped. Because I saw a gentleman in a pickup truck with a Confederate flag reached behind, inside of this, in the bed of his truck and set it on my front steps. I called to ask, what should I do?
He said to call 911 immediately. So we call it 900. We had the bomb squad there. We had the package and sent in the robots. They put it in the field and evacuated the whole block. That’s something. That’s a common story. That’s happening with Democrats. That’s happening with election officials across the country, and it should not be a reality.
The reality is that we have to make sure that we are changing the tone of our policies. Otherwise, you just keep getting what we’ve already. This partisanship, this fighting to ensure that their candidate wins at all costs. And the way that you do that is by rolling up your sleeves, speaking truth to power and implementing systems that people can believe in, a vision that people understand and a vision that people can get behind.
All right, let’s go with another question.
Audience member: We’ve been hearing a lot about the enthusiasm gap between the Democrats and the Republicans with the 2022 elections. In this case, we have a January 6 participant. He’s raised over a million. Neither of you has raised a quarter of a million yet. What’s your plan?
Reginald Bolding: That’s incorrect. We both have raised over a quarter of a million dollars. So with that said, Republicans are rallying around election offices. Look, there is a coordinated effort to put far-right Republicans in Secretary of State offices throughout this country.
They’re going to try to do in 2024 what they weren’t able to do in 2020. Which is the overturn the election. If their candidate does not. We cannot afford to lose this race. We will not have a second chance. So that’s why what we’re doing is building coalitions. I’m not sure if you just saw one of the largest Latino civic engagement organizations, Lucha – Living United for Change in Arizona — they just came up to endorse our campaign because they know that we’re going to have to go into door by door, voter by voter, to excite and engage people. And I’m glad to have their support and the support of several other organizations in this race. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to tell the story about what happens if we don’t win because there’s a lot at stake, but even more than that, I truly believe people are looking for something to fight for, not fight against.
So our campaign is about giving something to people to fight for something to believe in
Adrian Fontes: Democrats have to feel the candidate in this race was going to punch up. We’ve got to get Senator Kelly re-elected. The importance of the governor’s office cannot be understated, and we’ve got to have a candidate who’s willing to go and do the work on the ground, around all of Arizona, the fire up our voters, everywhere in every district and every town.
And that’s why I’ve already been to Yuma and Sierra Vista. That’s why I’ve been to. Heber Overgaard and Winslow yesterday, I drove to Flagstaff and then in Kingman and all the way back to Phoenix. The bottom line is when it comes to the excitement gap. We’ve got to make sure that we can field candidates who have the capacity to bring the fire.
We have to be able to excite the folks to close that gap. The nature of your question is spot on, and I’m glad that you asked it, because when it comes down to. The spirit of the fight is what we lack a little bit in the democratic party. We’ve been a little bit lackluster in that area. Policy’s great; talking to people back and forth and doing all this horse training is great, but getting the job done, being passionate about supporting your people, your staff, and candidates up and down.
That’s what gets people excited. That’s what’s going to bring folks out to help us knock on doors. And I think that’s what’s critically important when we talk about electability in the fall.
Audience member: So this is a follow-up question. We’ve got to get a Democrat in this seat. Absolutely. So understanding that there are tried and true methods and knocking on doors and turning out voters. If each of you are the candidate, how are you going to innovate in your election strategy?
Adrian Fontes: I think what we’ve got to do, particularly as it pertains to young people, is to listen to them and ask them how to get their peer group out. I’ve got three teenage daughters; Reginald has three younger daughters.
I don’t know what the language is that they speak. I don’t understand what it’s like to go through active shooter drills, be looking at a climate crisis, or be shut down for a couple of years of school. I don’t know what experiences they have. And so we’ve got to talk to the youth, listen to them, and find out what they want from candidates, what they want from political parties.
And one of the reasons why I know that works is because when I was the county recorder, we innovated in that we created a round table. We went to six communities that were traditionally underserved. We went to Latino voters, African American voters, and Asian American Pacific Islanders. We went up to our indigenous reservations, and we talked to college and university students as a fifth group.
And we talked to voters with disabilities, and we listened, and we asked them, how can we help you vote easier? How can we administer the election better? It’s that act of listening. I think that’s the. Because politicians just tend to talk and talk and talk and talk. They don’t listen. And I think doing that as we move forward through this is going to reap some great rewards for Democrats across.
Reginald Bolding: I think this is probably the biggest and largest gap between my experience and Mr. Fontes. I founded one of the largest civic engagement organizations. We went from having a staff of two to hiring over 200 people. We have offices in the three largest counties here in the state of Arizona.
And particularly here in Tucson, right on Speedway, our offices, a civics center study came out in 2009. And it showed that fewer than 15% of 18-year-olds are registered to vote fewer than 15%. And when you think about who those voters are, those are our voters. So that’s why under my leadership as the next Secretary of state.
The first thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to partner with the superintendent of public instruction to make sure that every single high school has voter registration forms for students upon graduation. So they can get registered to vote. I don’t care what party they registered for. The fact is that they have to get in the game if we want to deal with issues like climate, student loans, forgiveness, and healthcare. We want those issues to be solved. They have to speak.
Larry Bodine: All right, we’re getting low on time. Sorry, there’s no time for questions. What I would like to do would be to ask each of you to give a summation and a summary argument on why you should be elected. Reginald, why don’t we begin with you.
Reginald Bolding: First, thank you all for being here. You could have been anywhere on Sunday, but you chose to be here.
And when it comes to experience in this office, no one brings more experience than me. And that’s why I’m extremely excited about that. Whether it’s talking about personal experience, growing up, fighting, or living in poverty, to do whatever we can to make sure that our community and our folks can fight through whatever.
To turn down a full-ride scholarship to becoming a classroom teacher, those experiences and those values matter when it comes to professional experience. Leading one of the largest civic engagement organizations is important, serving as the executive director a managing director of one of the largest education nonprofits in our state.
And that’s the House Democratic leader. When you put our experiences and compare them to each other, it’s not even close, but what is important is that how many of you in here ever applied for a job ever in your life? When you apply for a job, they typically ask you for references. And when you look at our references, and you look at my opponent’s references, it’s crystal clear why people are supporting me.
We have the mayors of Flagstaff, Tucson, and Tempe, over 50 state legislators and lawmakers and city council, folks, and tribal nation leaders. They’re all supporting us in this race. And the reason you have to ask yourself is because they know that we’re going to win in November. They know that we’ve been a coalition builder, and we know that we’re building the campaign to win. So recently, when it comes to doing the work of our campaign, we’ve been rolling up our sleeves, and we’ve been doing the work right now.
We have almost twice as much cash on hand as our opponent. And there’s no way he’s going to be able to go up against mark Fincham and his race. Suppose he can’t raise the money to get his message. So we’re excited about this race because it is about people. It’s always been about people. My life’s been about people, and I’m going to continue to fight for the people of Arizona as the next Secretary of state.
Thank you so much for having,
Adrian Fontes: Senator Andrea Dalessandro, thank you for being here today and supporting my candidacy. I’m glad to have you on my team. I also want to make sure that I acknowledge all folks out here who do the door-knocking. We’ll make sure that you do the phoning and texting. It was postcards and cut those checks no matter how big and how small to your favorite Democrats.
We’re at a turning point in this country, and we can’t risk not getting elected in the fall. We cannot risk putting up candidates who cannot communicate with all of our voters. We cannot risk having candidates who don’t have practical experience, who actually know how these systems work, who have operated the budgets inside of these systems, not just from being shut out of budget negotiations at the legislature, but actually getting the budgets done and administering those budgets day in and day out for years over the course of dozens of elections. We need to make sure that we’ve got pragmatic problem solvers in this race in November.
Republicans know they can work with. Neither one of us is going to get the Trump Republicans. We know that, but I can tell you right now, that there are plenty of those Goldwater McCain Republicans who know me, who’ve worked with me and who will end up supporting my candidacy. Moreover, I even fought against my own Democratic party to get independent voters to vote in the presidential preference election in 2020 because it was the right thing to do.
We have to have the right kind of experience. And electability statewide. If we’re going to win in November, my name’s Adrian Fontes, and I really appreciate your support. Thank you.
We’re going to have another discussion for democracy sponsored by the Pima County Democrats.
Larry Bodine: Don’t we have fabulous candidates?
This has been a presentation of the Pima County Democratic Party in the Discussion For Democracy series. These forums give Democrats running for statewide and federal office the chance to answer questions based on issues that matter the most to their constituents here in Pima county. This is Larry Bodine, and thank you for listening.