Podcast: What You Don’t Know About the Primary Elections

by
John C. Scott

In this 9/1/18  interview on the John C. Scott Show  broadcast on KVOI 1030 AM, Blog for Arizona writer Larry Bodine reveals his insights about the August 28 Arizona primary races.

Topics include:

  • Who turned out to vote in the primary election? Was it Millennials and Latinos?
  • Astonishingly, 100,000 people voted for a convicted racist crook.
  • Did the GOP or the Democrats turn out in bigger numbers in the primaries?
  • Lea Marquez Peterson had an extremely weak showing against a political nobody. Tucson is a bright spot for Democrats.
  • Why Ann Kirkpatrick’s attack ads were more effective than Matt Heinz’s. And now her support from Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is kicking in.
  • How close will the Kyrsten Sinema vs. Martha McSally race be for US Senate? Guess where McSally’s base of support is, compared with Sinema’s. Who is Sinema’s $1.1 million supporter?
  • The nation is watching the Governor’s race: There was a “no” vote by Republicans against Gov. Ducey, who facing David Garcia’s 6,000 volunteers who knocked on 40,000 doors and contacted 400,000 voters.
  • The Trump effect: what Steve Bannon said.
  • Democrats can take comfort in three of the worst public officials who lost their primaries.

4 thoughts on “Podcast: What You Don’t Know About the Primary Elections”

  1. I don’t think that the negative campaigning of the top two Democratic CD2 primary candidates is anything to flaunt. And Ann Kirkpatrick certainly did more negative campaigning than Matt Heinz in both printed mailers and TV attack ads because she had more money to spend. There were also well funded political organizations running attack ads on TV and sending mailers on her behalf. Even so, I suspect that the single most important issue affecting Matt Heinz’ loss to AK was his loss to McSally in 2016 (57/43). In addition, the progressive vote was basically split among four candidates.

    I fully expect the negative campaigning to continue in CD2 regardless of how weary it is. I’ve already seen one DCCC sponsored TV ad against Lea Marquez Peterson. So this is what we have to look forward to rather than any presentation of information that is respectful of voters’ intelligence or even assumes they have any.

    • This is the campaign funding information for CD2 candidates as of 8/8/18:

      https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2018&id=AZ02

      At that time, Kirkpatrick had raised over 1.9 million and spent 1.6 million. Heinz spent roughly half that much. The other candidates just didn’t have the money to compete except perhaps Mary Matiella. I recall getting one mailer from Bruce Wheeler but none from the others competing against AK and MH. And I never saw TV ads about any of them.

      None of the candidates were outstanding in social media and it is not surprising that the older candidates did the worst. They all seemed to try harder closer to the election, but it was too late for most of them to use that platform (in lieu of TV ads and mailers) for developing name recognition, raising funds, and expanding their outreach.

  2. Gov. Ducey isn’t facing just the volunteers who supported David Garcia’s primary run–he’s facing all the volunteers who campaigned for all the gubernatorial candidates, and then some! Double or triple that 6,000, and add to it. Anyone concerned about the state of education in Arizona is after Ducey’s hide in this election. And that’s only one of the issues for November.

    Thanks!

  3. Sheriff Joe Arpaio got 116,056 votes in the 3 way Republican primary for U.S. Senate, came in last.

    Republican Incumbents Sec. of State Michele Reagan and Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas appear to be defeated.

    And Republican Frank Riggs only winning by only 295 votes in the yet undecided race for Superintendent of Public Instruction (5 way primary).

    http://www.azsos.gov

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