Retired Veteran Dan Toporek Wants to Be Part of a 2026 Arizona State Legislature that Works for the People

Retired Army and Marine Veteran Dan Toporek has been in the public sphere his whole adult life. 

The 2020 Democratic Nominee for Maricopa County Treasurer, he is now seeking an opportunity to represent the North Phoenix residents of Arizona Legislative District Two in the Arizona State Senate.

Saying the people deserve a legislature that works for them, Toporek, if elected, vows to serve the community and work on:

• Strong public schools.
• Housing and standard of living affordability.
• Quality and affordable health care.
• Water Security and the Environment.
• Safe communities and secure borders.

Mr. Toporek graciously took the time to respond to questions about his candidacy for the State Senate.

The questions and his responses are below. 

Please tell the reader’s two reasons you would like to run for the Arizona Senate in LD Two.

“The first reason is I don’t feel like our representatives are actually representing our community. We have issues with affordability. We have issues with security. We have all sorts of issues. We’ve got to get a legislature that actually listens to people and addresses their issues. And we need a legislature that’s accountable to the people, and to do that, you have to have somebody who puts the interests of their constituents first. That’s really why I want to run. I’m a person who’s served in the military for 34 years. After that, I worked with Senator Kelly on his in-state team, representing veterans and the military community here in Arizona. After that, I worked with the FAA, making sure the airways are safe. I gave up a pretty good job with a decent salary for what will be a very hard job, but one that I’m excited about, with almost no salary. I did that because I really am concerned that we get representatives who listen to people, not just the people who voted for them. All the people and address the needs that they have because we have lots of needs. We have affordability issues, security issues, and accountability and transparency issues.” 

Please tell please tell readers what two reasons voters should choose you over any primary or general election opponent.

“You can really see from somebody’s background the kind of person that they are, and my background iscommunity service. My father was a veteran. He spent 34 years in the military. I’m a 34-year retired veteran as well. My older brother was in the Sheriff’s Office. He was one of the leadership team under Sheriff Paul Penzone, and my younger brother retired as a captain paramedic for the Scottsdale Fire Department. We just believe that the gift that this nation in this community gave us is worth serving. My dad was an immigrant from World War II. He was a refugee from Ukraine, and as the Russians Kept moving back, the Germans kept advancing to the East. He actually ended up moving from refugee camp to refugee camp with his mother until he ended up in Kazakhstan. I never knew my biological grandfather. He was killed in the war as a Russian Soldier, and so really my father when he came to this nation. It was kind of a stroke of luck that his stepfather, because in one of those refugee camps, my Grandma married and his stepfather made a connection with somebody in the community here in Arizona. They sponsored them to come to Arizona, and that’s how my dad came here. He was literally eating sawdust bread and went to a world where he could eat enough and saw it really appreciated that, and ever since then, he’s passed that on to my brothers, me, and my family. My youngest is a student. My next youngest just left the Air Force. She was a doctor in the Air Force. My next is a Navy veteran who’s now a nurse helping disabled kids in Phoenix, and my next works for DPS. So, you know again, we are a family of service, and that’s the number one reason is we really need people that have demonstrated a pattern of behavior that you can trust. And I believe that I’ve done that. I live in LD 2.  I’m a member of the community. I have kids who went to school in LD 2. I know what the problems are. I really want to focus on affordability, on education, and on the things that are really the problems that working families are facing here in LD 2.”

In the last couple of cycles, I’ve interviewed very good candidates like yourself. Judy Schwiebert, in the last cycle, for example, ran for the same position. How will you succeed where they did not? 

“That’s a really good question. You should be interviewing Judy. She is a wonderful person who really would have represented LD 2 well. She lost her election by a smaller number, than of the Democrats who only voted for top of the ticket. If they had if they had voted down ballot for her as the Democratic candidate, she would have won and so we’re aware of that. We’re aware of why she lost. It wasn’t messaging necessarily. Although there were some issues with the Democratic party’s message. I think they were a little bit tone deaf and not, not really focusing on the issues that people were really facing. We’ve learned that lesson. We’ve learned the lesson of ‘hey, we got to get Democrats out to vote and vote all the way down the ballot right. One of the differences, though, is, my background is a background of uniform service. And so that means that I have an opportunity to get a little crack in the door for persuadable voters and by persuadable voters, I mean, people who typically wouldn’t vote for a Democrat, but under the present circumstances and with the right candidate would possibly vote for a Democrat. I’m going to make contact with at least 10,000 people – persuadablevoters with me knocking on their door. They can see I’m a person of service, that won’t guarantee their vote,but at least it will guarantee that they will crack the door and take a look and see what I have to offer.”

What are at least two issues that you will be running on in this cycle 

“These are my issues that I’m running on. These are the issues that the people need addressed, and obviously, there are affordability issues. One of the focuses I would like to make is making housing affordable. There are lots of good ideas out there. It doesn’t take a genius. We can give people the opportunity for people to buy a home more easily. Also, grocery prices. The legislature doesn’t necessarily address grocery prices, but it addresses prices in general in the way that we set the business climate. I believe affordability is a really important issue.”

The other issue is that I believe in the public investing in public education. You’ve heard this from lots of candidates for a long time. When you look at the rankings of Arizona’s investment in education, it’s the lowest in the nation or among them. Ninety percent of LD2 voters send their kids to public school. And right now, some programs take funding away from public schools, away from the 90 percent of Arizona voters’ kids, and give it to special interests. I’m talking specifically about the ESA vouchers. The ESA voucher program is not bad. We don’t want to get rid of that program. We just want to have it accountable so that some of the fraud that has gone on doesn’t go on, and we make sure that if the money for ESA is directed to those who really will benefit from it and really need it. There are lots of good ways to do that, but it’s through accountability and transparency, so everybody can see what their tax dollars are being paid for. And then another thing: I believe that if we’re going to be sending public money to private institutions, those private institutions must meet the same requirements that public institutions do right now. They don’t. They can run under other rules, and I believe that public schools are at a disadvantage, so to level the playing field, I think it’s important that they all use the same rules.

What’s your position on Universal Child Care and Pre-K?

“I’m a big supporter. I don’t know exactly how we’ll find the money, but there are too many families right now that need childcare just so that they can afford groceries and rent. It’s not an issue of want. It’s an issue of our state needs it, and we can find a way to provide it.”

What’s your position on expanding Medicaid (ACHSS) to include more children in poverty, dental care, and pregnancy care?

“I believe that in the wealthiest Nation in the world, everybody should have adequate medical care. Expanding Medicaid for people who have had the least opportunity for good health and often the most expensive would lower health care costs for everybody because of access to preventive measures. I don’t even see it as an issue of fairness. I see it as an economic issue.”

Water Security.

“We live in a desert, so water security is really a promise to our kids that we have to ensure that we have. Responsible growth and managing all our resources to make sure that the things that I had my grandkids will have as well.”

 Public Safety

“Public safety is a big issue. It’s not an issue of mine. It’s an issue for everybody. I came from the military. Safety is huge. Public Safety isn’t just a component of crime prevention.  Public Safety is a quality of life. If you don’t feel safe, then your quality of life is lower. I do believe that we have to make sure that our first responders have all the adequate training they need and all the resources they need to be an integral part of the community. I don’t believe that, after listening to my older brother, law enforcement is separate from the population. They are fixtures in the community, and they should be adequately prepared on the law enforcement side and all the first responders. My younger brothers are firefighters and one of the things that I think is a need that needs to be addressed is mental health care for first responders. Coming from the military and being recently retired, mental health care for veterans is a big issue. You hear lots of programs out there for veterans to get mental health care because they live for long periods with high stress, and it wears on them. Well, think about a firefighter who works four nights in a row until two o’clock in the morning. The alarm goes off. He’s woken up out of the blue, right, gets rushed to a truck, and goes to an emergency call involving children or horrific accident. And imagine that’s the kind of lifetime stress that should really be addressed. There should be venues, mental health venues, so that’s something that I’m actually planning on as a policy is to look at. How can we make sure that the mental state of our first responders is healthy? That’s a big component of Public Safety.” 

How are you and your team conducting voter and social media outreach to Democrats, Independents, and like-minded Republicans?

“I believe in local elections. There are approximately 140,000 voters in LD 2. In local elections. It’s literally mandatory to have candidates contact to persuade somebody to vote. We’ll be knocking on persuadable doors. And, as I said, we’re planning on 10,000 persuadable voters to literally have the opportunity to talk to me and tell me what’s going on in their lives, so I can make sure that they know that somebody will be there to address those issues. That’s number one on the get-out-the-vote side. We have to make sure that everybody who has a D who is registered comes out and votes, and that they vote all the way down the ballot. I’ve been working with the party to make sure that that has to be a message that comes from the Democratic Party, comes from elected leaders at a higher level than me, because if I go out and say, hey, you got to get out the vote and vote all the way down ballot. Well, guess what? I’m a down-ballot candidate. That’s just another way of them hearing me say ‘Vote for me.’ We have to have leadership own this. Get out the vote. We have to have leadership own the fact that we have a problem with voter drop off. Voters voting at the top of the ticket, and not all the way down. And so I’m really working with elected leaders and party leaders to get that message out.”

What social media vehicles will you use to get that message out.

“I believe that social media is key. That I believe is the main method of communication nowadays. We’ll be talking on social media platforms, putting out messages, establishing a communication network, because what I would like is to be able to put out a message that says  ‘Hey, I want to listen to you’ and that actually, encourages people from all parties to communicate what is up in their lives on my Facebook. I still have that website from when I ran for Maricopa County Treasurer, and we revamped it. So many of my followers are not Democrats. They were Republicans who in 2020, believed the message that we could invest our money in a better way and help make the County Treasury Office more efficient. Those people are still on there, and they’re getting my message. They do communicate with me, and that’s what I want to make sure is: that on social media, we’re talking to everybody. Legislative District 2 is one of the most competitive districts in the state. We get hit on both sides front. I couldn’t tell you how many mailers I got. Most people are working busy lives. Those mailers stack up on the counter until they get thrown away. We have to invest in more efficient ways to talk to folks. And I believe that social media and digital communications are really the platform that will provide that. 

Is there anything not covered in the first four questions that you would like the readers to know about you and your candidacy for the State Senate seat in Legislative District Two?

“The people deserve somebody who’s looking out for them, who is one of them. I have had a working-class life my whole life. I’ve spent time in the military. I worked as a relatively low-paid staffer for a U.S senator. And then I worked in the FAA, where it was the highest salary I ever had in my life. And I gave that up to serve the community, and the reason is because this is a time where people really need an advocate. There are problems in our community that we need to fix, and the only way to do that is to have somebody who earns their trust, listens to them, and addresses their problems. I’m a veteran. I’m a dad. I have been a public servant my whole life. I believe in paying back, and I really believe that this is a good time to pay back.”

“One of the things that I find the most harmful in today’s political environment is this real divide in partisan politics. The one thing that I learned in the military is that you don’t have to even believe the same things to get a mission done. You just have to have a common vision of what’s right and move towards that vision. I don’t want credit if I could come up with the bill and hand it to somebody on the other side, and they take credit for it if it does good for the community. I’m all for that. And if I can convince somebody that this is a worthy effort and join them, I think that’s really important in making the upcoming 2026 legislature one that actually does work together for the people, and I want to be part of that.”

Please click here to access Mr. Toporek’s website and find out more about his campaign for the LD 2 State Senate seat.