Arizona Secretary of State

Arizona races still too close to call (Updated for Saturday Counts)

by

At the close of counting ballots on Friday evening, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has expanded her lead in the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Kathy Hoffman has expanded her lead in the Superintendent of Public Instruction race, Democrat Sandra Kennedy has now opened a slight lead for the second seat in the Arizona Corporation Commission race, and Democrat Katie Hobbs has significantly closed the gap in the Secretary of State race. When all the votes are finally counted, we may actually have some Democratic winners after all.  Count all the votes! And be prepared for a recount, or two.

According to the Data Guru, there are still 370,000 ballots left to be counted statewide, 266,000 of those in Maricopa County and 60,000 in Pima County.

Screen Shot 2018-11-10 at 4.53.41 AM

U.S. Senate (open)

Kyrsten Sinema (R)        991,443
Martha McSally  (D)       971,331
Angela Green (GRN)       46,820

Sinema leads by 20,112

Secretary of State

Steve Gaynor (R)            989,749
Katie Hobbs (D)             979,053

Gaynor leads by 10,696

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Kathy Hoffman (D)       986,355
Frank Riggs (R)             954,546

Hoffman leads by 31,809

Corporation Commission (2 seats)

Justin Olson (R)             901,690
Sandra Kennedy (D)     899,847
Rodney Glassman (R)  898,245
Kiana Sears (D)              837,552

Kennedy leads by 1,602 for the second seat

Ballots will be counted until Wednesday, November 14. Stay tuned.

Read more

Preliminary Results Arizona State Candidates 2018

by

It appears that GOP tribalism coupled with a statewide GOP voter registration edge of over a 100,000 registrants is still all it takes to win statewide races in Arizona.

Well, that and massive amounts of “dark money” from out of state anonymous sources.

Republicans appear to have won all the statewide offices, but the Superintendent of Public Instruction race remains too close to call.

Democrats appear to have picked up some seats in the Arizona House. Several races remain too close to call, and there are reportedly over 500,000 ballots yet to be be verified and counted.

Democrats may have narrowed the GOP margin in the legislature, which could force the GOP leadership to negotiate and compromise with the Democratic leadership to pass legislation, instead of simply ignoring Democrats and the constituents they represent. This is a good thing.

Current estimated voter turnout is 46.67%. When more than half of registered voters cannot take the time to fill out a ballot — not including the large number of eligible voting age persons not registered to vote — the health of our democracy is in serious jeopardy. You have to do better Arizona!

(These are the overnight numbers).

Governor

Doug Ducey (R)               57.8%
David Garcia (D)             40.2%

Secretary of State

Steve Gaynor (R)             51.3%
Katie Hobbs (D)              48.7%

Attorney General

Mark Brnovich (R)          53.4%
January Contreras (D)   46.6%

Read more

Democrats arrive late, but ‘blue wave’ momentum is building

by

Anyone who has ever been active in Democratic Party politics knows that Democrats always arrive late and no event ever starts on time.

After a slow start in early mail-in ballot returns in the first couple of weeks of early voting, for which I chastised you, Democrats finally started showing up late in the final week of early voting. Keep it up through Election Day.

Arizona Democrats have seen a massive surge in early voting over the past week, bolstering predictions for a “blue wave” in Tuesday’s elections. ‘The blue wave is real’: Arizona Democrats see major surge in early voting turnout:

Early ballot returns released Friday [Secretary of State Early Ballot Statistics] show Democrats are on track to narrow the voter-participation gap with Republicans to its lowest level in any midterm election in recent history.

That surge in Democratic participation could help the party flip close races or win contests for the U.S. Senate, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction.

Democrats had significantly lagged Republicans when early ballot returns started coming in three weeks ago, leading some to speculate that the blue wave had crested.

Screen Shot 2018-11-03 at 7.20.33 AM

But that changed over the past week as Democrats shaved the GOP’s early-vote advantage to less than 8 percentage points. Republicans typically have a 12 percentage-point turnout edge in midterm elections.

Read more

The Arizona Republic endorses Katie Hobbs for Secretary of State

by

Any rational person looking at their choices for Secretary of State would make this choice, but when has anyone accused Arizonans of being rational?

Too many Arizona voters are low information voters who vote out of GOP tribalism for anyone with an “R” behind his or her name. This is how we have wound up with the long-running GOP culture of corruption in Arizona with bad politicians doing bad things because they are given a pass to get away with it by an indifferent electorate. This is what Republican candidate Steve Gaynor is banking on. He has indicated that he would do things, if elected, that would land the state in court, again.

The Arizona Republic today endorses Democratic state Senator Katie Hobbs for Secretary of State. She is by far the most qualified candidate for Secretary of State, and will do the job professionally and responsibly. Why the unknown is so scary in Arizona’s secretary of state race:

The most competitive race for statewide office now looks to be the one for Arizona secretary of state.

Millions of dollars are being spent, much of which was once earmarked for the gubernatorial race. And that doesn’t include the more than $1.5 million Republican Steve Gaynor spent of his own money to trounce incumbent Michele Reagan in the primary.

The extra cash has elevated, and perhaps oversized, an office that’s charged largely with carrying out elections.

But why are the stakes so high now?

What if one becomes governor?

Part of it has to do with Arizona’s line of succession. Three times in the past three decades, the secretary of state has ascended to governor — the most recent in 2009 when Jan Brewer succeeded Janet Napolitano after Napolitano was tapped to become the head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs is a former leader at the Sojourner Center, a large non-profit serving abused women, who as a state lawmaker was a consistent voice for women and children services. As Senate minority leader, Hobbs was a steady hand who found occasional bipartisanship on issues such as Medicaid expansion and unclogging the backlog of untested sexual-assault kits.

Republican Steve Gaynor, meanwhile, is a cipher. He is a businessman who until late last year participated in politics largely as a Republican donor. In a meeting with The Republic‘s editorial board, he gave few specifics on what he would do to reform the office and displayed little passion for it — he said he was recruited by a handful of  Republicans who were unhappy with Michele Reagan.

Read more

Steve Gaynor raises red flags in Secretary of State race

by

There has not been much good reporting on Steve Gaynor, the Republican candidate for Secretary of State who ousted Secretary of State Michele Reagan in the Arizona GOP primary, but what little I have seen reported raises red flags about this guy seeing his role as the chief elections officer in Arizona as classic GOP voter suppression in the tradition of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, both of whom are running for governor in November.

Earlier this year, Secretary of State Michelle Reagan settled a lawsuit over Arizona’s bifurcated dual voter registration system for those who use the federal voter registration form.

Gaynor focused his criticism on the aspect of the settlement that requires the state to register voters for federal elections even if they use the state form. He said Michelle Reagan should not have settled and fought the issue all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

I covered this at length in an earlier post. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach had his ass handed to him in federal court over this same issue. So much for this litigation criticism.  Michelle Reagan is terrible, but Steve Gaynor fancies himself the next Kris Kobach. (Kansas and Arizona were the only two states who maintained this practice).

Read more