Two East Valley councilmen are vying to represent that area on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in a race that could determine which party controls the body that oversees election administration, public health and other key services.
Tempe Democrat Joel Navarro and Chandler Republican Mark Stewart are running to replace incumbent Republican Supervisor Jack Sellers, who was defeated by Stewart in the District 1 GOP primary in July.
The county’s elections – and whether they are fair – were a key issue in that primary race.
Sellers and his fellow board members became a target of Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump after the county became the epicenter of election fraud conspiracy theories in the wake of the 2020 election.
He blamed that faction for his loss to Stewart, who picked up 66% of the Republican primary vote.
“At some point, you will have to answer for your efforts to undermine our democracy,” Sellers said in a statement directed toward “election deniers” following the loss.
Sean Bowie, a moderate Democrat and former East Valley lawmaker, said he believes the candidates’ positions on the county’s elections will factor into the general election as well.
“So I think there's going to be some concern about candidates who have either come out and said they would radically do things, or, you know, candidates like [Stewart] who are trying to tiptoe around it and aren't saying anything definitively, but the people who are making those claims are supporting him,” Bowie said.
Stewart said he believes the county’s elections are fair, but his answer comes with a caveat.
Prior to July's primary, Stewart declined to tell the SanTan Sun News whether he would have certified previous elections. He’s also criticized the board’s election administration for high-profile failures like ballot printer problems in 2022.
But, after the primary, Stewart says the county’s elections are “absolutely” fair.
“So the greatest thing that just happened was we went through a primary where we had none of the snafus of printer breakdowns, ballot-size issues, all those things,” Stewart said. “Those are functional issues as a first principles business owner, right? You look at the root cause of what's causing the issues, right? And it looks like the Board of Supervisors and the recorder actually did that.”
For his part, Navarro, the Democrat, said he believes the county’s elections are fair.
“I do believe they're fair, and I think they've been that way for a long time,” Navarro said. “And like everything else you always want to make things better and better as time goes by, you always find things that you want to make it more efficient, more opportunity, all those good things – and safe and secure.”
Already, Sellers, the Republican incumbent, bucked his party and endorsed Navarro over the election issue.
“The future of our democracy is on the ballot this November,” Sellers said in a statement. “As a member of the Board of Supervisors, I am proud of our work to oversee and support the administration of safe, secure and accurate elections. Moving forward, we need public officials who are willing to stand up against lies and misinformation in defense of Maricopa County voters. Joel Navarro is one of those leaders.”
But the Board of Supervisors is responsible for much more than just the county’s elections.
Both Stewart and Navarro said they plan to draw on their experience as city councilmen to ensure the county is providing quality, efficient services for residents, and they largely agree on the most pressing concerns facing the county, like public safety and economic development.
Stewart said he wants to bring an innovative approach to government from Chandler to the county, pointing to decisions made while he was at the city like courting Waymo’s self-driving cars.
“It's very, very forward-thinking to think about bringing autonomous vehicles into one of only five cities in the world that we're going to test those,” Stewart said. “I mean that is being cutting-edge, right?”
Navarro, a Phoenix firefighter, said he plans to replicate a Tempe early childhood education program at the county level and focus on the county’s role in public health.
“I've been in areas where I experienced these inefficiencies, especially in public health and maybe in public safety, to where we can do things a lot better and more efficient,” he said.
Both Navarro and Stewart also said they want to make sure the county is offering competitive salaries to retain employees, especially sheriff’s deputies.
“The county is not competing against other counties,” he said. “The county is competing against cities, so when we talk about jobs and we talk about pay and we talk about benefits, we want to make sure that the county is in that range to where it's competitive with other cities.”
Stewart, who says he approaches government like a business, agreed and said the county invests a lot of money in training those deputies.
“We’re seeing other cities poach deputies, and that’s not a good thing,” Stewart said. “We want to hang on to those deputies, make sure they're paid right, but also make sure they're not stretched too thin.”
The number of issues Navarro and Stewart have in common doesn’t surprise Stewart, who said residents care more about the government running efficiently than which political party controls the board.
“I know it's cliché, but potholes don't care about [Republican or Democrat],” he said. “You know, the police being funded correctly don't care about [Republican or Democrat], investing in your parks is not an [Republican or Democrat] issue, right?
Unsurprisingly, Navarro agreed.
“It's not about party for me,” Navarro said. “It's not about playing political games. It's about looking at the information, making the right logical decision.”
They may be onto something, said Bowie, the former Democratic lawmaker.
Bowie said four years ago he voted for the Republican Sellers, who provides a model for the type of candidate Bowie thinks general election voters are looking for.
“Someone like him, I think, represents the East Valley well in terms of not being overly partisan,” he said. “Someone who is just focused on doing the job and not kind of kowtowing to extremists.”
Republicans have a 37% to 28% voter registration advantage over Democrats in District 1, and a substantial percentage of the district's voters – about 34% – are independents.
Data analyst Garrett Archer with ABC 15 reported that voters in the district have favored both Republicans and Democrats in recent elections, including Republican state Treasurer Kimberly Yee and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2022.
