Arizona superintendent candidate Kimberly Yee calls attack ad 'racist,' blames opponent Tom Horne

A new TV attack ad targets Arizona candidate for school superintendent Kimberly Yee and accuses her of being too liberal. Both Yee and her opponent call it racist.

Yee, a Republican who currently serves as the state treasurer, is Chinese American and is portrayed in the ad with an Asian backdrop, the sound of gongs and the tagline “empress of DEI,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The ad states: “Meet Kimberly Yee, she’s the Empress of DEI. Yee led a national shadow government of bureaucrats pushing an extreme diversity equity and inclusion agenda. Kimberly Yee. Too liberal for school superintendent.”

Yee said, for the record, she’s always opposed DEI.

Yee accused her primary opponent, Republican incumbent Tom Horne, of being behind it.

“Tom Horne and his supporters have clearly put out a racist attack, it’s out of line with Arizonans, and they have nothing but a failed track record to run on, so they’re reverting to racism,” Yee said Monday.

She then went after Horne.

“Tom Horne has a long history of lying. He has lied about his bankruptcy with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They banned him from trading for a lifetime. He lied to his wife while he was having an affair with his mistress, who was also his employee,” Yee said.

She also brought up a 2012 hit-and-run incident in which Horne struck a car in a parking garage and fled the scene while serving as the state attorney general, and his alleged use of taxpayer funds to run his campaign.

In 2012, Horne was driving and bumped another car in a parking garage. The hit-and-run was witnessed by FBI agents, who were following Horne as part of an investigation into possible campaign finance violations.

Horne was in the parking lot of an apartment complex where one of his employees, Carmen Chenal, lived.

He was married at the time and was having an affair with Chenal. Horne later married Chenal after his wife died.

When Horne was the state’s attorney general in 2014, he had to pay a fine to the Clean Elections Commission for allegedly having his state employees work on his primary campaign.

Horne said he’s not responsible for the attack ad against Yee and called for it to be taken down, agreeing that it’s racist.

“I'm shocked by the appeal to ethnic prejudice, and I denounce it,” Horne said. “It was done by an independent group that by law I can have no communication with and have not had any. I hereby publicly and respectfully request they withdraw the ad or at least remove the references intended to appeal to ethnic prejudice.”