Primary Election day is nearly upon us and, now, campaign finance reports are giving us a sense of where the money is going — and who’s behind it.
That’s drawing a lot of attention in at least one Democratic primary that’s becoming more contentious by the day. In CD3 — which includes most of south Phoenix, west Phoenix and downtown — there are two major candidates left duking it out after a crowded start to the race.
Raquel Terán is a former state lawmaker and former head of the Arizona Democratic Party, and Yassamin Ansari is a former Phoenix City Council member. Pediatrician Duane Wooten is also running in the primary.
Outside money is pouring into this race — and it’s causing finger pointing among the candidates. KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez with our Politics Desk sat down with The Show to speak more about it.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Camryn.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Good morning.
GILGER: OK. So let's start with this outside money that is, you know, raising some eyebrows here. We're talking about more than a million dollars kind of late in the game from a PAC called Protect Progress going to Yassamin Ansari's campaign. Why is this getting so much attention?
SANCHEZ: Well, for one thing, it's a lot of money. But for another thing, there's this criticism from Terán against Ansari for taking that money because that pack has the interest of cryptocurrency in mind and is apparently funded by some billionaires in the tech industry who are also apparently supporting Republicans.
So she's saying, you know, it's suspicious that Ansari who's a Democrat and progressive Democrat is accepting money from a group that might also support Republicans. And it's, you know, suspicious, right?
GILGER: There are some tech billionaires that have partially funded this PAC, right, that, that also support Donald Trump, right?
SANCHEZ: And, but I wonder for voters in that district, are they going to, first of all hear about this? And second of all, are they going to care that a candidate took money from a place that has people who maybe support another person that they might not like, you know, I think it might be a few degrees of separation to money.
GILGER: Is Terán also getting outside money here?
SANCHEZ: Yeah, Terán's doing pretty well in fundraising and I think she was beating Ansari before this most recent quarter reports came in, and now they're back on an even-ish playing field with Ansari. I think just a little tiny bit ahead fundraising wise.
GILGER: Did we from the beginning, Camryn, like, expect this to be a tight race who came in with the advantage?
SANCHEZ: You know, for myself personally, when I heard that Terán was jumping in I thought that she would have a pretty clear advantage. She has all this long, impressive history, right. She was an activist in the SB 1070 era. She comes from Douglas and she worked very hard against Russell Pierce and Joe Arpaio. And then of course, she was the head of the Arizona Democratic State Party and touts the win in 2020 when they got Biden elected.
And then from there, she was in the state Legislature and served in a leadership role there. So that's, you know, that's quite a resume. Nobody else has that. But Ansari is not to be discounted and she's sort of proven that throughout this whole race, you know, she was vice mayor of Phoenix and since this district is so small, it really is Phoenix. So that's not small potatoes.
GILGER: Yeah, yeah. Good name recognition. It sounds like for both of these candidates, but they have very, it sounds like very different styles, very different approaches to campaigning.
SANCHEZ: Yeah. And it's funny because I would say in a lot of ways they're very similar. But, you know, I would say one thing Ansari is doing and has been able to do that Terán maybe hasn't, is say that she was able to accomplish a lot of what she set out to do on the Phoenix City Council because the state Legislature is Republican controlled. So, you know, as a democratic state lawmaker, Raquel Terán maybe couldn't get as much of her policy through, like she wasn't passing bills left and right, that actually got signed into law. Whereas Ansari can say here, you know, I cared about homelessness or heat relief and I actually did it.
GILGER: Yeah, city level stuff is definitely different on that front. So this is a race that's super visible. If you're driving around Phoenix, you are seeing these signs everywhere. There are ads on television. How does this all kind of play into the broader funding pictures for these candidates? Are they both raising a lot of money?
SANCHEZ: Yeah, they're both raising a lot of money and money is definitely a factor. I mean, it's not a guarantee that you can buy your way into Congress, of course. But, you know, money definitely helps, especially with things like ad campaigns. It's very much about how you spend the money if you're strategic with your fundraising.
GILGER: And we're seeing a lot of ads that's for sure. Talk a little bit about this district. We mentioned it's south Phoenix, west Phoenix downtown. It's a heavily Latino district.
SANCHEZ: It is. And that's something else that Terán has really leaned into. She's a Latino woman and she's saying that, you know, that should help her. She's been in the community for a very long time. Ansari doesn't have that. She's Iranian and she's saying that, you know, she has the support of the Iranian community, but that's not as big of a community in Phoenix. That's correct.
GILGER: Yeah. OK. So, last minute here, let me ask you about some other tight congressional races or, or others that you're watching for here as we're heading into Primary Day. Where are you looking?
SANCHEZ: Well, besides CD3’s primary, I'm thinking CD1, which I believe is the Schweikert district and there's quite a few of people in that race. And then the other one would be CD8, which I believe is Debbie Lesko district and Lesko is not going to be returning. So there's a whole bunch of Republicans there. And I'm curious to see who emerges as the front runner in both of those races, both in the CD1 Democratic primary and in the CD8 Republican primary and talk about money. That's a lot of, a lot of money in both of those races.
GILGER: A lot of money in both of those races. A lot of names people might recognize. Who do you think might come out on top here?
SANCHEZ: Well, in CD8, I think, name recognition wise and money wise, you're gonna want to pay attention to Ben Toma, Abe Hamadeh and Blake Masters, Masters and Hamadeh were both Trump endorsed last time in 2022. Now, Hamadeh is the only one who kept that Trump endorsement, but they're both well known for that reason.
And then Toma was the speaker of the House as recently as this past legislative session. So he's not coming from the so-called MAGA crowd, but he has been in the district for a long time.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to a transcription error, this story has been updated to correct the spelling of Raquel Terán's name.
