Write-in candidate poised to win Green Party U.S. Senate primary in Arizona

Write-in candidate Eduardo Quintana is ahead in the Arizona Green Party’s U.S. Senate primary, leading two opponents he called “sham” candidates backed by Democrats and Republicans.

Unofficial results from counties throughout the state show Quintana picked up at least 269 votes in the July 30 primary election. Scottsdale resident Mike Norton has 180 votes and Yuma resident Arturo Hernandez has 108, according to the Secretary of State.

The secretary of state does not have to certify official results until August 15, but Quintana’s apparent victory comes after a messy primary that made national headlines even though the Green Party’s eventual candidate has virtually no chance of winning the general election in a state where registered greens make up less than 1% of the electorate.

However, in swing state Arizona, there is real concern that the presence of third party candidates could influence the outcome in tight statewide races.

That led to allegations that the major political parties were backing proxy Green candidates in an attempt to move the needle one way or the other in the upcoming matchup between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Ruben Gallego.

“Candidates lie, FEC reports don’t,” Cody Hannah, co-chair of the Arizona Green Party, said in April, referencing campaign finance reports showing Norton was backed by Democratic interests.

It wouldn’t be the first time the major parties have been accused of meddling in Green Party politics.

Hannah said in 2018 when Green Party candidate Angela Green dropped out of a three-way race days before the election and endorsed then-Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who went on to defeat Republican Martha McSally by 56,000 votes. Green still picked up 57,000 votes in that race.

Quintana, chair of the Pima County Green Party, said the Arizona Green Party had selected him to run as its unopposed write-in candidate in the primary election, so it wouldn’t have to expend the money and resources required to put his name on the ballot.

In Arizona, Green Party U.S. Senate candidates needed to collect 1,288 signatures to appear on the primary ballot even though there are only 3,330 Green Party voters in the whole state. But a candidate like Quintana could still appear on the general election ballot if they win the primary as a write-in candidate.

But Hernandez threw a wrench into those plans when filed to run in the race on March 1. Norton filed a few weeks later on March 17.

The Green Party quickly pegged both as spoiler candidates.

“Most of us who are engaged enough to run for office have at least at some point volunteered and done some of the lower tier things that a lot of people do when they get into a political party,” Hannah said. “So the first big red flag is that we didn't know either of these people.”

In Norton’s case, that wasn’t hard to prove due to those financial reports showing sizable donations from Democratic mega donors and PACs aligned with the Democratic Party.

Norton later admitted he was backed by some local Republicans and Democrats who feared Hernandez was a sham candidate meant to divert votes away from Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego and increase Republican Kari Lake’s chances to win the election.

But almost nothing is known about Hernandez, who never had a campaign website, never filed required campaign finance disclosures and did not respond to several requests for comment.

But Norton cited several circumstantial connections to Republican politics to back his theory that Hernandez was in the race to help Lake. That includes the fact that Chrissie Hastie, a campaign finance consultant from Nevada who works with Republicans, was initially listed as Hernandez’s campaign treasurer and Kory Langhofer, a prominent Republican attorney in Arizona, represented him in a legal challenge to his candidacy.

Ultimately, Quintana and the Green Party did have to expend their limited resources – it just became a recognized political party in Arizona in December 2023 after an three year hiatus – to win the race.

“We made some calls. We sent out postcards to people that were identified as Green voters, and we just let them know, we told them the truth,” Quintana said. “We just told them these two other candidates were frauds, that we didn't know them, that they hadn't been in the Green Party, and people responded.”

Norton, who said he only entered the race to block Hernandez from winning the nomination, praised Quintana.

“Typically, it’s a really difficult thing to win as a write-in, congratulations to Eduardo, he defeated Kari Lake’s stocking horse candidate,” Norton said. “Eduardo has had the greatest success, he did a superb job of rounding up all the effort he could as a write-in candidate.”

But Norton said he also considered his effort a victory, saying he believes Hernandez could have defeated Quintana in a head-to-head race.

“Diluting the opposition vote allowed the candidate they really wanted to win,” he said.

Moving forward, Norton said he hopes this election convinces the Green Party to collect the signatures needed to put its own candidates on the ballot in primary elections for high-profile offices moving forward to avoid a repeat proxy battle.

“I think their primary will be hijacked forever if they don’t have a candidate on the ballot unless rules are changed,” Norton said.

He also called on the Arizona legislature to pass a law giving political parties more power to control who runs under their banner in line with a court decision this year that allowed the fledgling No Labels Party to block unapproved candidates from running for office under its mantle in Arizona.

Quintana acknowledged that the Arizona Green Party may have to reassess its strategies ahead of future elections, though he claimed the system is stacked against third parties.

“But the lesson that I learned is that we're going to have to look at this situation of collecting signatures more seriously, even though we know that if we start collecting all the signatures that the legislature will raise the required number of signatures,” he said. “But we'll play it out in public, so the public can see that.”

Quintana has learned other lessons as well.

“The lesson I've learned is that politicians don't always play fair, and I think they ambushed us,” he said. “And they ambushed us successfully because it’s been a tough fight.”