KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about more fireworks within Maricopa County government, some new polls on upcoming elections and more, The Show sat down with Christina Corieri of Consilium Consulting and Dawn Penich of Agave Strategy.
Transcript
WARREN PETERSEN: But I will say now that the governor’s back at the table, we are making progress. We’re meeting almost every single day.
ADELITA GRIJALVA: We left paperwork for her to fill out. And, um, we’ll continue to hold this administration accountable. This is horrible. We’re praying for you, Karla, and know that we’re all in your corner.
THOMAS GALVIN: This is the first time that I can recall of our own employees and volunteers being threatened with criminal penalties, not only in Maricopa County, but in Arizona and the United States of America. This is shocking and appalling.
KATIE HOBBS: This is a decision that affects jobs in Tucson, farms in Yuma, businesses in Nogales, and families across our entire state.
CARINE WERNER: They have come to me with evidence that fraud is still occurring, and the very same bad actors our elected officials claim to have cracked down on are still operating in their communities.
DAVID SCHWEIKERT: In ours, the gap is quite narrow. But what’s shocking to us and, and, and to the other pollsters if you dig into the numbers, is almost half the Republican primary voters really have not even tuned into the race yet.
RUBEN GALLEGO: Let’s just let that sink in. The president of the United States sued his own government, and then negotiated an arrangement with his own Department of Justice, creating a nearly $2 billion fund to compensate himself, his family and his allies.
MARK BRODIE: And joining me to talk about more fireworks within Maricopa County government, some new polls on upcoming elections, and more are Christina Corieri of Consilium Consulting. Christina, good morning.
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Hi, Mark. Thanks for having me.
MARK BRODIE: Thanks for being here. And Dawn Penich of Agave Strategy. Dawn, good morning to you.
DAWN PENICH: Good morning.
MARK BRODIE: So Christina, let me start with you on a hearing this week in Maricopa County where the supervisors and Recorder Justin Heap, who have, let’s say, not been getting along so well over the last number of months.
CHRISTINA CORIERI: A fair description.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah. I mean, and it seems like they’re upset again about the placement and location and sort of administration of drop boxes — ballot drop boxes — that was sort of what this one was about. Is it surprising that a month out from early voting, these two entities are still sort of at each other’s throats?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Surprising, no. Unfortunate, yes. We’re going to have ballots mailed here in just a couple weeks. And as you know, the vast majority of Arizonans vote early. And in Maricopa County, a huge number of those — 631,000 in the last election — dropped their ballots off at these ballot drop boxes. So it is an important issue. It is important that we have certainty on that, and it is quite unfortunate that it’s happening at this time.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah I mean, Dawn, does this impact how the primary election goes?
DAWN PENICH: Well, that’s key to what the County Board of Supervisors has been saying. One of their reasons that they wanted to take control and kind of stop this is because they’re saying there’s not enough time to do this right at this point.
Obviously there’s disagreement there, but you referenced they haven’t been agreeing for a few months now. Next week will actually be a year, a year that the Board of Supervisors and the county recorder have been suing one another back and forth trying to determine who gets authority over what part of the elections because it is a split responsibility between the two parties.
But it all stems from Heap and the Board having no trust between each other. Heap is essentially an election denier. The Board believes that it’s their responsibility to ensure there is no limiting of voters’ access and no corruption or misdoing by someone who thinks that elections have been stolen here before, which we know not to be true.
MARK BRODIE: So Christina, Dawn mentioned the the lawsuits, and there was a court ruling not that long ago basically saying that the Board illegally took some of the power that should be with the recorder away from him. And it seems like he’s using that ruling as a rationale for why this agreement with the drop boxes shouldn’t happen.
But then the (supervisors) are saying, “Look, we’ve been talking with your office for several weeks about this, and they’ve been on board with what we’re doing.” So how do we try to figure out what’s actually going on here?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Yeah, it’s very messy. And unfortunately, this specific issue of drop boxes was not included in that decision. And so both the Board and the Recorder’s Office have a a legal rationale. I mean, most of these drop boxes are at county facilities, which are run by the Board.
I think the most unfortunate thing here is that people, average voters are going to be the ones that deal with the fallout of it. If they cannot have a drop box that’s convenient for them, you’re now looking at over half a million people that are either going to have to go stand in line on election day to vote and adjust their schedule to do that, or they’re going to be sending it in via mail.
And I think you may have an implication that the election critics, I’ll say, aren’t going to want, right? The thing they tell you over and over that they want is faster results for an election. If you drop it off at a drop box, those signatures are verified before election day, and they’re in that big number of votes that drops right at the closing of polls. If they’re forced to put it in the mail or they drop it off on election day —
MARK BRODIE: Those dreaded late-earlies.
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Those dreaded late-earlies, you are going to extend the time to get results, which is the opposite of what everyone, especially them, say that they want.
MARK BRODIE: Well and Dawn, I wonder if there’s also a feeling that … we always hear voting is a habit, right? Like if you don’t do it once, maybe you don’t do it going forward and vice versa. If voters have voted by mail and maybe dropped in drop boxes in the past and that’s not an option, might they just not bother to vote?
DAWN PENICH: Yeah, it definitely creates confusion. I mean, if we are all old enough to think back to when there used to be like you could only vote at one location and then it moved to voting centers. Anytime you move someone’s cheese when it comes to where and how they vote, there’s going to be confusion, and there’s going to be those people.
And of course, what Democrats are concerned about, it’s always the youngest voters who aren’t sure what to do and might just leave the thing sitting on a counter or just give up when they’re not sure what location they’re allowed to go to.
And you know what compounds all of this is the Legislature is also looking at changes to different deadlines by when we need to be able to do what kind of voting. So we’re getting so close to the point where this is becoming destructive to what we as Arizonans have always enjoyed as a very well functioning election system.
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Although I would say there is a little bit of a difference between legislative actions and this. When the Legislature passes a law, it’s going to have to go to the general effective date. You’re not talking about something changing a matter of days before an election.
Anything that the Legislature might pass this session, presuming it either gets a governor’s signature — which is challenging on elections issues — or it goes to the ballot, it’s not going to affect this election, and there’s going to be plenty of time for implementation.
This is different because we don’t have that time.
MARK BRODIE: Christina, I also want to ask you about the fact that this disagreement, as Dawn mentioned, almost a year going on now, is by and large between Republicans. I mean, the recorder is a Republican, the Board of Supervisors is 4-1 Republicans.
Is this indicative in any way of a larger sort of chasm in the party, or is this unique to these particular individuals?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: You know, I think that there is some difference in elected Republicans between those who have greater trust in the system and those who have less trust in the system, and I think that’s what you’re seeing play out here. I think you probably see that a little less in the voting population, but you see it more in folks who handle the day-to-day details of elections.
MARK BRODIE: OK. And Dawn, for Democrats, we’ve heard pollsters say that, you know, election fraud, 2020, not real winning issues in the general election. Does this become an election issue, do you think, or is it mostly just, “Hey, let’s make sure that the election is actually going to go off OK”?
DAWN PENICH: Yeah, you have to be kind of a politico or pretty wonky and nerdy to for this to be in your top 10 even for what you care about in an election when gas prices, food prices and home prices are higher than ever. The details of election administration is not the kind of thing that’s going to settle anyone’s vote.
MARK BRODIE: OK. Christina, let me ask you about a poll that came out this week from Noble Predictive Insights. This is looking at the gubernatorial election. It found that in the GOP primary, Andy Biggs, Congressman Andy Biggs is leading Congressman David Schweikert by quite a hefty margin: 48% to 18%. But still about a third of the electorate is undecided, 34% was unsure.
Is there anything to say about that? As we talked about, early voting is starting not that long from now. Is it in any way surprising that like a third of the electorate is still undecided in this race?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: I mean, I think that’s pretty normal. You’re not going to see the ads go up until later. But Congressman Schweikert got into this race pretty late, and he’s been pretty silent. And so I think politicos across the parties would say it would be a very good bet to bet on Congressman Biggs to win this election, and it would be quite a shocker if Congressman Schweikert had a come-from-behind victory.
MARK BRODIE: Let’s assume for a minute that you’re right and that Biggs wins. Do you think it would be by a margin that’s, what, 30 points?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Quite possibly.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah? So Dawn, the same poll found that Gov. Hobbs right now is ahead of both Congressman Biggs and Schweikert, a narrower margin with Biggs — about a four-point spread, about a seven-point spread with Schweikert. …
What do you think of those numbers? Do you think she really is four points up on Andy Biggs at this point?
DAWN PENICH: It could be. You know, that would mirror what we’re seeing nationally in a lot of polling of other places where, you know, you have, you know, kind of these Republican primaries, Democratic incumbent, and even in other situations.
But there is a national trend. It’s less that it’s trending toward Democrats and more that it’s trending away from Republicans, and certainly the most MAGA and populist of Republicans.
And so that those are real stats, I think is completely believable. And those are probably fairly close to what the win would look like if it goes that direction.
MARK BRODIE: Which would be a much bigger win than Governor Hobbs had 4 years ago, right? Which was what, 17,000-some-odd votes. I mean, 4 points would be a landslide for her at this point.
DAWN PENICH: Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, the world outside has also changed in a way that is moving people in that direction. I think across the country, and certainly here in Arizona, regular voters — certainly the most kind of moderate, centrist, swing voters who take each candidate as they come and don’t have party loyalty — they’ve become disillusioned with the wide gap between what Republicans and MAGA Republicans have said they’re fighting for and what our lives actually look like at the kitchen table, at our pocketbook.
And so you’re seeing people saying like, “Well, you know, Katie Hobbs is not responsible for all the absolute chaos and unbelievable scandals happening in Washington. But Republicans, they’re closer to responsibility.”
MARK BRODIE: Well, so yeah, Christina, I mean, does that sort of national mood, and we’ve seen a lot of polls that show the generic congressional ballot Democrats are ahead and things like that, does that impact state-level races like the governor’s race? And, second part of this question, does it matter that either of the candidates running against the governor will be sitting members of Congress?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Well, a couple of things. It’s said often, but it’s the truth: November’s a long time away. And neither party should be counting their chickens before they hatch. There are signs that are helpful to both parties.
So back when Gov. Hobbs won in 2022, Republicans had a 170,000 advantage in voter registration. They’ve almost doubled that this time. That is not something that you can count out. So that does play in Congressman Biggs’ favor, presuming he is the nomination.
But Gov. Hobbs has something else in her favor, and that is that it is really hard to unseat an incumbent governor. So hard, in fact, that it hasn’t happened in Arizona since 1966 when Sam Goddard was defeated by Republican challenger Jack Williams.
So they both have that playing in their favor. It is hard for a party that’s president is in power in a midterm election. That’s not to say that they can’t push back against those wins. So for instance, in 2018, Republicans lost 40 seats in Congress, but Gov. Ducey won reelection by half a million more votes than he won his original election in 2014. So again, it’s just too early to say what’s going to happen.
MARK BRODIE: All right. Dawn, there was another poll from Noble as well this week looked at President Trump’s job approval rating, and it’s kind of similar to what we’ve seen in other states, sort of the national. It was a 40% approval, 58% disapproval. On the economy, the numbers were a little worse for the president, and among independents and Hispanics, 66% of those groups disapprove.
This kind of goes to the question that we ended the first segment with with Christina. Those are obviously not great numbers for the president, and presumably there would be some effect on Republicans on the ballot from that. How far down the ballot in a place like Arizona — which as Christina pointed out, still has a pretty significant Republican voter advantage — how far down the ballot do you think that lasts?
DAWN PENICH: Well, it’s more a question of like at what point of the timeline does it impact, you know? Even when you see numbers like that which aren’t just not great, I mean, they’re abysmal for presidential approval ratings, even with that, I think that same poll also shows that 80% of loyal Republicans are still with the president.
And so for a primary, the president’s endorsement, his priorities is still going to drive the conversation toward his candidates. Then they’re going to have to walk that always entertaining walk of figuring out how to turn that around for a general.
So, at this point — again, back to this like it’s still a long way from November — we have some very clear places where those approval ratings don’t matter, and then they’re going to matter a lot.
MARK BRODIE: So, Christina, in a case like this where we have a poll that shows Andy Biggs up pretty big on on David Schweikert, and, who knows, you’re right, the even the primary, you know, a month or two months is still a long way away politically.
Do you think this would be the time for Andy Biggs to start maybe talking in a more general election way? Or maybe he doesn’t the quote-unquote "pivot" to the general election because he’s obviously somebody who is very aligned with President Trump, he has the president’s endorsement, he was very much on board with contesting the elections back in 2020.
Do you see a pivot coming from him?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: You know, Congressman Biggs has been active in politics for a while now, and he is who he is. And I think expecting him to do any sort of a major pivot would suggest that you don’t know Congressman Biggs well.
So I don’t think he is going to change his opinion on many policies. The economy right now, there’s mixed signs, right? If you want to look at the stock market, the Nasdaq’s up double digits year-over-year, and the Dow and S&P are also up over five points.
But while that is true, and while that is helpful to people in their long-term retirement planning, what people tend to look at when they judge the economy is the two things that they have to buy every week. And those are groceries and those are gas.
Now, it is May. Those prices can change before we get to November, but action needs to be taken to get them to change now. I think it’s been commonly said that gas prices go up like like a rocket and down like a feather, so it takes some time.
And if the president wants to address those issues as well as groceries — which some of those price increases are tied to things like tariffs that he’s been implementing — I think now is the time that they need to be taking those actions.
MARK BRODIE: If the president’s approval rating stays roughly where the polls suggest is now and it’s come November, what kind of impact do you think that has on gubernatorial candidates, congressional candidates in Arizona? Does that impact them in a place, as you mentioned, where it’s a pretty significant Republican voter advantage?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: You know, I think it will have more impact at the congressional level than it does at state-level elections. I think people are more likely to look at Congress as the potential check on the president rather than the governor. Obviously, the governor’s not passing federal laws, so I think the gubernatorial elections tend to play out a little bit more on state issues than federal issues.
MARK BRODIE: Dawn, would you agree with that?
DAWN PENICH: Yeah, yeah, I think that sounds right. And you know, we’re kind of seeing real-time debate and consideration of Trump and what to align with him on in Congress. We’re we’re seeing in Congress votes getting delayed because a few Republicans are starting to kind of pull away, and so it’ll be really interesting to me to watch how much that grows or if they’re able — which they often are — to kind of rein everyone in and get all Republicans back on board. But we’re seeing people starting to pull away in a way that we haven’t before.
MARK BRODIE: And what’s interesting about that, Christina, is just in the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen the president’s influence over the Republican Party, right? Between primaries in Indiana, we saw the primary in Louisiana where Sen. (Bill) Cassidy was defeated just this week in Kentucky. So, clearly among at least in some places, among Republican voters, President Trump’s opinion still seems to matter a great deal.
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Among Republican primary voters that is absolutely true. Although I think some of those results may not play well for him for the next few months. I think Cassidy’s loss in the primary may free him up to vote in a way he might not otherwise have voted.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah, that’ll be interesting to watch. OK.
So guys, we saw this week and heard this week that it seems as though maybe there’s a budget deal on the horizon. The Senate president has said they’re more than 90% of the way there. We heard from another member of Republican leadership saying they expect to vote sometime in early June on a budget.
Dawn, this seems like they’ve come a long way from even just a week or two ago.
DAWN PENICH: Yeah, no, at this point meetings with Republican leadership are daily, with Democrats every few days. The other telltale sign is that you’re starting to hear about bills shaking loose that have been stalled up in either moratorium or just they needed a deal to be brought back to life.
So you’re starting to see all those signs coming out of the Ninth Floor. So I think it won’t be too many more Friday NewsCaps until we’re doing a retrospective of the legislative session.
MARK BRODIE: I think there are a lot of people who’d probably be pretty happy to hear that that is the case.
DAWN PENICH: Absolutely.
MARK BRODIE: So, Christina, you’ve worked in a governor’s office. You worked for Gov. Ducey. What is this time of the session typically like? It seems like it’s almost a lot of hurry up and wait, like a lot of activity, and then you got to wait on something. Is it sort of like frantic activity, and then you have to pause for a few minutes?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Yeah, and I think that there’s always a breakdown in budget negotiations before you can finally come back to the table and get an agreement. I think when it was Gov. Ducey and a Republican legislature, those breakdowns happened behind closed doors and didn’t usually spill out into the public.
When you have mixed control, I think those breakdowns become a little more emotional on both sides and a little more public on both sides, and so I don’t think it’s all that different from how it used to happen, it’s just more public now.
MARK BRODIE: Are you expecting that this will be sort of a traditional compromise, where nobody gets everything they want and each side has to sort of give a little? Because there were some lines in the sand on both sides.
CHRISTINA CORIERI: You know, I think the Republicans are going to get what they want as it relates to tax conformity. I think they’re going to have to give the governor a win too, on a separate issue. But they’re pretty close, and both sides are going to have to give a little bit. I don’t think you’ll see the broad and deep agency cuts that were in the proposed Republican budget.
MARK BRODIE: So would you expect that the final budget will look more like the one that the governor vetoed than the one that she proposed in January?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: I don’t think it’s going to look like the one she proposed in January. That had new taxes and new fees, and I don’t see that being a starting point for anyone. I think the tax portion is going to look a lot like what the Republicans passed and was vetoed. I think the agency cuts that you saw in the Republican budget is what’s probably likely to change a lot in what’s finally passed.
MARK BRODIE: OK. So Dawn, what would you what would you anticipate, or maybe as a supporter of the of the Democrats, what would you hope would be the Democrats’ or the governor’s win in that?
DAWN PENICH: Yeah, well, definitely not taking some of these cuts to agencies like Christina is saying. Democrats really want to — Arizona would be the only state in the country that does total conformity if they go with everything that’s in there.
And so some of these private school voucher programs — and it’s an STO program different than the ESA program — is something that Democrats are really trying to make sure doesn’t happen.
Democrats are also very interested in getting data centers to pay their fair share. This is something that’s extremely popular across all political parties. It’ll be a question, but data centers if they have to be here should at least be pitching in. The funding that they bring in could be used to help real people pay their electricity bills and other bills.
And employee healthcare costs is something that Democrats are really pushing for. So there were some things that didn’t get done in education. So, I think it’s probably true to your earlier question, will this look more like what Republicans originally — it won’t look like either one of them, but it’ll probably lean a little right.
MARK BRODIE: OK. I’m sorry, I know you want to jump in, Christina, I’m sorry we’ve got to leave it there. Dawn Penich, Christina Corieri, thank you both so much for the conversation, I really appreciate it.
DAWN PENICH: Thank you.
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Thank you.
