KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about the President Donald Trump’s primetime speech on election integrity; a deal between Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap and the Board of Supervisors; and more, The Show sat down with Sam Richard of Consilium Consulting and Barrett Marson of Marson Media.
Transcript
UNDERWRITER: KJZZ’s original production, The Show, is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.
LAUREN GILGER: Hi, I’m Lauren Gilger, and this is the Friday NewsCap podcast from KJZZ’s The Show. Each Friday, we review the biggest and most important political stories of the week with a panel of experts, which puts those stories into perspective to help us understand why they matter.
Here’s this week’s episode:
ADRIAN FONTES: My message to Arizona voters is pay attention. Pay attention to the fact that this is the same grievance repackaged over and over and over again. Pay attention to the fact that there’s no credibility because there’s no facts here. There’s no proof here. All of these allegations are without any backup.
KATE BROPHY MCGEE: Have elections that nobody worries about, has anxiety attacks about, has to ask about, but make sure that their vote is counted.
DAN FREIBERG: Everywhere and everywhere we have went, it is the same result. The firefighters feel abandoned. They feel betrayed, and they feel pissed.
RUSSELL CONTRERAS: So, it’s not just where they stand on say taxes or abortion, it’s how they see themselves when they look in the mirror when people ask them on the streets, “What are you? What’s your ethnicity?”
ABE HAMEDEH: I’ve always said that America should be a little bit more like Arizona. See, Arizona, we haven’t changed our clocks in forever. So, I’m happy to vote on this piece of legislation.
LAUREN GILGER: This morning, I am joined by Sam Richard of Consilium Consulting. Morning, Sam.
SAM RICHARD: Great to be here.
LAUREN GILGER: As well as Barrett Marson of Marson Media.
BARRETT MARSON: Hello, radio world.
LAUREN GILGER: Thank you both for being here. All right, so let’s begin this morning with President Trump’s address last night to the nation, which brought up some familiar claims about vulnerabilities in our election system, election fraud in the 2020 election, interference from China.
This, of course, comes on the heels of this DOJ letter that was sent to Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, which is sort of threatening to prosecute election workers, maybe send election monitors to Arizona, as well. Should we be getting ready, Sam, for some real standoffs between local and federal officials on Election Day?
SAM RICHARD: I think that, in some respects, we already have seen the beginnings of that standoff. But I think that most of America is really seeing this as exactly what it is. These are wildly debunked conspiracy theories that the president tried to trot out in prime-time television last night, and people are mostly ignoring them.
So, the showdown really is going to be about the kind of institutional power of the federal government versus the reality that’s on the ground. And we do not have a single election. We have thousands of elections that happen all across the country. So, there’s really just so much misinformation and misdirection in what’s happening right now.
So I think the standoffs are inevitable, but I think that there’s one side that is a circus and there’s one side that’s fighting to protect democracy. And that is nonpartisan. It transcends partisanship, that conversation.
BARRETT MARSON: And hopefully the monitors do come to Arizona and they see that — while, of course, nothing is ever perfect — they see that Arizona is a well-run state when it comes to elections. We have 15 counties, 15 election officers and 15 essentially different elections, plus all the other jurisdictions that are within those elections. And so, those monitors can come and learn and hopefully export how well we do here to the rest of the country.
LAUREN GILGER: Let’s talk about Adrian Fontes and his role here. We’ve seen him really push back on the DOJ’s claims and demands and threats, and also last night, push back on what the president had to say from the White House. I mean, is this a moment for him to shine in this realm essentially, Sam?
SAM RICHARD: I think the quick and simple answer is yes, but I think I’ll expand on that and say that I think that this is something that he has been shining on for a very, very long time. His time as county recorder precedes his work as secretary of state. He has been a stalwart defender of democracy throughout his entire life, both as an elected official but also as a private citizen.
So, he was really built for this moment, and I think that Arizonans are grateful to have such a strong defender in that role. And I’m personally grateful, as well as professionally grateful that hopefully we’ll have some more elections that I can work as a part of in the future because we need to protect our electoral process.
BARRETT MARSON: Yeah, and look, definitely glad we don’t have an election denier in that office. That’s a positive thing. But Fontes, Secretary Fontes has gone too far in some of his advocacy and some of his policies, and he’s been struck down, he’s been slapped down by the courts on those things.
But generally speaking, he’s not an election denier, and therefore, the guy running our elections is, well, I guess, more sane than some of the people in my party.
LAUREN GILGER: Let’s move then to Maricopa County, another election-related story this week. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors officially struck a deal with County Recorder Justin Heap after a very long and very, very contentious battle in court and elsewhere over, essentially, who gets to control what parts of elections in the biggest and one of the, maybe, swingiest counties in the country. And this is time is of the essence here, right, Barrett?
BARRETT MARSON: Absolutely, we are in an election right now. And, of course, then in just a few months, early two and a half months, early ballots are going to go out for the November election, a very important election, of course, though we won’t have a Senate or presidential candidate for the first time since literally 2016 a race there. So, but it’s still, you have a lot of races that are going to decide the control of the Legislature, Congress will certainly, control of Congress could run right through Arizona.
But the Supreme Court, the trial court and Supreme Court ended up siding with Justin Heap, the recorder. And yet, he then made a deal with the county. He literally gave up some of the things that he had gotten in court in his deal with the county Board of Supervisors, sort of inexplicably, but apparently, he’s very happy to take lesser duties than what was given to him by the court.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, let me ask you about this, Sam, because this was interesting in terms of who won here, right? Because Justin Heap did officially win on the Supreme Court level, had this 12-point plan, and then in the end, you’re looking at this deal and he has ceded some of those things back, including things like some early ballot tabulation, which the Supreme Court had given to his office and he has basically given back.
BARRETT MARSON: And that’s a huge, I don’t know, concession, I guess. He didn’t want to do that. That’s a difficult job, and he didn’t want to do it. So, Justin got everything that he wanted in this new MOU essentially, or new agreement with the county board. He got everything that he actually wanted.
So now, everything’s kind of on him and for early ballots, early voting sites and things like that, that’s going to be all on him. And we’ll see how he performs in November.
SAM RICHARD: And I would say that I think the one of the winners, and I don’t want to be too cute about this, but I think the real winner here is the voters in Maricopa County, that we can largely put this debacle behind us, move forward, and have a safe and secure election, that we can trust the process, we can trust the results.
We were going to, going into that, but this needless squabble leading into it really put some of those questions in balance. So, I think the biggest winner here are the voters of Maricopa County. And I look forward to seeing those smooth lines work through and all of the processes come through as we work towards the primary in just a couple weeks.
LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, Heap kind of campaigned on election denialism though, kind of like walking that line. And then, we have President Trump going on national television and kind of repeating these claims about election fraud. And Maricopa County, Arizona was at the center of a lot of that in 2020 and 2022. I mean, does all of this sort of undermine voter confidence, or suppress turnout at the very least?
SAM RICHARD: I think that’s the goal, or or at least one of the I don’t want to ascribe motives there, but I think that that’s absolutely one of the plausible efforts that the administration is doing to, in what likely is going to be an already depressed turnout, right? To Barrett’s point from earlier, it’s the first election cycle in 10 years that we don’t have a U.S. Senate or a presidential race at the top of the ticket. Historically, that does mean lower turnout. Lower turnout is going to benefit one party or the other.
And I think that keeping people from engaging in that process is perhaps one of the efforts of the administration. But I think that voters are smarter than that, and especially those here in Arizona.
BARRETT MARSON: Yeah. Well, we’ll see if voters are smarter than that. But you know, yeah, the turnout is going to be an interesting thing to watch. But what I’m going to really watch is those independents in the primary. They are pulling more Democratic ballots, even though there’s really no Democratic races up and down the ballot.
Sure, CD1 in the Scottsdale-North Phoenix area and maybe in Tucson there’s a couple of legislative races, but really, if you’re pulling a Democratic ballot in, say, Mesa or Peoria, there are really no races for you. They’re all one person running for each office. So, whereas there is every single statewide race is contested for the Republicans. You would think, I mean, that’s just the more exciting ballot.
LAUREN GILGER: Well, there are many more registered Republicans in the state as well, right? So, independents pulling Democratic ballots for this primary is notable, you think?
BARRETT MARSON: Oh, very notable. It’s very notable, and that’s the trend I’m going to watch most as an indicator of what’s going to happen come November.
SAM RICHARD: And some of these baseline trends somewhat align with ’22, where we saw an early kind of momentum swing from Democratic voters. That has since leveled out as folks have been tracking ballot returns, but I do think that there is much more energy, much more momentum on the Democratic side and you’re seeing that with the independents flipping.
I mean, no independents are pulling a Democratic ballot to vote for Hugh Lytle. So, I think that there really is an energy in that direction. This is going to be a change election, perhaps even a restoration to sanity election where we just want to be boring again. We don’t want to have to fight about the bedrock principles of democracy.
BARRETT MARSON: By the way, Sam, maybe with the inaugural reference to Hugh Lytle on KJZZ, in case your listeners do not know, he’s running for governor on the No Labels Party, or whatever, independent No Labels, who knows. But I’m sure he’s very happy with the name check today.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Barrett, let’s jump in with this ballot measure, which was referred to the ballot by GOP lawmakers, that was designed to kind of undercut teachers’ unions. But now, it’s drawing the ire of police and firefighters who say that it’s broad language, and they’re worried it’s going to apply to them.
BARRETT MARSON: Right. And it’s not just undercut the teachers’ union, it’s really to end the teachers’ union. It would ban school districts from helping to collect the union dues as they do now. And so, the union would have to rely on just people sending them their $20 a month or whatever the number is.
But because it was so last-minute, slapdash, it may bring in firefighters and police unions, of which certainly the police unions are big supporters of Republicans. So they are wildly upset because this is an existential threat to them as well. And so much so that if a court does agree that it brings in those public safety unions, there will be a big push to change or modify or rescind that proposition from the ballot.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. We’ve seen Gov. Hobbs say that she’ll support bringing lawmakers back for a special session to get rid of this resolution. Matt Gress, Steve Montenegro, I think, on the other side saying that they would be supportive of coming back in to kind of clarify it, to make sure it doesn’t apply to police and fire. Could that happen, Sam?
SAM RICHARD: I think it’s very wide open right now. I think procedurally, of course, the governor can call everybody back to a special session, but we were kind of hypothesizing in the green room just before we came on air about kind of how the governor might do that, how you frame the question because what you call the Legislature back to do has to be just in that frame.
So, do you name the HCR? Do you talk about repealing certain ballot referrals? Or how you frame that is going to matter about what kind of conversations the Legislature can have in general.
But what I would also say, too, is I just I really, if you step back here, what I really love about this dialogue and conversation is that Republicans in the Legislature have now had to admit the collective bargaining does have value. We just don’t like it for everybody. We only want those in public safety and our brothers and sisters in the firefighters and police agencies across the state to be able to have that pathway to collective bargaining.
And I think if it’s good for one aspect of our set of employees, I think it should be good for everybody. So, I think that really, from a rhetorical standpoint or from a policy standpoint, Republicans in the Legislature really lost a lot of footing in really kind of being a trusted source of defending of all of that.
But I look forward to resolution one way or the other. If the ballot referral goes to the ballot, I think it will be soundly defeated because even though we are a right-to-work state, Arizonans support our brothers and sisters in unions, including public sector unions. So I look forward to some type of resolution one way or the other there.
BARRETT MARSON: Yeah. Well, what I’ll be interested to watch is Democrats don’t want to repeal and replace. They only want to repeal. And I don’t think Republicans will necessarily go along with that. So, that’s going to be what agreement can the governor and legislative leaders work out if, say, next month a court rules that indeed this does apply to the public safety unions, which I think there’s a pretty good argument to be made that it does.
LAUREN GILGER: So, the other question though, and I have more, but this is one, is will we see either of these groups, police or firefighter — particularly though police — pull support from any of the folks who are responsible for putting this measure?
BARRETT MARSON: You know, there’s a lot of police groups like Police Association, PLEA from Phoenix, the state troopers have endorsed a lot of Republican candidates, including (Senate President) Warren Peterson for attorney general. And it’s like well, if you really want to voice your displeasure over this ill-conceived measure, pull your endorsement. That’s the way you get their attention.
LAUREN GILGER: But you think it’ll happen?
BARRETT MARSON: No, I don’t think it’ll happen because I don’t think they have a real desire to see Kris Mayes, necessarily, win again. And so, they’re going to just dance with the guy who brought them, or who they brought.
And they won’t, but I think there is a lot of angst going on right now amongst public safety unions, including those that have endorsed prominent Republicans in the Legislature.
SAM RICHARD: Yeah, I think that if the referral goes to the ballot as is and the public safety unions do not adjust their endorsements, I think that there’s a serious question about their credibility in that vein. I do think there’s plenty of time to readjust.
I mean, everything kind of resets after the primary, so starting next week, if there is no action from the governor to call everybody back to a special session or legislative leaders don’t come to some type of agreement, I would hope to expect to see law enforcement associations rethink some of their endorsements. But I’m not holding out hope for that to happen.
BARRETT MARSON: I really don’t see anything happening until a court provides some sort of guidance. And then, you could see some upheaval.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK. Let’s move on and let’s talk about the McCains, obviously, a legacy political family in Arizona, but one that’s really shifted its allegiances since the rise of Donald Trump and the GOP. And now, MS Now is reporting that Cindy and Jimmy McCain are hosting a fundraiser for Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. And obviously, we saw Cindy McCain work under the Biden administration, not entirely a surprise in this sense, but I wonder what you think this says, Sam, about the sort of legacy of the McCains in Arizona?
SAM RICHARD: Yeah, I think it says quite a bit that it is news in itself. I mean, I think that in previous election cycles, both nationally and locally, certain aspects of the McCain family have split their decisions. I mean, even in my own family, not everybody around the Thanksgiving table votes the same way. So, I don’t think it’s all that newsy.
I also think that if you put it into the larger context, President Trump, who has given his total and complete endorsement to Congressman Andy Biggs, has shown no respect and no dignity to the McCain family at all. So, I would frankly be surprised if something like this weren’t to take place.
But I think that more than anything, people are making more of this than that it needs to be. I mean, Arizona has always been a place and Sen. McCain, in his political leadership, very much displayed this as a maverick. We don’t always align with our partisan identities, and I think that this is just the most recent example of someone who’s maybe playing against type.
But if you peel behind the curtain, Gov. Hobbs is the governor for all of Arizona, and she has a much shorter distance to get to the middle and even get some of those disaffected Republicans back across the aisle, and I think that’s what’s going to happen.
BARRETT MARSON: The one thing where, you know, I think Republicans are still smarting is the Biggs wing of the party has explicitly said, “McCains are not welcome, and their followers are not welcome in this party.” And so all right, you get kicked out of the party, you’re not going to beg to come back in. You’re going to support then the people who actually want to talk to you.
And so again, I’m not surprised that they are supporting Hobbs. Many of the members of the McCain family supported Kamala Harris or Joe Biden over the last two presidential elections, so it’s really not surprising. Meghan McCain came out and said she’s not voting for or supporting Katie Hobbs because, “I’m a conservative Republican,” she said.
SAM RICHARD: But she didn’t say that she was voting for Congressman Biggs.
BARRETT MARSON: No, she did not say she was voting for Biggs. Now you’re right, there is a difference. We might be looking at a Hugh Lytle voter.
LAUREN GILGER: All right. So, let’s talk about the governor’s race that’s kind of starting to take shape. The latest polling in the primary race for governor has Andy Biggs way out ahead of David Schweikert, we should say.
So it’s looking like we’re starting to see some kind of general election messaging from Hobbs and Biggs as we get closer to the finish line there. And Hobbs trying to paint Biggs as sort of a fringe no-vote on a lot of bipartisan votes in the House. Biggs is trying to argue that he can be and is bipartisan. What do you make of that, Barrett?
BARRETT MARSON: Well, first of all, Andy Biggs, since his first days in the Arizona Legislature, has been chairman of the No Caucus. The guy just loves to vote no. And he’s voted no on a lot of bills that are now going to come back to haunt him in a statewide election that isn’t just home to a bunch of red-meat-loving voters.
And so, he is going to have a bit of a hard time shedding some of his past votes on things like spousal rape, things like not requiring out-of-state sex offenders to register here in Arizona. And that is going to turn off suburban women left and right. And so, I think he’s got a pretty big hill to climb once the Hobbs TV machine and campaign truly heats up after next week.
SAM RICHARD: And I’ll note for listeners at home, that was the Republican consultant who just said all that. …
BARRETT MARSON: No, it’s going to be a problem. Andy Biggs has a long record and some of it not very glorious.
SAM RICHARD: Yeah, and I would say as well that Congressman Biggs has a record of small ideas, and we are at the moment where we need big thinking and big solutions for the future of Arizona. And I think that a second-term Gov. Hobbs gives voters of Arizona — and Arizonans across the state — a lot of confidence to battle on our behalf on the fights to come, whether that be our share of the Colorado River water, answering the call for continued economic development—we saw just a huge announcement from TSMC earlier this week—
BARRETT MARSON: Thank you, Doug Ducey, for that.
SAM RICHARD: — while we balance our power generation and power distribution needs and requirements as well in the state of Arizona. So, I think that we have a battle-tested governor in Governor Hobbs, and I think that she’s done everything to answer the question of whether or not she is worthy of folks’ vote for a second term.
BARRETT MARSON: I got to tell you, Lauren, at least I was being honest about my party.
LAUREN GILGER: Last question on this and quickly, but the comparison between Andy Biggs and Kari Lake, who Gov. Hobbs ran against last time around, is going to be kind of prevalent in this. Do you think he’s going to have to answer to that a lot?
BARRETT MARSON: Well, look, Andy Biggs is no Kari Lake, and that cuts both ways. You know, he cannot command a camera, TV camera, in any way close to what Kari Lake did.
Now, did that help her or hurt her? Well, every time she opened her mouth, I mean, Democrats would make clips of her speeches, so it did hurt her. But at least it got her name out there. I mean, she was ubiquitous.
Andy Biggs is not that flamethrower. He’s actually a conservative, unlike Kari Lake. He actually believes in conservative values. And he fits his district incredibly well. Whether he fits the entire state incredibly well is another story, and that’s the vulnerability that he has.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, let me ask you very quickly before I let you go because I think this is a talker and people are interested in this. The House just approved a permanent daylight saving time bill, right? Which means no one around the country would be turning back the clock just like us in Arizona. What do you think, Sam? Pro-daylight saving time, anti-daylight saving time? Where do you land on this?
SAM RICHARD: This is actually a very, very wedge issue for me, so I know that we only have a small amount of time to talk about it. But we have always been on Mountain Standard Time, and I’m looking forward to the fact where we always will be on Mountain Standard Time, and we never have to explain it to another —
BARRETT MARSON: Right. When when people from New York or D.C. want to do a call, they don’t get confused they won’t get confused about what time it is in Arizona anymore, which has been, exactly, a long time coming.
LAUREN GILGER: It happens more often than not, yeah. All right, well, leave it there. That is Barrett Marson of Marson Media, Sam Richard of Consilium Consulting joining us for the Friday news cap. Thank you both, appreciate it.
SAM RICHARD: Thank you.
BARRETT MARSON: Bye-bye.
LAUREN GILGER: That’s all for this week’s Friday NewsCap podcast. You can find the full Show podcast at podcast.kjzz.org. I'm Lauren Gilger, thanks for listening.
