Drive around town right now and you’ll see campaign signs everywhere. And a whole lot of them seem to say “endorsed by fire” or “endorsed by police” — sometimes from candidates running against each other in the same race. Go on a candidate’s website and you’ll see their endorsements listed — from educators to the ACLU to Free Enterprise Club.
It made national headlines recently when Democrat Ruben Gallego won the endorsement of the Arizona Police Association over Republican Kari Lake.
But, how much do these endorsements matter to voters? And how do candidates go about getting them?
Paul Boyer has a lot of experience in that area. He spent 10 years in the state Legislature, both in the House and the Senate. He’s a conservative Republican known for sometimes bucking his party — and, as he told The Show recently, sometimes bucking the wishes of his endorsers, as well.
Full conversation
PAUL BOYER: Well, I mean, when I first ran, I was a nobody, I mean, nobody knew who I was, first time running. So I just knocked on as many doors as I could and I made as many phone calls as I could. And for our conversation today, I got as many endorsements as I could.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. OK. So endorsements are in the mix there. Where do endorsements fall? Like, how important are they? Especially to a new candidate and especially at the local level.
BOYER: Well, I think when there is a divided electorate, so I was in a, not a 50-50 district, but it was, it was competitive. And so if you're running in an open seat and you get an endorsement, I really think that goes a long way. As opposed to say, you get an endorsement and you're running against the incumbent, it's still going to be challenging just by nature of running against an incumbent.
GILGER: So I want to know as a candidate the first time around, but then also in subsequent elections, like, how do you go about getting endorsements? Like who do you meet with, who do you have to shake hands with? What's the process like? Is this about making promises? Is this about, you know, sitting down and saying, “this is what I stand for.” Is this about getting to know the right people?
BOYER: So what happens is once you file and then once you qualify, once you turn in the minimum number of signatures that are verified, then typically you get questionnaires from all these different organizations, associations and you fill it out, you turn it in and then they usually reach out to you and say, “hey, we'd like you to meet with our board so we can interview or interview all the candidates to see who we're going to endorse.”
Now when it comes to private individuals or just just, you know, like maybe former Sen. [Jon] Kyle, like I reached out to him because I really wanted his endorsement just because I admire the heck out of him. And I think that his, his name still carries a lot of weight in Republican primaries.
GILGER: Interesting. So you did seek some out, but others, you just have to pass some kind of litmus test.
BOYER: Exactly. I mean, basically the long and the short of it is you fill out every questionnaire that comes your way.
GILGER: OK. I mean, how did you approach that as a candidate? Like, did it feel like you needed to say certain things to certain organizations or were you saying, “well, here's where I stand and maybe we meet and maybe we don't.”
BOYER: Yeah, I mean, I, I pulled the old Martin Luther here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. Where I just said this is, this is who I am. If, if you want to endorse me, great. If not, then I get it.
GILGER: But, yeah, so, OK, what endorsements mattered most?
BOYER: For me personally, any police endorsement that I got. So whether it was the Arizona Police Association, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, there's a lot of them, the Fraternal Order of Police and of course, fire really meant a lot to me, too.
GILGER: There's an interesting difference there between police and fire and those are kind of the two major players you'll see on people's campaign signs, like, endorsed by fire, endorsed by police, whatever that may mean as you said, because there are multiple associations within tha. But talk a little bit about the differences between the police endorsement and the fire endorsement. They tend to be different ideologically as well.
BOYER: Yeah, that's right. So, I've always, I've talked to both organizations and just because I've developed relationships with both of them that you're going to benefit yourselves by being bipartisan. Now to the police's credit, I think they're actively looking for anybody on the left that would support them at the Legislature. They just have a really hard time finding somebody who could support them.
And so they have to defend the, they have to justify to their membership why they endorsed, you know, candidate so and so. They've typically endorsed Republicans primarily because Republicans are the ones who defend them at the Legislature.
Now, the fire, they've taken a different approach where, I mean, they'll, they will endorse Republicans, but that's typically in an uncontested race. But when it comes down to it, fire, if it's competitive, they'll typically, they lean left and they will endorse folks on the left.
GILGER: How did you get both?
BOYER: Well, I think they knew that I was with them no matter what. I have a good friend who's a firefighter at a good year and he got me, he, he got me wrangled into a firefighter fitness course at Glendale Community College. And it was the hardest A I've ever earned, but I got some insight into fire. I mean, that was just a fitness class. It wasn't even like the academy or, or anything that firefighters have to deal with. But I had more insight than my colleagues did where I was willing to support fire regardless of what they did.
GILGER: So how much does it matter when you do not get an endorsement like that, right? Like, and you have some personal experience here in your latest campaign for Glendale mayor, right? Like you failed to gather enough signatures, didn't end up on the ballot and that had to do with endorsements from fire, it sounds like.
BOYER: Well, that was more personal. Over the last seven years, I had been not only running legislation for fire, but I had been going to war for them at the state Legislature, even making enemies within my own party, even losing personal friendships over getting the sales tax referral, the intent of a penny sales tax for fire districts. I really alienated a lot of my colleagues.
So for me, it was personal because I mean, anybody that's willing to take a bullet for you or to run into a burning building to save your life or a perfect stranger to me, that's, that's noble. It's noteworthy and we should protect them regardless of what they did to me.
But when, yeah, when they didn't endorse me for my run for mayor, it was really a kick in the gut. It, it really deflated my sails where I just wasn't that interested in, in knocking on doors because I thought, well, what's the point if my own friends are actively working against me? Yeah. I didn't know that I wanted to run for mayor at that point.
GILGER: What are the political ramifications of that? Like, do voters care who's endorsed by fire or who's endorsed by police? How big of a difference can it make?
BOYER: Well, I mean, outside of my own experience, I don't know that fire matters as much these days as police does in a Republican primary. And let me illustrate. So, Justine Wadsack, who I've never met, she ran against Vince Leach and this last time she ran, she was in her Tesla going twice the speed limit and she got rightly pulled over and she tried to politicize it saying, oh, they're going after me. It's political.
Well, you don't go after the police as a Republican in a Republican primary. That's something I won't say sacred, but that's something that's off-limits.
GILGER: So, especially in a Republican primary and especially when it comes to those police endorsements, it sounds like they can be very influential.
BOYER: Yes, absolutely.
GILGER: So, I want to ask about the kind of, the other side of this equation, right. So you're running a campaign, you get certain endorsements, then you maybe win. You go on to be in public office. Are there things that you're expected to do or, you know, ways in which this has to pay off for those people who gave you those endorsements?
BOYER: Yeah, I think there is an expectation right now. I've always told lobbyists and I've always told the organizations, if you don't like the way I vote, then don't support me next time.
GILGER: But you're going to have to keep answering those questions from those players as you're, you're in office.
BOYER: Well, let me give an example. So the Free Enterprise Club, they were 100% behind moving energy policy from the Corporation Commission and they wanted to put it in the hands of the Legislature. I thought it was a terrible idea. The Legislature doesn't meet year round. We don't have attorneys that deal specifically with energy policy. We don't have the judges that oversee these rate cases. But the point is there was an expectation that I should have supported that.
GILGER: And so that has repercussions for you politically.
BOYER: It would have if I hadn't run again, I'm sure. They would have supported the other guy.
We also reached out to the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona that Boyer talked about here. They told “this was not personal.” Here’s there full statement:
“As we’ve said many times, we deeply appreciate the support Paul Boyer offered for public safety while he was a legislator. However, his positions on Glendale issues and Mayor Weiers’ important work to support our Glendale fire fighters led us to go in a different direction in the Mayor's race. This was not personal. It was a choice between two people where one was better suited for the challenges ahead.”
