KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about a congressional candidate giving her race another go, the back and forth of tariffs against the state’s two biggest trading partners and more, The Show sat down with Lorna Romero-Ferguson of Elevate Strategies and former Congressional staffer Roy Herrera.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: So let's start with Marlene Galán-Woods, who has decided to make another run in the first congressional district. This is the David Schweikert district where I want to start with you on this. She did not make it out of the Democratic primary last year. What do you make of the fact that she's giving it another shot in, in a year from now?
ROY HERRERA: Well, you know, I don't know. I mean, she finished third out of six in that primary last year. I don't know if it's going to be any different for her this time around. I don't know if anything is going to be different, but, but I think what it signifies, her getting in along with other folks already getting in that race.
And then I think we're hearing that maybe Amish Shah, who's the Democratic nominee, is going to get in sometime soon. What I think that shows again is that that district is a heavily targeted district. You know, that one. And of course, the CD6 down in Tucson that's currently held by Juan Ciscomani. Yeah, I mean, these are two congressional districts that are going to decide, I think, who controls Congress, you know, after next year.
It's a very narrow Republican majority in D.C.. And conventional wisdom, you know, I think says that in this upcoming midterm, it is likely that Democrats take control of the House, because usually there's always sort of the backlash to the existing administration or in this case, the Republicans being in charge of the White House. So, you know, again, I think Democrats are feeling, I think, pretty optimistic that in two years it will be a Democratic House.
BRODIE: Lorna, we've been hearing sort of about the, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the political obituary for David Schweikert for many election cycles now. And he's still there. He still keeps winning. What, and there was some conventional wisdom last year that maybe Galán-Woods would be the, the strongest candidate from the Democratic side to go up against him. But of course, she didn't win in the primary.
LORNA ROMERO-FERGUSON: Yeah, that's always difficult when you have such a contested primary, a Republican or Democrat, a five-way, six-way like that one is. Anybody can pull off the win, right. And so yes, she came in third. She's now announced, I think from a strategy standpoint it makes sense because anybody who, who announces this early for a race that's next year, they just want to start fundraising, right. And get the name out there and hopefully keep other people from jumping in.
But I don't think that's going to be the case in this scenario. As Roy mentioned, there's other people who are already saying that they're going to, you know, formally announce in the summer like Amish Shah, some others. So it's going to be another contested primary.
That is a very interesting district, because on paper, it should be a lot more competitive than it has been. Right. And as you mentioned, people have been talking about the downfall of David Schweikert for many years, and he's been successful. And he's one of the few Republicans I feel like somebody really needs to analyze this, that’s been able to to thread the needle on the Trump dynamic really well.
You know, he's not anti-Trump, but he's not outspoken in favor of a lot of the policies. And right now, David Schweikert is actually in a very good position with, his number one policy prioritiy has been the federal budget, the federal deficit, cutting spending, right. That's been that's Trump's priority right now. So this is something that David Schweikert really can be a leader on because he's been, you know, sounding the alarm for so long about the bad financial situation the country is in.
So, I mean, it'll be interesting to see, but it wouldn't, it wouldn't surprise me. Schweikert pulls it off once again.
BRODIE: Are there any I mean, we've seen this a lot, both in Arizona and elsewhere, that people who run for, especially for Congress, don't win, come back two years and try running again, And sometimes they win and sometimes they don't. Is it, is there anything that we can draw from rematches in congressional races, or is it so candidate maybe district and maybe cycle specific?
ROMERO-FERGUSON: There's just so many outside factors. It really is candidate specific and then cycle specific. I mean we're just talking about before every day there's a different, you know, news item coming out of Washington, D.C., with what the Trump administration is doing. So what we're talking about now may not even impact, you know, the election in November 2026, right?
So there's that. And then there's also a lot of people want to build on the momentum of the previous cycle, right. You've invested a lot of time and energy in building your name ID. Sometimes people think if I jump in again I can just continue that momentum. But sometimes, you building up your name ID actually turn to voters away from you, and they don't actually want to see your name on the ballot again, right?
So it really does depend on the candidate. And I'm not going to mention who we've witnessed in the past for that to happen. But so, so it is a crapshoot, right. So well, but we're so far away so many other dynamics here to impact that race.
BRODIE: Well, so Roy, from a Democratic perspective, given that Schweikert has been seen as vulnerable for many cycles and continues to win. Are Democrats looking forward to a potential rematch, be it Shah or Galán-Woods? Or is this maybe a time for fresh blood in that district?
HERRERA: Well, I mean, first of all, I mean, even as a Democrat, I have to acknowledge that Schweikert is a good campaigner. I mean, obviously, the results show that. He is ahead of target and is back for continuing continuously for a number of cycles, and he keeps winning. To Lorna’s point, though, I mean, he has been leading and his main focus has been on the budget and potentially cutting the deficit and all that stuff.
Going into next year, we might actually see, you know, the rubber hitting the road there, where we're actually starting to see some cuts from this administration, or at least a lot of proposed cuts from this administration. And I suspect that a lot of these cuts are actually going to be unpopular, that at the end of the day, people don't want some of these things to be cut. And he, meaning David Schweikert, is going to have to answer for that, right. And that's going to be, I think, a main source of debate, I think, next year on sort of how smart these cuts have been.
As far as name ID goes. I mean, it's a little bit hard here. I mean, to go on Galán-Woods again, she didn't make it out of the primary. So I don't think there's really a whole lot to build off of from last time around because she wasn't the general election nominee. Sometimes the general election nominee, you know, does have some advantages if they're running again, because there is, you know, sort of a built out name ID, you have a fundraising, you know, sort of system.
BRODIE: They were a candidate for longer, if nothing else.
HERRERA: Exactly. Yeah. So you do have some advantages there. But of course, you still have to be a good candidate, right. And so I think ultimately that's what we'll, we'll sort of have to see here if it is going to be let's say Shah again. But it also could be somebody new.
And you know, to Lorna’s point, it is a fascinating district, right? I mean, we're talking about the wealthiest, most educated district in the state, right in the center of Phoenix, the heart of a lot of the business community, for example. So it'll be very interesting to see if the Democrats have somebody else that could potentially be a good candidate in the general election.
BRODIE: So Lorna, Roy is talking about some of the cuts coming from the federal government, some of them affect the National Park Service. And we have seen longer lines of people trying to get into the Grand Canyon, spring break coming up for a lot of a lot of folks next week. There are some issues with the, the pipe, the water pipeline that, that provides water to the South Rim.
Gov. Hobbs this week said, look, if this is the problem, the feds need to fix it. We're not going to spend our money, the state money to, to fix this. I'm curious what you, what you make of that, especially given that in the past, for example, during government shutdowns, the state has spent money to open it up with the expectation usually that we'll get reimbursed afterwards.
ROMERO-FERGUSON: Yeah. You know, I'm not surprised by Gov. Hobbs's decision because the Grand Canyon is not shut down, right? So in the past, when Gov. [Jan] Brewer, Gov. [Fife] Symington, you know, used state resources to reopen the Grand Canyon, that was important because you can't have such and such, an important asset like the Grand Canyon shut down economically in the state of Arizona.
It's still open. Is the situation ideal? No. So I understand her her the fact that she does not want to put resources toward not knowing if the Trump administration is going to reimburse, and then also not knowing what's going to come down the pipeline and impact the state of Arizona when it comes to federal, you know, cuts, she has to prepare for that as well, where that money might need to be spent in the future, depending on what the federal government decides to cut that's going to impact Arizona.
So not surprising to me. But again, the, you know, the Grand Canyon is such an incredible resource. I think it should be operating at a, at full speed. But again, it's not shut down like it was in the past. It's not surprising she's not putting the resources behind it.
BRODIE: Well, and Roy, I guess there's also given what's going on with Congress, there's no guarantee there won't be a shutdown coming up in the not too distant future, right. In which case the governor will maybe have to make a slightly different calculation.
HERRERA: I mean, and that's part of the problem here. I mean, you've got sort of one set of questions about whether we're going to have, you know, a continuing resolution or a new budget agreement in D.C., or are we going to have a government shutdown? And then there's also kind of a separate question of like these sort of unilateral cuts that Trump has been doing right through, whether it be through DOGE and Elon Musk or, you know, the kind of recommendations that he's proposing.
And so, you know, if you're the governor, for example, and you're dealing with your own budget limitations, right, you have to sort of prepare for the fact that we could have what I would sort of call a normal government shutdown. I mean, hopefully that would happen. But then also this idea that, you know, some program might just be cut tomorrow because that's what Elon Musk wants, right?
And so, you know, preparing yourself for that I think is, is much more difficult and complicated than, you know, maybe had been before. And so I agree with her. In this instance, we have to keep the Grand Canyon open, but we are not in a position where we even know, you know, how it would be cut. And, you know, I think we still we know that the governor is doing the right thing.
BRODIE: I think it says a lot about where we are as a country, that there is such a thing as a normal government shutdown at this point. I think, I mean, that, that that's really something. I mean, Lorna, very quickly, before we go to break, is there a like are there political ramifications? I mean, it's obvious, like if you, if you can say, I kept the Grand Canyon open, that seems like a political win. Is this maybe a little more nuanced for the, for the governor?
ROMERO-FERGUSON: Yeah, it is. And I don't think it's getting as much attention as when the Grand Canyon has been shut down in the past, right. So I don't think she's going to be facing the criticism, as you know, if it was shut down and she was deciding, OK, well, that's on the federal government. We're not using Arizona resources to keep the Grand Canyon open.
So I just think this is one of many things that the governor is dealing with and is going to deal with. That is just the ramifications of a federal government decisions and the Trump administration. But I don't think she's going to get much backlash over this one.
