KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about a new arrangement to fund Democratic campaigns in Arizona, an Arizona Senator heading to the Iowa State Fair and more, The Show sat down with former state schools superintendent Jaime Molera of the firm Molera Alvarez and former Congressional staffer and attorney Roy Herrera.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Roy, let me start with you, talking about the Copper State victory. This is an arrangement that is funneling money and resources through the Navajo County Democratic Party in response to, I think, a lot of state Democrats have concerns about the state of the state party.
How well or not well do you expect this to work?
ROY HERRERA: I think it’s going to work very well. This is going to be the coordinated campaign for all of the Democrats. And I think the Democrats know how important next year is with all three Democratic statewide officials up for reelection, with the Legislature up for grabs, with two competitive congressional districts.
And it’s very necessary to have a robust and sophisticated and well-funded, coordinated campaign. It’s one of these sort of essential things. And this Copper State Victory infrastructure is going to ensure that that occurs.
Now, will this infrastructure work with the state Democratic Party? I’m sure it will in some aspects. Obviously there’s a lot of issues going on over there with the state party and the chairman, and obviously the state committee is going to probably have a say on his future going forward.
But either way, this coordinated campaign is going to ensure that the Democrats have what they need to win next year.
BRODIE: In a perfect world is this the kind of thing that Democrats would like to have avoided if they could have?
HERRERA: There’s always something that could be better with political campaigns , certainly. We have seen this approach before in Arizona on the Republican side. We’ve seen Sen. (John) McCain do that when he was up for reelection. We’ve seen Gov. (Doug) Ducey do this similar thing when he was up for reelection.
And those campaigns worked; they got reelected. Generally speaking, the Republicans did well in those cycles. So I don’t think it’s going to be any different for the Democrats this time, for Gov. Hobbs and Fontes and Mayes.
BRODIE: So Jaime, Roy mentioned the Republican Party doing this, most notably through the Yuma County Republican Party. It was not a permanent thing. The state Republican Party seems to have — they have a new chair now, and they seem to be able to handle what they need to be doing.
What, to you, does this say sort of about the state of the Arizona Democratic Party?
JAIME MOLERA: Well, I was going to say I haven’t seen this kind of chaos and dysfunction since the Republican Party three years ago.
BRODIE: It’s like a pendulum. It’s back and forth, right?
MOLERA: As Roy said, these are the kinds of things that tend to happen. But the leadership is going to want to make sure that they control the dollars in a way that they think is most effective. And certainly the state party right now, I think there’s no confidence that they’re able to do that, just like there was with the Republicans.
But the thing that I found amusing when they announced that they’re going to go into the Navajo County Democratic Party, it was all this laudatory talk about how, “Yeah, they’re so organized, and that county has that infrastructure that we can use.”
They’re not going to make one decision on how $1 gets spent. It’s going to be the Democratic operatives that are controlled by the state leadership on how they’re going to drive that money. They’re just using it as a conduit so that they can park their money and then figure out how to utilize it in the next election cycle.
BRODIE: Do you see — other than sort of the mechanism for doing this — I guess maybe sort of in the background in the philosophy, do you see parallels between when the Republican Party did something similar to this?
MOLERA: Very similar because it was the exact same thing when Kelly Ward was the chairman. It was very acrimonious, and they had a lot of dysfunction. And they couldn’t raise money. So the leadership said, “You know what? We’re just going to do it on our own.”
Gov. Ducey basically had their own organization, but they controlled it. And so that’s the key of this thing is who controls the dollars and how do they want it expanded? And also, one of the other big things is what races will they consider to be the ones that they want to put their money into?
So that’s going to be interesting. But again, that’s where wherever has the dollars tends to control how it gets spent.
BRODIE: Roy, is this the kind of thing that in a perfect world — and we’ve heard from the Navajo County Democratic Party chair saying, “Look, we’re going to do this now. By 2028, when it’s a presidential year, ideally, the state party is better able to handle that kind of thing.” In a perfect world for Democrats, is this a temporary arrangement?
HERRERA: It might be. And Jamie, it’s funny: You don’t believe something you saw in a press release?
But no, I agree with a lot of what Jaime said. A lot of this is going to be about making sure, again, that the fundraising is done correctly, the funds are coming in and, again, that they’re being spent correctly.
And when you have Sen. Kelly, Sen. Gallego, Governor Hobbs — three people who have won very tough elections in a very tough state for Democrats — as a Democrat, I would say, “OK, it is them and their operations and their their consultants that probably know best when it comes to like how this money should be spent and how we should go forward to put Democrats in the best position to win next year.”
So whether it’s this time through Copper State and whether in 2028 it’s through the state Democratic Party, either way I feel confident that the people that are going to make their strategic decisions and do the fundraising are going to be people that have won, have a track record of winning and will win again.
MOLERA: You know what’s interesting though? This is the one thing that I’ve seen that has brought Gov. Hobbs, Secretary Fontes and Attorney General Mayes together. Boy, they look like a team. They look like a happy team, like a happy family, which you never really see very often.
BRODIE: It is like, sort of the common enemy thing, right? That can bring people together.
Roy, let me stick with you on (Congressional District) 7. Rhis is the primary, the special election coming up on Tuesday to replace the late Congressman Raúl Grijalva. It seems as though on the Democratic side — and this is a pretty heavily Democratic district — the conventional wisdom is that whoever wins the Democratic primary will most likely win the seat.
It seems like at this point, it’s a three-person race between Adelita Grijalva, Congressman Grijalva’s daughter; former state lawmaker Daniel Hernandez; and Deja Foxx. Is that sort of what you’re hearing as well?
HERRERA: Yeah, totally. That’s the field, right? I mean, there’s some other candidates, but they’re not major candidates. I think the conventional wisdom right now from the people that I talk to is that Adelita is the clear favorite to win next week.
I think what’s maybe surprising right now to a lot of people is when people are sort of predicting who’s going to finish second, a lot of folks now are saying it’s going to be Deja Foxx, which a lot of people wouldn’t have said a month ago or whatever, since she’s a brand new candidate.
So if we end up with a race that results in Adelita winning the primary and then Deja Foxx second and Daniel Hernandez third, I think that second and third slot is going to be pretty surprising. Because I think Deja Fox in some sense — and there’s been some articles in the Republic about her
BRODIE: And elsewhere, too.
HERRERA: From the social media perspective, she’s gotten some momentum. Ultimately, it’s not going to be enough, I think, to beat Adelita. Adelita’s going to be the next congresswoman. But it is something, and it’s notable, I think.
BRODIE: What does that do for Democratic politics in southern Arizona? Because Daniel Hernandez, he obviously was a state lawmaker himself. Both his sisters are state lawmakers. They’re a pretty well known political family in southern Arizona. If, as Roy suggests, maybe he comes in third and Deja Foxx, who’s young and a very strong social media presence, what does that do? Does that change the balance of democratic political power in southern Arizona at all?
MOLERA: I don’t think so. I think what you’re seeing is a trend that’s happening within the Democratic Party. I mean, Deja Foxx has been compared to (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) — young, very progressive — and that’s been the trend of the party. And that’s one of the reasons in my opinion, I think they’re having some difficulty, especially in the more competitive areas where those kinds of candidates don’t tend to do well.
Now, certainly, I agree with Roy that District 7 is going to be a Democrat district. It’s just so heavily, unless something majorly crazy happens. Grijalva should win that election. And the reason I think that is that as of right now, about 20% of folks have already voted in the early ballot.
So 20%, that’s a pretty good turnout for a special election. So the higher that is, I think the more that indicates that Grijalva and those kinds of machines that tend to know how to get out the vote and are more sophisticated about that, tend to do better.
I’m a little surprised that Daniel Hernandez has fallen, to a pretty distant third because he’s raised the most money. He’s already raised over $1 million. So it’s interesting to see how that’s going to play out. But it really should be because of Grijalva and her name. And also, she has a very strong connection with the progressive wing. I think that’s a big help.
BRODIE: Obviously, whoever wins this is going to have to run again in the regular election next year. Will there be anything in the results that might be tea leaves to read for 2026?
MOLERA: Well again, if, Deja Foxx does better than expected and it’s much closer, then that shows that there is that element of the Democratic Party that really likes that and really wants to push that hard, progressive policies. And I think big picture that tends to bode better for Republicans, because I think that was one of the key points in 2024 and I think why Republicans did so well.
So it’ll be interesting to see. But I think the Democrats are understanding that they have to do a better job of reaching out to what was their traditional base — which is the blue-collar workers, union workers — and get back to the economic issues instead of the social policy issues.
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