KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about the No Labels Party is back, the fight between the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Recorder Justin Heap and more, The Show sat down with Sam Richard, Democratic Consultant with Consilium Consulting; and Republican Pollster Paul Bentz of Highground.
Conversation highlights
LAUREN GILGER: I want to start with the No Labels Party. It’s back in the news this week, and they’re joining the folks behind Make Elections Fair AZ — this was the failed ballot initiative to create open primaries in our state last year. And they say they want to recruit moderate, independent candidates to run up and down the ticket.
There are often more independents in Arizona than members of the two parties, right Paul? So tell us about how this might play.
PAUL BENTZ: Right now there’s 1.5 million folks that registered as other. There is not technically an independent party in the state. In fact, there’s just people that choose no label — but not No Labels but party not designated or PND or chose none. They’re the second largest group in the state, second only to Republicans.
And so it’s a large portion of the audience that has been the determiner of the outcomes of many of the elections. The irony here is this is not an open primary. This is, them choosing if you can’t beat them, join them. Join the No Labels Party and try to make some reform from the inside.
GILGER: Sam, have we ever seen a successful third party in the state? How would that work? What are the hurdles to even getting there?
SAM RICHARD: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think that it depends on how you define success. I think that third parties have definitely made the waters murkier for the candidates in the general election from either party. And I think that the jury’s still out about which party this is going to hurt more, whether a Republican on the general ballot that those voters who may be disaffected in that primary might choose that No Labels candidate; or what may be just as likely — if not a touch more likely — is that the Democrats might feel a little bit more pressure trying to battle someone who is appealing to that middle, because most of the statewide Democrats in recent history that have had success at a general election ballot have gone to that middle to approach those disaffected Republicans. And I think that’s where some of the existential concern is happening right now.
GILGER: Right. Because the whole concern was that the primaries and the parties in the primaries are just catering to the extremes. That’s what this is trying to remedy. But you’re saying once you get to the general, that’s fixed anyway.
RICHARD: Correct.
GILGER: I want to ask though, Paul, are independent voters really independent when it comes down to voting?
BENTZ: There’s no single independent. They’re not like-minded. Everyone assumes they’re all moderate. But one of the things to think about is this: If you wanted to run without a party, if you wanted to run as an “independent” right now, you need 42,000 signatures to qualify for the statewide ballot. If you run as a No Labels candidate, you only need 1,300 signatures.
So as somebody who doesn’t want to be of the two parties, this is an excellent opportunity to get on the ballot and overcome some of the significant barriers that the two parties have set in place.
The challenge here is ultimately, do they do they become the place where independent and unaffiliated voters, the folks that have chosen traditionally not to be of the two parties, come together and vote for those candidates? Or do they play more of a spoiler?
Democrats have, as Sam mentioned, benefited from the folks that choose not to be willing to vote for a MAGA candidate. And so they’ve benefited from disaffected Republicans, moderate leaning independents. Do those folks go to a No Labels candidate or somebody like that at the at the detriment of Democrats?
GILGER: And there were some very tight races last time around.
RICHARD: Absolutely. Within hundreds of votes. So we’re going to absolutely see this make an effect on the election. I think there’s still a big question as to what, but I’m just loving the irony that the No Labels group is going to have to actually choose a label. They’re going to have to name themselves.
GILGER: They’ll have a name, yeah.
RICHARD: I do think that both Democrats and Republicans are in a moment right now where different sections of voters from either party have a different definition of what it means to be a Democrat or what it means to be a Republican. I think that there’s a lot of folks that are disaffected by President Trump in a lot of ways and don’t think that he represents the Republican brand.
So it’s not just the Democrats that are in disarray. I think that we really are in a transitive moment in the American political discourse.
BENTZ: Also, this is not new. We’ve seen for years Green Party candidates tended to run and harm Democrats. Libertarian candidates, third parties tended to harm Republicans and play a little bit of a spoiler. The question here is, do they field a full field of candidates? Do they run someone for some of these big statewide offices? Do they have a bigger impact, bringing more people to the table that we haven’t seen in the past that maybe have some real interest in it?
It should push policy forward, in a way, for people to pay attention or at least understand what’s going on. It’s just not the two-party monolith fighting against one another. It does give people a real alternative.
GILGER: Is it all about money, then?
RICHARD: That definitely plays a huge part. But I think that at some point, kind of like in personal finance, after a certain time money doesn’t really make you any happier. I think perhaps we have reached, in the political realm, a full saturation of dollars. And at that point, really, it may become a battle of ideas or maybe a war of attrition, depending on how pessimistic you want to be.
But I do think that money will play a factor, because to become relevant in what will likely become the most expensive gubernatorial race in Arizona history, does a No Labels candidate actually break through?
GILGER: Does anyone have any sense at this point who these candidates might be?
BENTZ: No. That’s what it was really interesting to see is there’s two parts: There’s money, and then there’s message. And when you become a party, when you become a group, a collection of people that you’re trying to attract other people, you do have to have a message.
And what is the message that they bring forward? Do they weigh in on particular issues? Because once you start putting issues together — where they stand on abortion, where they stand on immigration, where they stand on economic policy — but also candidates do better when they’re running against a generic opposition. Would you vote for so-and-so or a Republican? In those cases what the polling shows is the generic ideal candidate typically does better.
But when you have an actual name on the ballot, it’ll be interesting to see who they attract. Can they get attractive candidates to be competitive in some of these races?
GILGER: OK. I want to move to a story that is kind of riling folks up. This week, our friend Jen Fifield with Votebeat got some text messages released to her via a public records request that show that Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap seemed to have pressured two county supervisors — Debbie Lesko and Mark Stewart — to give him more election power. And, Paul, it looks like there might be more text messages to be released still, right?
BENTZ: Well, this is the latest example of Republican-on-Republican crime. And I think it’s important to note that both Debbie Lesko as well as Stewart — as well as (Thomas) Galvin, who the end-around was trying to get around — they’re all incredibly conservative Republicans. And so we’re seeing one Republican attack some other ones and say, “I’m done with you.”
These threats here just sort of create this unhealthy environment and create uncertainty about how the election is going to be operated. But it shouldn’t be lost, the fact that the original change in what the recorder’s responsible for was a response from a Republican Board of Supervisors trying to limit the amount of power that the then-Democratic Recorder Adrian Fonte would have over the elections. So now (Heap is) trying to claw it back.
GILGER: Right. So this is Republican-on-Republican, but we’re also seeing some pretty strong responses from the one Democrat on the board.
RICHARD: Yeah, absolutely. Supervisor (Steve) Gallardo had some very terse responses to some of the accusations that were made now publicly, though initially privately. But even beyond some of the partisan scuffle, really this is politics 101. And I think that perhaps Recorder Heap might be well served by picking up a copy of Dale Carnegie’s classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” because he clearly attempted to outmaneuver Chairman Galvin and failed miserably.
And including a text message that said, “I sure hope that these texts don’t show up in a public records request.” So there’s there’s so many laugh lines, but I think that Maricopa County is well served by the Board of Supervisors and will continue to do so.
GILGER: So let me ask you lastly on this one: We have midterms coming up pretty fast here. And they’re going to be consequential, tight races, important races. What does this all mean for how our elections might run, which has been a problem in the past?
BENTZ: Well, we had a consequential special election in which there was some controversy around that. I think voters want certainty, and that’s something that I think the supervisors are aiming for. They’ve been very firm and steady all the way through, fighting against election deniers, pushing back against concerns and complaints that were not founded. And this is just the latest example of that.
They need to find a way to come together and compromise. And that’s the challenge that we see in some of these places is they’re rather misrepresent who they’ve negotiated with and what the deal is, as well as doing it all via text.
I mean, whatever happened to the days when people actually sat down face to face and tried to actually work things out and negotiate?
GILGER: What does this do for voter confidence, though, in elections, these kind of stories that come out?
RICHARD: I think it shakes it to a certain extent. But I also am hopeful that, you know, this is Aug. 1 of an off year. So perhaps they can figure out their internal squabbles before we get there. And to Paul’s point that I want to drive that home, voters do want certainty because what we do as a democracy is every two years we go to our local fire station and local school and overthrow our government.
And when you’re doing something so dramatic as that, you want the framework of the rules, the rules of engagement set well in advance. And I think that voters are going to have that. And this is just a blip in this in the grand scheme of things. I think the voters will have certainty come November 2026.
