KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
Former Arizona lawmaker Regina Cobb and Jason Barraza of Veridus joined The Show to talk about the results from this week’s elections, an endorsement in a contested congressional primary and more.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Regina, let me start with you. Obviously, big elections this week, some of the bigger elections, bigger contests were outside of Arizona — and we’ll talk about that in just a moment. But we heard just a second ago from Julie Spilsbury, speaking with 12 News, soon-to-be former Mesa City Council member.
This was a really interesting race. It got a lot of national attention for a Mesa City Council recall election. Turning Point USA, of course, put a lot of resources into this and was in many ways behind the recall. I’m curious what you make of the result and maybe what it means specifically for Turning Point going forward.
REGINA COBB: I think you’re going to see this as we go into the election year. Turning Point has increased its membership and has increased its footprint in politics. It was mainly Arizona and some around the nation. There were others, but mainly in Arizona. But ever since Charlie Kirk’s incident, it has just exploded. And I think that their influence is going to be a little bit bigger now all across the nation, not just in Arizona.
BRODIE: So Jason, if you are of the mind that you do not like what Turning Point stands for, how do you try to counteract that?
JASON BARRAZA: Well, you got to talk about what they’re doing. And in fact, for the race here, I mean look, they’re stepping out and they’re speaking against bipartisanship, right? You have an individual who is a Republican who stepped forward and said, “I’m gonna endorse these candidates, because that’s what I believe in.”
And now you have Turning Point that stepped forward and said, “Nope, that’s not gonna cut it. We don’t believe that you should be a representative of the Republican Party if that’s what you’re gonna stand for.”
And they held her accountable. That’s politics. That should be a consideration that all electeds have when they’re stepping forward. And you should certainly have an organization like Turning Point who is going to hold people accountable for the politics that they believe in.
BRODIE: Do you think, Regina — I mean, we’ve heard that Turning Point is looking to get into sort of downballot races. This is obviously sort of a downballot race, a city council race. They’re talking about, you know, spending resources on the SRP board elections, which is really downballot. You mentioned how Turning Point has increased its membership.
Obviously they’ve brought in a lot more money and donations since Charlie Kirk’s assassination. This maybe is a silly question, but do they have the resources to do what they want to do on the national level and also focus on downballot races in a place like Arizona?
COBB: I think they do. I think they have the resources. Especially now, I think they have the resources. I would say prior to that, they didn’t. I think they needed to focus on the national races and then maybe state races, but not downballot races.
I think they have the resources now. It’s a scary thing to think that just what Jason said, that it’s a bipartisan person, somebody that is a Republican but has done some Democratic moves and moved to the left on some issues.
And because of our votes, we’re going to have somebody like Turning Point that’s going to go against them. I don’t disagree with some of the things that they stand for, but I do disagree with influencing the elections the way that they have.
BRODIE: Well, Jason, you mentioned bipartisanship. Do you think that this result, and maybe the fear that it could strike in elected officials in other offices, could this do something to make bipartisanship even less common than it is now at all levels of government?
BARRAZA: Yeah, I don’t even know if it exists right now in Arizona politics or national politics, because people have been held accountable for it for so long. Look, Turning Point, in what they’re doing, this conversation of do they have the resources available — this is a conversation that political parties normally have, right? Do they have the resources, do they have the time to spend their money?
In large races, small races, decisions need to be made about where to have those resources. And that’s usually the purview of our political parties. Turning Point is really stepping in with that ground game that we’ve kind of lost in a lot of our political parties. And they’re coming forward and they are expending the resources, they are putting the bodies forward to have an impact.
And that impact is what is going to need to be taken into consideration by certainly Republican members or Republican elected officials.
COBB: And I think we’re going to see this in the governor’s race. You look at Andy Biggs and Karrin Taylor Robson and (David) Schweikert right now, I think that you’re gonna see them play a big piece in that.
BRODIE: Well, Turning Point has endorsed Andy Biggs already.
COBB: They have. They have, but they’ve already put money behind him, too.
BRODIE: Regina, before we move on from this, I want to get your response to what we heard from Julie Spilsbury. As an elected official yourself, I’m curious what you think about when you hear her say, basically people say they want better candidates, but then look what happens when we try to do what we think is right.
COBB: I can’t disagree with Julie. I think she is a good candidate and probably represented a lot of what I represented when I was a candidate. I think that you’re going to see less of that. You’re going to see where people, when they get into office, they’re going to try to figure out how they can get endorsed, how they can get the money.
When they do that, they usually lean to the right and to the left. They don’t go to the middle. I think we need more of that in the middle, and I don’t know how we get back there.
BRODIE: Jason, there’s been so much attention on the other races around the country — the New York City mayor’s race, the Virginia, New Jersey governor races, a few others — and it’s sort of universally accepted right now. The conventional wisdom is Tuesday is a really, really good day for Democrats, good night for Democrats.
I’m wondering if you think there are any lessons that Arizona Democrats can learn from what we saw on Tuesday.
BARRAZA: I think that some of the lessons that are out there are lessons that our successful Democrats here have already kind of learned. If we’re looking at Virginia, we’re looking at New Jersey, it was the moderate candidates that won on kind of that statewide race. They brought forward a pro-economic agenda. They stayed in the middle of the lane, and I think Arizona Democrats have already been doing that.
If you look at our statewides, that’s the position that they’ve been taking. Certainly in the New York City mayor’s race, you had a candidate that could be more progressive, could be more liberal. They did that, and they survived. They won. That should have been what you would have expected to see in a very progressive, very liberal race.
BRODIE: Yeah, I guess, Regina, it is clearly not an apples-to-apples comparison here because New Jersey and Virginia and certainly New York City are far more Democratic than is Arizona.
But I wonder if Republicans in Arizona look at these results and say, maybe next year’s not shaping up so well for us?
COBB: I think that we need to always be on your heels. You need to always be looking at yourself as if you’re running, I’m running in last place, and I’ve got to make myself go into first place. I think you cannot take anything for granted and the Republicans should look at that. It’s not any different than the last time Trump was in office.
And then a midterm election happened. It’s exactly the same. So you gotta change your tactics and move towards what is successful.
BRODIE: And a year in politics is, as we all know, like an eternity. I mean, it’s forever in politics. But do you see momentum for Democrats from Tuesday that could potentially carry over to 2026?
COBB: They should, but I don’t see the Democrat Party being so organized that they’re going to be able to do that. I think that they have a difficult time as it is, but they should be able to have momentum going into this. I don’t see it happening.
BRODIE: I like how you’re channeling your inner Will Rogers there where he famously said, “I don’t belong to an organized party, I’m a Democrat.”
Jason, do you see momentum? What do Democrats have to do, maybe is the question, to capitalize on the momentum they had and keep it going for another year?
BARRAZA: Well, I hope that they’re paying attention nationally at kind of the issues and the topics that were discussed here and that were successful, right. Democrats need to start talking about the economy more. When that happened, they were able to be successful. And I hope that more pick up on that going into the midterm.
It is set up. We’re expecting to see a Republican downturn. That’s what happens in the midterm election. The factor here that I think that is important to keep in eye is President Trump. He turns everything on its head. Will we see a decline in Republican support in the midterm? Who knows. Trump may be able to change that.
Hopefully, from my perspective, no, he isn’t. We see a downturn in support for the Republicans, and the Democrats have positioned themselves perfectly with a pro-economic agenda that they can take advantage of.
BRODIE: I guess the one caveat to that though are voter registration numbers, where Republicans have far outpaced Democrats over the last number of months and years, right?
BARRAZA: Well, they certainly have. I think that where Democrats can get a little solace there and find a little bit of protection is just because the numbers are increasing, there’s still a lot of Republicans out there that haven’t accepted the Trump and MAGA agenda fully.
They’re willing to have a split ballot, where we used to complain about Democrats would split their ballot all the time. I think we’re starting to see more of that in kind of that moderate Republican that’s out there.
BRODIE: Very briefly, before we go to break, I want to ask each of you if you are in any way surprised that the bond and override in the Tolleson district failed, given sort of all the questions and controversy that have been swirling with that district?
COBB: Absolutely not. If that bond had passed, I would be so disappointed in the voters for that. I think there’s too much controversy, and they haven’t even turned over the finances, so you don’t know what they’re doing. And to build a huge stadium the way that they wanted to do with the bond — if the voters would have passed that, I would have been 100% surprised.
BRODIE: Jason, surprise for you?
BARRAZA: No, not at all. The economy is still forefront at the voter’s mind. I think that that is an indicator here. So you put in that in light of you have a district that isn’t fulfilling some obligations, why would they support something like that?
