KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
Jaime Molera of the firm Molera Alvarez and Sam Richard of Consilium Consulting joined The Show talk about a pair of federal investigations into the 2020 election in Arizona, some changes in congressional races and more.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Jaime, I’m going to quote one of the great American philosophers, Yogi Berra, who allegedly said, it’s déjà vu all over again. We’re living in the past, right? 2020 election season all over again here with the Trump administration trying to get some documents.
MOLERA: Well, it worked so well in 2020.
BRODIE: For the Republicans, you mean, right?
MOLERA: For the Democrats, actually. So it’s one of those things, Mark, I’m a little dumbfounded as to why they want to continue to play on something that I think most every Arizonan has forgotten about or moved on from.
But when you’re rehashing these things over and over again, I don’t think it behooves the Republicans’ ability to do two things. One, take away and win the seats that they want to get in the statewide election and also hold the Legislature.
So it’s just a playbook that I’m just a little bit at a loss to explain why they’re doing that.
BRODIE: Do you think it could be a problem for Republicans running in Arizona?
MOLERA: It depends on how much they’re gonna continue this. Right now, here we are in MarchIf this is going on in September, maybe. But I think a lot of folks are going to forget about it, and a lot of folks are gonna move on — hopefully, at least from the Republican standpoint.
BRODIE: All right. Sam, we heard from Gov. (Katie) Hobbs just a moment ago, saying her supposition is that the Trump administration is trying to sow doubt in election results in advance of an election that some pundits are saying is not necessarily gonna be great for Republicans. Do you believe that?
RICHARD: I’m just flabbergasted by the absurdity of it all. To Jaime’s point from earlier, this morning I opened up my phone and I got a memory from six years ago when my kindergartner was still in diapers. So we’re still trying to relitigate something that is well, well far in the past.
And really, if you look at the individuals involved, both Gov. Hobbs, when she was Secretary of State, and now-Secretary of State (Adrian) Fontes, have done nothing but uphold the integrity of our electoral process.
And I think for me, it’s not as much concerning about what’s happening with the integrity of the vote — which is absolutely something that should be talked about — but also the integrity of that personal information. The chain of custody of those files is completely gone.
And while my vote is public, that I voted, all of that data should absolutely not be. I have not changed my mother’s maiden name, nor have I not changed my Social Security number in the last six years. So if that information gets out, that’s where my deep concern is, because I think that most voters see this entire facade as the absurd charade it is.
BRODIE: Well, I think to the point of the personal information, Sam, we saw that Secretary of State Fontes, Attorney General Kris Mayes this week sent a letter to the county recorders basically saying “Even if you get subpoenaed, do not hand over this information,” in large part because of the concern about the disclosure of personal information, which potentially puts county recorders in a tricky situation.
I’m not a lawyer, but I would think if you’re subpoenaed and you say “No, thanks” — like that puts you in a bit of danger.
RICHARD: That’s right. And the president isn’t a lawyer as well, right? And I think you can tell and really get the sense that this is nothing but politics, nothing but dredging up old history that has been long settled and it does nothing to advance the conversation.
We should be focused on the important issues of today, like solving our water crisis and solving the affordability crisis. And instead we’re talking about Cyber Ninjas from six years ago.
BRODIE: Do you think we’re still going to be talking about Cyber Ninjas six years later, Jaime?
MOLERA: No, no. But here’s the thing that again, to put a fine point on this, why I don’t understand: In 2022, which is just two years after the ’20 election, of course, the Republicans and Trump did very well in Arizona. We all know that.
They were able to mount a very good get out the vote. They were able to mount a stronger organization than they did in 2020.
So you would think they’d want to build on that. And particularly with the growth of Turning Point, which has been a very strong entity, and being able to get more Republicans registered — right now they enjoy about a 330,000 registration advantage over Democrats building on those kinds of things.
Seems to me that that’s a much better playbook than dredging up things that happened four years ago.
BRODIE: But 2022, though, with all that, Democrats still won the top three statewide elected office.
MOLERA: Candidates matter. Candidates matter. And I think we had a Kari Lake that was also running. Now that’s a good point because Kari Lake was running based on what happened in 2020, and that really didn’t serve her well. And she was going out of her way to get Republicans to not come out and vote for her.
She was talking about the McCain Republicans that she absolutely didn’t want. She was making statements saying that abortion should lead to murder charges. Those kinds of things, I think that kind of rhetoric, and you couple that with the voter fraud allegations, really didn’t help her very much. And it showed.
And so I think that’s some of the things we should learn from and then move on.
RICHARD: Before we move on, though, I just want to make one last point about that yawning gap of the voter registration. As, as Jaime pointed out, it’s about 330,000 right now. So any claim that Secretary Fontes is making this a partisan political fight is absolutely ridiculous. He is working to protect the information and the voting integrity of every Arizonan.
And there’s actually the math shows that he’s supporting more Republicans and more independents than he is Democrats by doing so. So this is not at all a partisan fight. This is about voter integrity and protecting personal information.
MOLERA: That’s why a lot of Democrats don’t like Adrian Fontes.
BRODIE: Sam, let me stick with you, asking about — speaking of elections — a congressional race. Late this week, an activist named Kai Newkirk said that he was going to be running the Democratic primary against (U.S. Rep.) Greg Stanton.
That’s the 4th Congressional District. He doesn’t have much time to get his signatures and get on the ballot. Is this a serious challenge to Congressman Stanton?
RICHARD: You know, one thing I’ll say about Congressman Stanton is that he will take it seriously. And I think that is something that says a lot about his political acumen and his long track record of serving his community in an elected capacity. One of my many character flaws is I’m a huge Aaron Sorkin fan, right?
And you know, one of the things that was a current theme or a theme throughout “The West Wing” was you always run a race five points down. And I think that Congressman Stanton’s gonna do so. But you noted the structural challenges that this individual has in even collecting signatures. But even if they were to get on the ballot, Congressman Stanton is a ranking member of a subcommittee, on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in Congress.
He leads a coalition of the new Democrats ,or kind of the Blue Dog working group, so called. So Congressman Stanton is not going to go anywhere unless it’s his decision to go somewhere.
But I also think that having challenges from the left or the right is really good to make sure that everyone still is serving the communities that they represent with integrity and relevancy.
So if that is one of the outcomes, I’m happy to see a challenger. But I’m extremely confident in Congressman Stanton’s ability to gain his seat again next cycle.
BRODIE: All right, so, Jaime, on the Republican side, we saw a change in the 5th District, that’s the southeast Valley, Andy Biggs’ district that he’s leaving, of course, to run for governor. Former State Rep. Travis Grantham is dropping out of the race, saying he’s gotten called up. He’s in the National Guard. He’s gotten called up.
Can’t turn into signatures, not on the ballot. But he was running in a race where the Pinal County Sheriff, Mark Lamb, who had previously run for U.S. Senate — pretty good name ID, also a Trump endorsement — kind of the conventional wisdom is at least he’s seen as the front runner in that race.
MOLERA: Correct. And Travis Grantham has a very good reputation. He’s very well liked. I think he’s seen as a very thoughtful political leader. But going against Mark Lamb, polls are showing that it was pretty clear that Mark had support of the base. He certainly had support of the president, but also of organizations I mentioned earlier, like Turning Point, that are very much behind him.
So it would have been a very difficult feat for Grantham to overcome that. So I think him bowing out does a couple of things. One, it helps the Republicans coalesce around the candidate. But more importantly, it doesn’t take away the resources that I think other areas are going to need. And they’re going to need to start building that organization in order to fend off some of these Democrat challenges.
BRODIE: Was that a district that Republicans would have had to spend heavily in to begin with? Because it’s a pretty red district.
MOLERA: It is a red district, but when you think about the kinds of resources you need in the primary and those things, it takes away from other areas that they would want to put their time and effort into.
So yeah, the Republicans are going to keep that seat. There’s no doubt about it. But the organization and resources that they’re going to need in a CD1 or in (U.S. Rep.) Juan Ciscomani’s district, that’s where they’re going to need to really start to bolster.
BRODIE: For national Republicans, you’re talking about.
MOLERA: Correct.
