Arizona Republicans Choose Election Denier Loons In Primary, Surprising No One
Donald Trump appears to think they've already taken office, since only Republican votes matter.
Republican voters in Arizona decided Tuesday that they aren’t finished trying to refight 2020, choosing election-denying rightwing candidates as their nominees for top state offices including governor, secretary of state, and attorney general.
For governor, Arizona goopers want Rep. Andy Biggs, a conspiracy-theory-embracing former head of the House Freedom Caucus who helped try to overturn the 2020 election on January 6 (and tried to get a preemptive pardon before Trump left office).
The nomination for secretary of state went to state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who was disciplined by the state Bar Association for helping Sidney Powell file her bullshit “Kraken” lawsuit trying to throw out Arizona’s votes in 2020, among other misbehavior. He also tried to overturn the 2022 election for governor that Kari Lake still won’t admit she lost, but that time he didn’t get in trouble with the Bar.
And for attorney general, Arizona Republicans want state Senate President Warren Petersen, who pushed the ridiculous scammy “audit” of the 2020 vote — the one with the forensic geniuses looking for traces of bamboo in the paper used for ballots, which would prove they were fakes manufactured in Asia.
Donald Trump was so impressed by the many Republicans who won Republican primaries that he bragged on his fake Twitter substitute that Arizona is finally “becoming a Republican state,” which would be big news if true.
Is that even worth fact-checking? I used to live in the Grand Canyon State, where Democrats do win statewide office, but whose state Lege has been heavily Republican since the late 1960s, thanks in large part to Barry Goldwater and the GOP’s Southern Strategy. I’m fairly certain that no Democrats were dumbfounded that MAGA Chuds swept the Republican primaries.
I’m considerably less certain that Trump understands that Tuesday’s primary did not drive Democrats from power in Arizona.
Biggs won the gubernatorial primary handily over fellow US Rep. David Schweikert, who left Congress to run, and a couple of generic Republican “businessmen” doofuses, Scott Neely and Ken Miceli. Biggs is a far-right kook whose weirdness isn’t limited to his 2020 election denial. To be sure, the denial is impressive: beyond voting against certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 win, he also demanded in 2022 that Congress launch an investigation into “the potential illegal activities revealed in the documentary film 2000 Mules,” because he thought that thoroughly debunked Dinesh D’Souza movie had blown the lid off Biden’s theft of the election.
Biggs has also fantasized about eliminating OSHA so every state can decide for itself whether it’s OK for workers can be mangled on the job, especially if that’s profitable. He voted against a COVID relief bill in 2020 because it “redefined family” by covering sick leave for people in domestic partnerships. Biggs repeatedly voted against measures to sanction Vladimir Putin and Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, even voting against a measure condemning Putin’s policy of kidnapping Ukrainian babies and giving them to Russian families.
Biggs and Kolodin were helped in their campaigns by endorsements from Trump, but also by Turning Point USA, the right-wing campaign machine founded — in Arizona, in fact! — by Saint Charlie Kirk.
Regardless of how enthusiastic the MAGA faithful are about candidates who cling to the 2020 Big Lie, election deniers haven’t done so hot in races for statewide office, because even with climate change, general election voters in Arizona haven’t had their brains entirely cooked. It’s a fun paradox that has so far helped Democrats to turn the state purplish, including Biden’s 2020 win and the near-sweep by Democrats for major offices in 2022.
“It’s one of those things that just won’t go away,” said former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.). “In the Republican Party in Arizona, in the primary, carrying the Trump line on virtually everything — and that includes election denialism — is still something that benefits you.”
But in the general election, “it’s a stone around your neck,” Salmon said. “Among independents and moderate Republicans who vote in the general election, election denialism is not an asset.”
Biggs will challenge Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs, who said on MS NOW Tuesday that the race for governor now has national implications, too, since “Arizona is one of seven swing states that will decide the presidential election” in 2028. If Biggs becomes governor, she pointed out, that would make Arizona “the first swing state with an election denier in charge, and the time to stop that is not 2028. It is right now.”
The race between Hobbs and Biggs will also resurface Arizona rightwingers’ attacks on women’s rights, since Biggs has long been an anti-abortion hardliner. Arizonans voted in 2024 to protect the right to abortion in the state constitution, and Hobbs has already been highlighting Biggs’s extreme positions on abortion. Arizonans don’t want to go back, thank you.
The Cook Political Report rates Arizona’s governor’s race as “lean Democratic,” somewhat paradoxically noting that Hobbs is considered the “most endangered Democratic incumbent,” but that that’s mostly because so few incumbent Dems face serious challenges this year, hooray. Here’s hoping that Andy Biggs’s bigg dumb mouth helps her stay where she is.
[Politico / WaPo / NPR / AZMirror]
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OT: No airline should condone or allow this to happen on their flights. You want fistfights on your planes? Because this is how you get fistfights on planes.
𝗘𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀
𝘐𝘯-𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴. 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 “𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺.” (Washington Post)
Variety: ‘𝐖𝐞𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐀𝐥’ 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐜 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧-𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢 𝐀𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐚: ‘𝐈 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐲 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐢𝐟 𝐈𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐈𝐜𝐤𝐲’
Good policy.