Strike Everything

The national spotlight that lit up Arizona when lawmakers passed SB1070 will be back sooner than some anticipated.

Sen. Russell Pearce and numerous out-of-state allies plan to unveil his birthright-citizenship bill during the first week of January in Washington, D.C. The model legislation will serve as a template for lawmakers in 14 states, including Arizona, which hope to force a U.S. Supreme Court case that would challenge the longstanding interpretation of the 14th Amendment and end the practice of granting automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrant parents.

Daryl Metcalfe, a Pennsylvania state representative who is pushing the birthright-citizenship proposal in that state’s Legislature, said the model legislation will give anti-illegal immigration lawmakers a rallying point for the war against birthright citizenship and show unity among members of State Legislators for Legal Immigration, which is what the group of lawmakers is calling itself.

“First we have to have the language formulated,” said Metcalfe, a Republican from Cranberry Township, Penn. “Then you have the process of rolling that out to various legislators across the country that are interested in working on the rollout project and then bringing a number of us together to actually announce the final working product, the final language that’s come out of our efforts.”

The high-profile rollout likely will rile Arizona lawmakers and members of the state’s business community who wanted birthright citizenship to take a back seat during the 2011 session, at least until the Legislature passes a budget and a jobs bill. Some lawmakers claimed Pearce pledged to put birthright citizenship on hiatus until those priorities were out of the way, though Pearce disputes the claims.

“I hope it doesn’t distract Senator Pearce from what our primary objectives are this session, in terms of budget and economic,” said incoming Sen. John McComish. “The first week of January (is) a very busy time for us.”

Senate Democratic leader David Schapira said the press conference will be a distraction for lawmakers who should have higher priorities.

“It appears that the focus of the leadership of the Legislature is going to be on this issue instead of on economic develoment and job creation,” he said. “I’m waiting to hear about Pearce’s announcement of a press conference on economic development and job creation. That’s a priority right now.”

Pearce did not return messages seeking comment. But his stalwart ally in the House, Rep. John Kavanagh, said the unveiling wouldn’t distract from the more immediate tasks of balancing the budget and putting the economy back on track.

“We’ll file the bill early,” Kavanagh said. “My understanding is we want to put the budget and the jobs bill to bed before we move on to this. But it will be this session.”

Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican, said the rollout will get some attention, but he doesn’t expect it to last long.

“I guess you can get a day (of coverage), but that’s hardly the 1070 tsunami,” he said.

Senator-elect John McComish’s gripes about his committee assignments earned him a tongue-lashing from Russell Pearce, who said his colleague needs to stop crying and get over it.

“I’ll buy him a box of Kleenex,” Pearce said of McComish’s complaints. “The whining’s got to stop.”

Pearce took umbrage with McComish’s complaints to the Arizona Capitol Times that the Senate president assigned him to only two committees, while every other member got at least three, and some Pearce allies got as many as five. Pearce denied that he used committee assignments to punish senators who didn’t support him in the Senate president’s race or that he gave less-favorable spots to new members who are moving over from the House.

The Senate president said he “bent over backwards” to give McComish preferable committee assignmenst and said he even created the Banking and Insurance Committee, which McComish will chair, based on McComish’s recommendation. McComish also will serve on the Economic Development and Jobs Creation panel.

Other senators who didn’t support Pearce for the presidency got key committee chairmanships, Pearce said. Senator-elect Rich Crandall will chair the Education Committee, Senator-elect Steve Yarbrough will chair the Finance Committee, and Senator-elect Nancy Barto will chair the Healthcare and Medical Liability Reform Committee.

“I have not punished anybody in this process,” Pearce said. “Don’t make up a story here. Don’t be giving credit to a pandering crybaby.”

McComish, a House member who was elected to the Senate in November, ran for Senate president but dropped out before the voting began. Pearce said that’s probably the source of McComish’s discontentedness.

“I was hoping he’d get over the fact that he didn’t win the presidency, couldn’t get out of the chutes,” Pearce said.

Pearce said McComish should have brought his complaints to him before airing them to the media. McComish told the Arizona Capitol Times that he sent Pearce an e-mail about the issue, but Pearce said he never received it.

McComish said he was disappointed that Pearce lashed out at him instead of addressing his complaints that he and other members will be “underutilized” during the upcoming session due to lopsided distribution of committee assignments.

“It’s unfortunate that Russell wants to make personal attacks. That’s not what I did. That’s not my intention. And it’s also unfortunate that he didn’t respond to the merits of my concern,” the Phoenix Republican said.

Some senators have too heavy a workload, McComish said. Sen. Andy Biggs, for example, will chair the Appropriations Committee while serving as vice chair of two other committees. Sen. Sylvia Allen will serve in leadership as president pro tem while serving on five committees.

McComish said Pearce appears to haved doled out better assignments to his allies.

“I’m not going to judge his motives. But if you look at the facts it would certainly seem that way,” McComish said.

Despite his harsh words, Pearce said he didn’t realize McComish had only two committee assignments and is willing to find another spot for him somewhere.

“I’ll fit him on Finance or another committee if I need to do that. I’m not opposed to that. But it seems like the nice thing John could’ve done is give me a call and let me know, instead of this approach,” Pearce said.

-Jeremy Duda

Gov. Jan Brewer has insisted repeatedly during the past year that the Legislature has the authority to cut spending for Arizona’s Medicaid program below the level that voters thought they had locked 10 years ago. But she appears to have shifted strategy and instead may ask voters to approve the cuts in a special election.

While speaking to reporters on Nov. 29, Brewer said she may seek a special election to get voter approval for cuts to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). Many legal experts say the proposed cuts would violate Proposition 204, which voters passed in 2000 to expand Arizona’s Medicaid program.

“There’s a possibility we’ll have a special election,” Brewer said following the official statewide canvass of the Nov. 2 election at the Secretary of State’s Office. “That’s one of the options that we’re looking into.”

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said he believes the state could still make the cuts without getting voter approval. Senseman said Brewer may seek voter approval, “Just so it’s abundantly clear, legally.”

But Senseman did not say what led the governor to deviate from her longstanding message on Prop. 204, or why she would risk rejection at the polls if a special election wasn’t needed. He acknowledged that voter rejection of any AHCCCS cuts would likely nix the entire plan.

“I think what she’s saying is the option’s on the table. We really haven’t speculated beyond whether it may or may not succeed,” Senseman said.

Many legal scholars and attorneys said cuts to AHCCCS would likely be overturned by the courts. Not only that, but cuts to AHCCCS may put the state at odds, again, with the federal government.

Before Brewer can contemplate a special election, the state must get permission from the federal government to make the cuts, which would violate the health care law passed by Congress in March. The law includes a maintenance-of-effort provision that prohibits states from scaling back their Medicaid programs.

Brewer said she will seek a waiver from the federal government, which would allow the state to cut about $1 billion from the AHCCCS budget. Some Republican lawmakers said they will enact the cuts, regardless of whether the feds lift the maintenance-of-effort provision, but Brewer would not say whether she would veto such legislation.

“That’s hypothetical. I don’t know if I can move forward and give you an answer on that today,” Brewer said.

If Arizona made the cuts without permission, the federal government could retaliate by stripping the state of about $7.5 billion per year in Medicaid funding.

-Jeremy Duda

France may be the GOP’s favorite cautionary example for liberal economic policies, but it’s a fine place for a post-election trip.

Now that the election is over, Gov. Jan Brewer’s advisor Chuck Coughlin is making up for lost time by taking his long-awaited honeymoon, which he and his wife, Patricia, are taking in Paris and Italy.

Arizona GOP Chairman Randy Pullen is taking his downtime in the land of Napolean and de Gaulle as well. Doug Cole, Coughlin’s partner at HighGround, said the two are in different parts of the country and joked that they aren’t taking any meetings.

Coughlin and his wife, Patricia, got married in March, but with Proposition 100 and Brewer’s election, Coughlin couldn’t get away for the honeymoon until now.

“When you get married in March and do your honeymoon in November, that’s a pretty understanding spouse,” Cole said. “Patricia is a very understanding spouse to wait that long for a honeymoon.”

Pullen may need all the downtime he can get, since he looks to be pretty busy once he gets back. He hasn’t made clear whether he’ll seek a third term as the Arizona GOP chairman, but others are already campaigning for his job.

Pinal County Republican Party Chairman Marty Hermanson’s announcement that he’ll seek the party chairmanship came during Pullen’s vacation, and Sen. John McCain’s allies are rumored to be seeking a candidate as well.

Pullen’s absence left Arizona GOP 1st Vice Chair Augustus Shaw as the man to talk to for party business. When Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Don Bivens sat down with the Arizona Capitol Times to discuss his party’s electoral fortunes and future, Shaw filled in for Pullen to give the Republican perspective.

Pullen is due back in Arizona this weekend, while Coughlin will return a week or two after that – provided that there are enough non-striking cab drivers and airport workers left in France to get them here.

- Jeremy Duda

With nearly half the state’s precincts reporting vote totals, Republicans looked poised to sweep Arizona’s statewide offices for the first time since 1994.

By 9:15 p.m., the Republicans’ statewide slate took the stage at the Arizona GOP’s election night party at the downtown Hyatt to rousing cheers. Meanwhile, attorney general hopeful Felecia Rotellini was the only statewide Democratic candidate still walking around at the Democrats’ party at the Wyndham.

The attorney general’s race was the most competitive of the bunch in the early totals, with Republican Tom Horne holding a 5-point lead over Rotellini. Rotellini remained hopeful and said trends were moving in her favor. Horne’s lead, however, hadn’t diminished much since the first results came in from Maricopa County.

A Horne win would dash many Democrats’ best hope for winning statewide office and would give Republicans control of the only statewide office currently held by a Democrat.

That Democrat, Attorney General Terry Goddard was aiming for a promotion to the governor’s office, but trailed 150,000 votes behind incumbent Gov. Jan Brewer.

Shortly before 9 p.m., 12 News called the race for Brewer. Not long after, the Republican Governor’s Association sent out a press release congratulating Brewer on her victory.

“Governor Brewer’s victory sends two important messages,” RGA chairman Haley Barbour said in the press release. “First, it shows that she has done great work focusing on issues important to Arizona like jobs and the economy.  Second, it sends a resounding message to Washington that America wants secure borders and we want them now.”

Further down the ballot, Republican Doug Ducey led Democrat Andrei Cherny by about 130,000 votes in the state treasurer’s race, while Republican John Huppenthal held a similar lead over Democrat Penny Kotterman in the race for superintendent of public instruction.

In the secretary of state’s race, incumbent Ken Bennett appeared to be running away with the race early. The Republican led Democrat Chris Deschene, a first-term legislator, by about 190,000 votes.

–Jeremy Duda

Jon Hulburd, Ben Quayle

The publicly released polling data on Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District is like a scrap of food to a starving man – it may not be the best information, but it’s all we’ve got.

North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling on Oct. 18 released an automated poll showing Democrat Jon Hulburd with a 46 to 44 lead over GOP nominee Ben Quayle in the heavily Republican district, with 10 percent undecided. The poll was commissioned by the liberal blog Daily Kos.

The poll came on the heels of a blog post by the website RareJazzCongress.com that showed Quayle up by about 2 points. The website said the poll was conducted by a conservative 501(c)(4) group, though it didn’t say who commissioned the poll or who conducted it.

Neither campaign has released its own polling data, and Public Policy Polling was the first group to release its own survey on the race. Pollster Michael O’Neil, of Tempe-based O’Neil Associates, said many people might be inclined to dismiss the poll because it was commissioned by such a partisan group. But the biggest reason for skepticism is that Public Policy Polling uses robocalls to survey voters, which O’Neil said are far cheaper and far less trustworthy than polls that have real people asking the questions.

“This is what you get when nobody’s willing to pay for it,” O’Neil said. “I don’t think the methodology is inherently biased. It’s just not reliable.”

As for the poll cited by RareJazzCongress.com, which used a live operator to survey 331 likely voters, O’Neil said the lack of information on who conducted the poll and who paid for are bad signs, as is the 4.1 percent margin of error. A poll of 331 voters should have a margin of error of about 5.5 percent, he said.

Hulburd has hammered Quayle repeatedly over his connections to a racy, sex-themed website, and the poll showed those allegations stand out in voters’ minds. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of Quayle, compared to 34 percent who said their opinion of him was favorable.

O’Neil said the unfavorable opinions aren’t surprising, given the crush of negative publicity Quayle has gotten over his ties to DirtyScottsdale.com, now known as TheDirty, as well as a perception among some that he is unqualified.

“Ask anybody what they know about him and they’ll tell you the racy website and his daddy used to be vice president,” O’Neil said.

But some of the numbers don’t quite add up, said GOP consultant Chris Baker. Hulburd has aggressively courted female Republican voters, even running an ad on a Christian radio station bashing Quayle over his ties to the website. But the PPP poll showed Hulburd faring better among Republican men than women.

And 281 of the 655 respondents listed themselves as moderates, with 66 percent choosing Hulburd. The poll, however, didn’t break down the party affiliation of the self-described moderates. Baker said 60 to 65 percent of Republicans usually identify themselves as conservatives.

“My sense is the poll itself is heavy on moderate Republicans, and that’s probably what’s throwing Hulburd’s numbers up,” he said.

Aside from the robocall methodology, the poll didn’t have any glaring deficiencies. Its sample of 655 likely voters leaned heavily on Republican and independent voters, and the “who would you vote for” questions were asked first, before other questions that could’ve swayed the respondents’ answers, O’Neil said.

The Hulburd campaign played up Quayle’s unfavorable ratings. Campaign spokesman Josh Abner also touted Hulburd’s whopping 66 to 27 lead among the 281 respondents who identified themselves as moderates.

“Arizonans have seen Ben Quayle in action – he miscalculated the federal budget by $11 trillion and they know about his ever-changing story on writing for a sex-steeped website,” said Hulburd spokesman Josh Abner. “Voters also know Ben Quayle doesn’t have the chops to get our economy moving again and is simply another politician trying to cash in on a last name.”

Quayle campaign spokesman Jay Heiler’s only response was that Quayle is “very confident about the progress of the race.”

“We … advise the Hulburd campaign to rely heavily on the data,” Heiler quipped.

O’Neil doesn’t put a lot of faith in the poll but said it’s better than nothing, as long as people recognize its flaws.

“Here’s your choice – you either have no information or information from a methodology that I don’t put a whole lot of stock in. I’ll go for imperfect information over no information, but would I stake my life on it? Nope,” O’Neil said.

-Jeremy Duda

Grant Woods’ critics on the right may not be able to expel him from the GOP, but they may get the next best thing if they can strip him of his voting rights at the Maricopa County Republican Party.

The county GOP’s 30-person Executive Guidance Committee is set to vote at its Oct. 7 meeting on whether to take away the former attorney general’s voting rights under a by-law that prohibits precinct committeeman from endorsing Democrats. Woods riled many in the party by endorsing Democrat Felecia Rotellini for attorney general over Republican Tom Horne.

The committee will also decide whether to strip the voting rights of PCs Kahryn Nix and Sue Gerard, former state senator and ex-director of the Arizona Department Health Services. Both are Republican precinct committeemen who, like Woods, publicly endorsed Rotellini as part of her “Republicans for Felecia” event.

Woods isn’t taking the affair quite as seriously as Maricopa County GOP Chairman Rob Haney. In an Oct. 6 letter filled with sarcasm and one-liners, Woods mocked Haney and expressed scorn for the process.

“I am disappointed that I won’t be able to vote on your important resolutions on ‘issues’ such as secession from the union and the never-ending pursuit of the president’s birth certificate, but I will get over it,” wrote Woods, who served as attorney general from 1991 to 1999.

Woods scoffed at the notion that he can’t support the candidate he believes is best for the job, and stood by his backing of Rotellini, whom he hired during his time at the Attorney General’s Office. Just several months ago, he noted, many Republicans who supported former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas in the GOP primary said Horne wasn’t fit for the job.

“According to you, if there was a hypothetical race between Thomas Jefferson, Democrat, and Lindsay Lohan, Republican, I could not endorse Jefferson over Lohan,” Woods wrote.

Haney, however, said the issue is not whether a Republican can support a Democrat. It’s whether an elected official of the party can do so.

“We’re not talking about just a mainstream Republican. A Republican precinct committeeman is obligated, by the very name, to work for Republican candidates,” Haney said.

The Maricopa County GOP approved a by-law in 2006 to deal with just such an occasion after numerous Republicans – including Gerard, Nix and Woods – joined up with former Gov. Jan Napolitano’s reelection. Woods referred to the by-law in his letter as the “Haney rule.”

“There were a number of people enraged who said we should kick them out of the party or do something like that. My position was you cannot do that but you probably can remove their voting privileges internally in the party,” Haney said.

Haney said the by-law was last used in 2008. He wouldn’t say who the targets were, but said several PCs lost their voting rights after endorsing third-party candidates over Sen. John McCain in the presidential race.

Woods said he doesn’t care what happens at the committee meeting. He can’t attend because he’s out of town, he said, but wouldn’t attend if were back in the Valley either. Woods said he hasn’t attended a county GOP meeting since the 1990s, when he was attorney general.

As for Haney, Woods said he doesn’t know the chairman personally, but said his sharp words for Haney may have rubbed him the wrong way. In recent GQ article about McCain, whom Woods has close ties with, Woods said he referred to Haney as “a nut.”

Woods noted that Haney has been a sharp critic of McCain’s, and in his letter he accused Haney of spending “most of the past decade publicly condemning and working against many of our Republican elected officials, including our last nominee for president.”

“The only thing I know about him is hearing stories about him in action,” Woods told the Arizona Capitol Times. “He has a long history of berating people and haranguing people who are anywhere to the left of Atilla the Hun.”

At Rotellini’s Sept. 23 press conference to announce “Republicans for Felecia,” the former banking regulator said she felt Woods was representative of most Republicans in Arizona. Woods said his Republican credentials were strong and pointed out his prominent roles on McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer’s campaigns.

Haney, however, disagreed, and dismissed Woods’ assertion that, as the former AG and the only Republican elected to the position in the past 20 years, he is in a better position to judge who is most qualified to serve as attorney general.

“That didn’t show a lot of sense to me, because he endorsed JN, and look what we got with JN. So if that’s an example of his legal acumen, I’m not impressed with his decision,” Haney said.

-Jeremy Duda

Steve May has been unapologetic over his recruitment of four Mill Avenue “street people” to run as Green Party candidates, and his defiance was on full display when he took the witness stand.

Attorney Paul Eckstein, part of the legal team that sued in an attempt to keep a slate of alleged “sham” Green write-in candidates off the ballot, called May to the stand Sept. 13 for a hearing on the lawsuit. The questioning, and May’s responses, took an acrimonious turn early on and held that tone until May left the stand.

When Eckstein asked May what assistance and considerations he had given the four Mill Avenue “street people” he recruited to run as Greens, a defiant May said he gave them a lot of help to cope with a lawsuit he thought was a sham as well.

“A lot of heartache and pain because of your behavior,” May said. “The value of my consulting to them is priceless.”

May, who withdrew his candidacy for a District 17 House seat earlier in the day, repeatedly voiced his thoughts on Eckstein’s case and argued with the attorney, at one point prompting Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dean Fink to remind them not to talk over each other so the court stenographer could get everyone’s words.

May refuted Eckstein’s suggestion that the money he paid for his candidates’ legal defense – he paid former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton to represent in a federal lawsuit filed by the Arizona Green Party – qualified as an-kind contribution to their campaigns.

“That’s not what the statute reads and you should know better,” May said.

Even at the start of Eckstein’s questioning, when the attorney from Perkins Coie Brown & Bain queried May about his education and background as a “student of politics,” May didn’t make things easy.

“You read my bio,” May said matter-of-factly.

If May’s hostility on the stand bothered Eckstein, he didn’t let it show. But some of May’s comments event prompted Fink to remind him who was the witness and who was the attorney.

“He gets to ask you questions. You don’t get to ask him questions,” Fink said near the end of May’s testimony.

May denied Democrats’ allegations that he recruited Theodore Gomez, Anthony “Grandpa” Goshorn, Thomas Meadows and Benjamin Pearcy to siphon votes from Democratic candidates. But he’s loudly and proudly acknowledged that he recruited them into their races.

“I inspired them,” May said when asked if he recruited the candidates.

May’s candidates were only four of the 11 originally named in the lawsuit, but the former lawmaker and his coterie of eccentric Mill Avenue regulars have taken center stage since the drama first unfolded. Goshorn, a pedicab driver who had to phone in his testimony because he didn’t have a ride to the courthouse, vowed that 2010 would be only the first of his runs for office.
Goshorn made it clear that he didn’t think any more of the lawsuit than his patron May.

“I apologize that you had to spend your time with this fiasco,” Goshorn told Fink when he was dismissed from the stand.
Goshorn said he agrees with most of the Green Party’s principles, which he learned of when decided to run for office, and has reached out to the party since becoming a candidate. He indicated that he’ll be back if he doesn’t win his District 17 Senate race, meaning we may be seeing more of him, May and the rest of the Mill Avenue ticket in 2012.

“This is going to be a continued relationship one way or another,” he said when asked if he’d ever contacted the Green Party’s leadership. “I intend to continue to seek office.”

Eckstein kept his cool while questioning May. Eckstein said his job was to diminish May’s credibility, and by taking such an aggressive posture, May did Eckstein’s job for him.

“I learned in the Mecham trial to not take the bait and to let witnesses destroy themselves,” said Eckstein, who prosecuted former Gov. Evan Mecham in his 1988 impeachment trial. “I thought (May) did. Read the judge’s opinion. He didn’t have a lot of credibility with the judge.”

Fink didn’t reference May’s attitude on the bench, but wrote in his ruling that he didn’t buy the former lawmaker’s explaination that he recruited his four candidates because he was simply trying to help out his friends.

“Mr. May’s testimony regarding the reason he encouraged the four individuals to run for office lacked credibility,” Fink said.

-Jeremy Duda

Gov. Jan Brewer, now the GOP’s official nominee for governor, held her double-digit lead over Democrat Terry Goddard in Rasmussen Reports’ first post-primary poll.

Brewer led the Democratic attorney general 57 to 28 in the automated, push-button poll of 500 likely voters, which was conducted on Aug. 25, the day after both candidates won their parties’ nominations. Rasmussen’s polling, which has a 4.5 percent margin of error, has shown Brewer leading by double digits since May. Three percent of respondents said they would vote for a different candidate, and another 3 percent said they were undecided.

Polling from Rasmussen and other groups shows Goddard with a tough road ahead, but spokeswoman Janey Pearl said the numbers haven’t been intimidating or demoralizing to the Democratic candidate. She said she believe the trends will shift back toward Goddard after the Sept. 1 Clean Elections debate between Brewer and Goddard. Goddard is also still urging Brewer to agree to six more proposed debates before the Nov. 2 general election, she said.

“We saw the poll. We know what they say. But we’re confident that once voters see the two candidates side by side, that will change,” Pearl said. “The reality is she’s been in hiding. And it’s been almost two weeks and she hasn’t agreed to the series of debates that Goddard proposed and which Arizonans deserve.”

-Jeremy Duda

It turns out the primary is still on Aug. 24 after all.

Just days after declaring that he was cutting his television ad spending in half because he had such an insurmountable lead in the Republican primary for Arizona’s 5th Congressional District, David Schweikert ramped up his advertising with a $14,000 cable television buy for the last week before the primary. The spending boost comes after Schweikert had halved his $12,000-a-week television advertising budget.

Campaign spokesman Oliver Schwab said he stands by his Aug. 13 statement that the former Maricopa County treasurer is so far ahead of rivals Chris Salvino, Susan Bitter Smith and Jim Ward that the primary is essentially over based on internal polling and early ballot returns. But he said the campaign wants to reach out to primary voters who will vote in person on Election Day.

“We made the decision to make sure that we finish strong. There’s every reason in the world to fight until the last moment,” said Schwab, who told the Arizona Capitol Times on Aug. 13 that Schweikert was “so far ahead” that he’d cut his ad buys in half.

But Ward said Schweikert’s about-face was a sign that his position is weaker than he’d let on.

“If he’s so confident, then why is he at the last minute here scrambling and making a TV investment if he wanted to save his money for the general? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Ward said. “He must be reading the same numbers now that we’re reading, which show him losing all sorts of momentum.”

Ward accused Schweikert of ignoring the majority of primary voters who hadn’t yet cast their ballots and taking their votes for granted when he essentially declared the race over. Ward said his polling has picked up over the past couple weeks, though he wouldn’t say where he stood in his campaign’s internal polls.

“I just think it’s folly and the height of arrogance to declare victory and basically tell people who haven’t voted that you don’t care about their votes. And that’s what David Schweikert did,” Ward said. “As a result he’s going to lose a lot of those votes. And they’re coming our way.”

The new ad buy began on Aug. 16 and is scheduled to run through the 29th. Schwab said Schweikert also increased his radio advertising on KFYI.

According to records from Cox Cable, Schweikert spent an average of $10,000 a week on cable television ads through June and July. Schwab said the campaign cut back on its ad buys in August so it could preserve money for a general election matchup against incumbent Democratic Rep. Harry Mitchell. But the campaign decided to use the money it saved to make a final advertising push to reach out to Electin Day voters.

Schwab said Schweikert isn’t taking anyone’s vote for granted, but still believes Bitter Smith, Salvino and Ward can’t catch up with him.

“Looking at the grassroots momentum behind our campaign, I think the voters are showing in their support for David that they want a true conservative,” he said. “The polls do show that.”

-Jeremy Duda