Rotellini eyes conservatives, independents

With the Democratic nomination for attorney general secure, Felecia Rotellini said she believes she can still garner plenty of conservative and independent support, even if she won’t be running against former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

Conservative backlash to Thomas and the mountain of baggage that followed him throughout the GOP primary led many to speculate that Rotellini would get the support of disgruntled Republicans if he won his party’s nomination. But even with the more moderate Tom Horne poised to win the Republican nomination, Rotellini said she believes she can still get enough crossover votes to win in November.

Many of the Republicans who voted for Horne did so primarily to keep Thomas from getting the nomination, Rotellini said, and will ultimately vote for her over the outgoing state schools chief.

“There is a groundswell of support for me in the Republican and independent camps,” Rotellini said. “I have had many Republicans tell me they were voting to keep Andy Thomas out but they’ll be voting to vote me in, in November.”

Rotellini, the former director of the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, locked up the Democratic nomination on Aug. 26 when Rep. David Lujan conceded.

The Republican primary is not yet decided, though Horne sports a 817-vote lead. Thomas planned an announcement for the afternoon of Aug. 27, and he may concede the race at that time.

Rotellini said she has no preference as to which Republican she faces in November.

“I really believe that either one of those candidates is very beatable and has a fair amount of baggage,” she said of Thomas and Horne.

There are still about 34,000 early ballots and 20,000 provisional ballots left to be counted. About 25,000 of the early ballots and 12,000 of the provisional ballots are in Maricopa County. A spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said elections officials are hopeful that they will finish their count by the end of Aug. 27, though it could take longer. Counties have until Aug. 31 to finish their counts.

Lujan trailed closely behind Rotellini for two days after the primary. But on Aug. 26, Rotellini’s lead jumped from just under 1,500 votes to 3,203, prompting Lujan’s concession.

Lujan said the deficit was insurmountable, and he decided to bow out before elections officials announced a winner so Rotellini could get started on her general election campaign against the Republican nominee.

“The margin, I think, is just too high to overcome. I want to make sure that Felecia has plenty of time to get her campaign going so that we can make sure she’s the next attorney general,” Lujan said.

Horne’s likely victory gives Rotellini a potentially well-funded opponent at a time when her campaign appears to be running short on cash. In her Aug. 12 campaign finance report to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, she reported raising about $356,000. But her most recent trigger report showed that she’d spent about $352,000 through Aug. 10.

Rotellini said she isn’t worried about a lack of campaign cash.

“I have been on the phone and I’m raising money every day,” she said.

Horne looks tapped out as well, though he is expected to put a significant amount of his own money into the race as well. He already put in about $300,000 of his own money in his GOP primary battle against Thomas.

Rotellini had about 41 percent of the vote to Lujan’s 40 percent, while former state prosecutor Vince Rabago trailed with about 17 percent.

Rotellini stepped down from the Department of Financial Institutions in August 2009 and announced her run for attorney general the following month. The former prosecutor had never sought elected office before, and ran as an oustider with a record of prosecuting the types of financial crimes who helped contribute to the financial meltdown.

Lujan formed an exploratory committee for his bid in December 2008, declining a fourth term in the Legislature for a shot at replacing outgoing Attorney General Terry Goddard, the Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee. All three attorney general candidates pledged to continue Goddard’s work on issues such as consumer protection and cross-border drug cartels.

The Democratic race kept a far more civil tone than the GOP primary, in which Horne and Thomas attacked each other at every turn.

Rotellini and Rabago, both of whom emphasized their records as prosecutors, had a heated exchange during a Clean Elections debate in June. And Rotellini and Lujan traded barbs over Lujan’s opposition to a human-smuggling law that was later used by Thomas to crack down on illegal immigrants.

In southern Arizona, Rabago had hoped his dominance in Pima County would propel his dark-horse candidacy into the lead while Lujan and Rotellini split the vote in Maricopa County. The two frontrunners, however, ran the tables in Pima County as well, leaving Rabago with just 24 percent of his home county’s vote.

Rotellini will likely face scrutiny over her opposition to SB1070, Arizona’s strict new illegal immigration law. All three candidates opposed the popular law, though they pledged to defend the state in a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn it, including one filed by the federal government that prevented key portions from going into effect in July.