House contests in 5 districts rate a close look

What’s an election cycle without some hotly contested races in swing districts?

Swing districts will play prominently in a handful of House races this year. And in most, Democrats will be on defense while Republicans will be trying to regain seats they traditionally held and lost in recent years.

The Arizona Capitol Times has analyzed the House races in Legislative Districts 10, 11, 17, 20 and 26. We chose to highlight those districts based on interviews with lobbyists, lawmakers and political consultants. We also considered voter-registration advantages, fundraising totals so far, endorsements and perceived name recognition.

District 10

Democrat Jackie Thrasher is looking to repeat her 2006 victory, but she will have a strong one-two Republican punch to contend with this year.

Republican consultant Stan Barnes, who owns Copperstate Consulting Group, said he expects the Republican ticket of Jim Weiers and Kimberly Yee to prevail.

Weiers, former House speaker, is a proven winner and Yee is a strong, likable candidate, Barnes said.

Yee, who was appointed to former Rep. Doug Quelland’s seat after he was removed from office, was most recently the spokeswoman for State Treasurer Dean Martin. She also worked in policy positions for California governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson, and as an analyst for the State Board of Education and the Arizona Senate.

And while Republicans have only a slight edge in the number of registered voters, the intensity of independents leans right this year, which will leave Thrasher out, Barnes said.

Thrasher said voters she has spoken with understand the difference between the national and local sentiments.

“What I’ve been hearing from people — and I’ve been talking to a lot of Republicans and independents in my district — they’ve quite had it with the Republican leadership of the state House,” she said.

District 11

Democrats have taken seats in the last two election cycles in what has typically been a Republican stronghold. They are once again putting up one of their strongest candidates in Rep. Eric Meyer against two newcomers for the GOP, Kate Brophy McGee and Eric West.

“Eric Meyer is one of the most erudite, likable and reasoned people in the Legislature today,” Barnes said.

Sam Coppersmith, a Democratic political consultant, attributed much of the Democratic success to the district voters making education a defining issue.

McGee, a former member of the Washington Elementary School District Governing Board, said any candidate in the district has to make education a priority.

“This constituency, this electorate, is absolutely passionate about their schools,” she said.

Meyer also serves on the Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board.

McGee has strong roots in Arizona, which ought to help her significantly and could even carry her to the front, Barnes said.

McGee is a third-generation Arizonan and comes from a ranching family that hails from the Bisbee and Tucson areas, and her family is the namesake for Brophy College Preparatory.

That could leave West and Meyer to battle for the remaining seat.

West said he is going to target Independents and continue pushing a message of creating a business-friendly environment, job creation and improving education.

“Don’t count me out,” West said. “This is still a Republican district and this will be a Republican year.”

Meyer, a physician, said he’s well-versed in two of the main issues at the Legislature — education and health care — which works well in the district for both parties.

Meyer got a jump on fundraising and is flush with cash, compared to West, a Clean Elections candidate. But limited funds didn’t stop West from finishing in the primary ahead of Shawnna Bolick, who outspent him by $56,422.

District 17

Even though Democrats, Republicans and independents are almost equally represented in voter registration, the district tends to vote Democrat, whether for the Legislature, the governor, president or ballot propositions.

Republican and former legislator Steve May, who won his party’s nomination as a write-in candidate, intends to end that.

May said he plans to raise $100,000 from contributors and he’ll throw in another $100,000 of his own money.

“I’m serious, I’m not doing this part way,” said May, who served in the House in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

He’ll be going up against Rep. Ed Ableser and Ben Arredondo, a household name in the district who served 10 years on the Tempe Elementary School District Governing Board and 16 years on the Tempe City Council.

Arredondo switched from Republican to Democrat this year.

Barnes and Coppersmith said they believe Arredondo will finish first since he and his family are fixtures in the community and local politics.

Ableser got 129 more votes than Arredondo in the primary, however, and Arredondo said he isn’t going to rest on name recognition.

Ableser said that even though May bills himself as fiscal conservative and social moderate, his partisan colors will undo him in the district.

“He’s a true-and-tried right-wing conservative,” Ableser said.

May is counting on voters being angry with Democrats.

“The Republicans are enraged, the independents are fed up and the Democrats are embarrassed,” May said.

District 20

After Republican Bob Robson reached term limits in 2008, Rep. Rae Waters snatched the seat for the Democrats.

Robson is back and so is Republican Jeff Dial, who is on his third try to get elected.

Barnes expects Robson to finish first because he’s a proven winner and he has a “Republican wind at his back.”

“I’m going to run a heads-up campaign and I’m not taking anything for granted, even with the Republican groundswell,” Robson said.

Indications are it will be a competitive campaign.

Dial finished ahead of Robson in the primary by 2,688 votes, a relative landslide in legislative primaries.

But Dial’s primary victory is nothing to hang a hat on, either.

He finished ahead of John McComish in the 2008 primary, only to lose to Waters in the general election.

Waters counted off the ways she was successful in the last election.

She is well-known in the district, she has lived there for 30 years and she’s served on the Kyrene School District Governing Board since 1998.  “I am a moderate. I am pretty much in the middle,” she said.

District 26

The district has the distinction of sending some of the most conservative members and the most liberal members to the Legislature, Barnes said.

Rep. Vic Williams, the Republican incumbent, doesn’t want to return to the Legislature with Nancy Young Wright, whom he dubbed as extreme left.

“They’re going to paint all Democrats with as liberal a brush as possible,” Wright said.

Wright was an Oro Valley mayoral candidate in 2006 and a member of the Amphitheater Unified School District Governing Board for 12 years. She was appointed to the legislative seat in 2008, which she won in an election that year.

Wright said she has worked with all sorts of people from both parties over the years to get things accomplished and considers herself a fiscal conservative. As an example, she said one of her epic battles on the school board was cutting the number of associate superintendents to one from five.

She’ll be the only Democrat against Williams and newcomer Terri Proud.

Proud said she has been portrayed as a right-wing nut.

“Our district has a lot of moderate Republicans and I think I can appeal to them only because of the people I have in my life,” Proud said, adding that she has a diverse family made up of different ethnicities and minority groups.