Key Points:

• Two candidates are running for Arizona Independent Party’s governor nominee

• Party leaders back Hugh Lytle, ask Teri Hourihan to drop out of the race

• Judge Greg Como will hear arguments on the party’s legal existence in March

There are two candidates currently running for the Arizona Independent Party’s nominee for governor.

But the leaders of the state’s newest political party are openly backing only one of those. And party Chairman Paul Johnson actually asked the other one to get out of the race to provide a clear path to Hugh Lytle, the chosen contender, to be the party’s standard bearer in November.

And Johnson has said there’s absolutely nothing wrong or unfair about the decision to back Lytle.

That, however, isn’t sitting well with Glendale resident Teri Hourihan, the competition, who has submitted her own statement of intent to run as an Arizona Independent Party candidate for governor. She believes she should be given an equal chance for office — one without the influence of party officials.

And Hourihan told Capitol Media Services that Johnson, who said he was speaking on behalf of all the party leaders, tried to get her to withdraw so Hugh Lytle, the designated favorite, would have a clear, unopposed chance to ensure his name is on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.

That’s a contention that Johnson does not dispute, but in his own conversation with Capitol Media Services, he said he concluded Hourihan was not ready to run for state office — even before he recruited Lytle to run.

The intra-party dust-up comes amid uncertainty over the new party’s future.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Greg Como is set to hear arguments in March by the Arizona Democratic Party, the Arizona Republican Party, and the Citizens Clean Elections Commission about the future of the Arizona Independent Party. They all contend that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes acted illegally in allowing Johnson to simply rename what had been the No Labels Party and keep all of those who had been registered with it.

The essence of the lawsuit is the argument that Johnson, who took over after the national No Labels Party severed ties with the local group, has created an entirely new party. And that, their lawyers contend, means he has to start from scratch, including gathering the necessary signatures to get official status.

What makes all this important is that if Como rules, there is no Arizona Independent Party; anyone seeking to run for office — including Lytle and Hourihan — would be considered an unaffiliated candidate and would have to gather at least 44,539 valid signatures to get on the ballot. For context, it takes only 1,288 signatures to be considered a candidate for the newly formed Arizona Independent Party.

The more immediate issue, however, concerns Johnson’s public efforts to prevent Hourihan from submitting the signatures and getting on the ballot — and to force a primary with Lytle in which she, and not the party’s favorite, could come out on top.

Johnson said he and his backers never planned to create a party.

Their first choice was to require an “open primary,” where all candidates from all parties would have to get the same number of signatures and run against each other, with the top vote-getters facing off in the general election, regardless of party affiliation. Voters rejected that plan.

Option B, Johnson said, was the creation of an independent party that could provide equal access to the general election ballot for those not affiliated with existing parties.

“Now it’s my job to make certain we have a decent brand as a party because it can be considered, if you’re not careful, something that’s a little bit goofy,” he said.

And Johnson said that, with that goal in mind, the decision was made to court Lytle, a health care entrepreneur, to be the party’s standard bearer — and promise him the party’s support.

“This guy is talented,” he said. “And you don’t get somebody like this guy to run if you justify that you’re going to hang back.”

Johnson said that what he’s doing in promoting Lytle over Hourihan is no different from what happens in the major parties, where leadership quietly decides who is the favored candidate.

Sometimes, however, that bursts out into the open.

That’s what happened in 2024 when Jeff DeWit, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, tried to talk Kari Lake out of running for U.S. Senate.

In a phone call, he told Lake that Republicans in Washington did not think she could win a race against Democrat Ruben Gallego after losing the 2022 gubernatorial race to Katie Hobbs. And DeWit, in the recorded call, offered to find some other job for her while she sat out the race.

It all backfired when the recording became public and DeWit quit.

As it turned out, Lake decided to run anyway — and was defeated by Gallego by more than 80,000 votes even though Donald Trump outpolled Kamala Harris in Arizona.

“Here’s the difference: I’m doing it openly, proudly,” Johnson said of his efforts to push Lytle over anyone else. “I think you’d have to be a coward not to stand up and say who you would support.”

Still, Johnson said, there’s nothing he can do to stop anyone else, including Hourihan, from running in the Arizona Independent Party primary. And if she — or someone else — gets the necessary signatures along with Lytle, there will be a contested primary.

But Johnson did more than simply endorse Lytle. He even spoke at a public announcement of his candidacy in front of Sun Devil Stadium.

Hourihan said — and Johnson confirmed — that his efforts to get her to drop out of the race included proposing she instead run for a lower office. Johnson said she needed more political experience.

“You’re not ready for this,” Johnson told the licensed professional counselor in a conversation she taped with him and made available to Capitol Media Services. He suggested she “put in the work” and enter politics at a lower level.

Hourihan, for her part, said she is ready. And part of that, she acknowledged, is her belief that God is calling her to run.

“You can believe whatever you want to believe because you want to believe it,” Johnson responded. “I would just tell you to pray some more because I gave you solid advice.”

That, in turn, led Hourihan to ask whether, if she wins the primary, Johnson will apologize.

“I will say ‘congratulations,’ ” he responded. “But I will never say ‘I’m sorry’ because I’m positive that you’re not ready, even if you won.”

But would Johnson support her if she wins the primary?

“Probably not,” he said. And Johnson, a former Democrat who lost his own race for governor in 1998 against incumbent Republican Jane Hull, said if Hourihan is the nominee of the Arizona Independent Party, “she would not be the best candidate of the three that are left to be governor.”

Nor does he believe that his position as party chair — or that of other party officials — requires them to back the person who wins the party’s primary.

“From our standpoint, we don’t have to follow their set of rules,” Johnson said.