Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

The Arizona Democratic Party has filed a complaint with the Arizona Citizens' Clean Election Office, against Republican Corporation Commission candidates Tom Forese and Doug Little, claiming that the two submitted paid nominating signatures that were not accounted for in the candidates' campaign finance reports.

Democratic Rep. Martin Quezada won his Senate primary race against fellow lawmaker Lydia Hernandez by only 90 votes, and Quezada said the final push by a “dark money” group probably helped put him over the top.

Republican Corporation Commission candidates Tom Forese and Doug Little hired professionals to gather almost all of the signatures they needed to qualify for the ballot, but their failure to report that spending to elections officials could leave them facing hefty fines – or kicked off the November ballot.

Arizona voters are increasingly ditching partisan affiliation, allowing them to vote in any primary they want. In 2014, they wanted to influence Republican races by more than 2-to-1.

The Arizona Capitol Times asked its readers to predict how the primary elections would turn out. Here’s a look at what the newspaper’s readers think will happen.

A litigious libertarian think tank has asked the president of the state’s largest utility to account for the company’s political activity, and specifically whether the utility’s customers have been funding its electioneering or lobbying.

The amount of campaign cash that’s been spent by third party groups that don’t have to disclose their donors and have no spending limits — so called “dark money” — has reached an all-time high in 2014.

The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office has asked the attorney general to investigate the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, which has spent more than $1.6 million in so-called “dark money” to influence voters in the 2014 election, for violating state campaign finance laws.

Four Democratic legislative candidates locked in bitter primaries just got a big boost: $73,000 in “dark money” assistance.

Lucy Mason and Vernon Parker, Republicans hoping to fill two vacant seats on the state’s energy and water regulating commission, say they have been libeled by a local anti-taxation group that sent a secretly funded campaign mailer slamming them and lauding two other Republican candidates.