Aaron Lieberman is one of 19 true freshmen coming to the state House of Representatives, and one of four Democrats who overcame incumbent Republicans to claim his seat.

But he said he won because he told the people of Legislative District 28 that party labels weren’t more important than the one they all shared: Arizonan.

Lieberman once left Arizona to attend Yale University and kick-start his career, but now he’s back with his wife and two young sons, while his daughter follows in his footsteps at Yale. And he’s determined to represent all of his constituents, including Gov. Doug Ducey himself, who Lieberman described as a neighbor.

“I saw him at the polling place during the primary, and I told him, “I hope to represent you well,’” he said. “And I mean it. It’s 31-29 [in the House], but that’s 60 people who care about Arizona.”

You were one of five kids, and you went to Yale, which is no small expense. What was your life like growing up?

Growing up, I went to Madison Heights… and some great private schools here, too, Phoenix Country Day and Brophy. And particularly at Brophy, I really got interested in this idea of service to others. In the Jewish tradition, it’s called “tikkun olam,” like trying to repair the world. Sounds very lofty, but the basic idea is that you’re here to try to make the world a better place. I just kind of stumbled into a career building and growing organizations focused on helping low-income kids and particularly low-income preschoolers.

And you created a not-for-profit called Jumpstart while you were still in school?

I was a senior in college. I started it out of my college dorm room. … It was very tiny at the time. A lot of life is luck and timing, and I’m really blessed to have a lot of good timing. But my whole career, frankly including this run for the state House, has not been a part of any grand plan. … I’ve just been open to opportunities as they were presented.

I’m sure you’ve told that story a million times, so it comes out very casually. Tell me about that process in the dorm room.

I had worked at a camp in upstate New York that worked directly with low-income preschoolers in a residential setting. … Two-thirds of them had been physically or sexually abused. A lot of them were in foster care already at 3 or 4. But I had many parents or guardians at the end of the three weeks say, “This looks like a different little boy. Like this doesn’t look like the same kid that we put on the bus three weeks ago.” The power of that intervention was very, very obvious but also its limitations. … A group of us who worked at that camp had this idea of making it happen right in the communities we serve. … Like any new entrepreneur, we refused to take no for an answer and started working until something happened.

How do you think your experience at that camp affected you?

It’s had a huge impact on me. I was a pretty typical middle-class kid, and my parents had a strong set of values and said everybody has an equal opportunity. And then, I got out in the world dealing with low-income kids who had anything but an equal opportunity. I think it was that dissonance between what I wanted to believe, what I hoped was true and what I actually saw in the world. It was very motivating, but it was also real work.

That concept of equal opportunity is referenced a lot in Arizona in terms of school choice and to support things like school vouchers. What’s your perspective on that?

It’s a fine theory, but it’s completely contradicted by the facts. So much of the voucher spending has ended up helping better-off families pay for private schools. I went to some great private schools. I have nothing against private schools. I just think that if you want to send your kids to private school, you should pay for it.

Do you think you picked up any lessons working with preschoolers that will help you here at the Capitol?

Things can be messy, and that’s OK. … The biggest thing that motivated me to run was feeling like we were not making common sense investments that help build a better future for all of Arizona. I’m an entrepreneur. I want this to be a great state for business. It’s actually very important to me. At the same time, you can’t have great businesses if you don’t have great employees, and you can’t have great employees without a great K-12 system.

This is a great place to raise a family. This is a great place to start a company. This is a great place to build a company. We’ve been so caught in a lot of this political infighting that we’ve lost what’s a common goal for all of us, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Arizonans. … The governor signed some 350-plus bills into law last session – 95 percent of them were sponsored by Republicans. There’s no way any one party has 95 percent of the good ideas for the state.

What did your sons think of your decision to run for office?

I’d say it’s a split decision on the homefront. My older son has been very encouraging. My second son – I remember at one point, he said to me, “You’re not even going to go to my baseball practice.” And I said, “I’ve never gone to your baseball practice.” But he’s making his peace with it, and he did say last night, “If you lost, what would we talk about at dinner?” We have a lot of political conversations at dinner, and it’s fascinating to see their view of the world. They’ve had a very interesting life experience.

How so?

Both our boys were born in Ethiopia. We adopted them when they were children, so that’s part of it. They grew up when we were living back east, and we lived in Harlem. … One of the things I love about living in Arizona is there’s such a broad cross-section of political views. We’re not in a bubble like you can be in other places. I still remember when my son was in fourth grade, and he came home and said, “Harry says Obamacare is killing the economy with its taxes.” That was like a fourth grade conversation he would have never heard on a playground in Harlem, and I thought that was terrific.

Clifford Curry seems really good at his job.

He collected hundreds of signatures for candidates running for governor, Congress and the Legislature.

On just one day alone, Curry collected 200 signatures for Mark Syms, the independent candidate running for the Senate in Legislative District 28. That’s more than 16 times the average 12 signatures collected on a daily basis by other petition gatherers.

And that’s just one of the issues with the signatures Curry collected that stood out to attorneys who challenged Syms’ nominating petitions for alleged forgery.

In addition to Syms, Curry collected signatures for three other candidates whose nominating petitions have also been challenged, and two of the campaigns were abolished.

But no one knows who Curry is.

Curry listed his address at a downtown Phoenix homeless shelter on the nominating petitions. Court and property records searches did not turn up any records related to someone with that name.

Lisa Glow, CEO of Central Arizona Shelter Services, where Curry listed his address, said she could not confirm if he was currently staying or had previously stayed at the shelter. She said there are other services offered at the South 12th Avenue address and sometimes people who have used services there will list the address as their residence even if they haven’t stayed at the shelter.

And Curry isn’t the only common thread between the four candidates.

The Arizona Capitol Times reviewed each of the candidates’ nominating petitions that were turned in to the Secretary of State’s Office and found that several other circulators worked for more than one of the candidates. At least two other circulators the candidates had in common, Alicia Joann Smith and Eric Dwayne Pearson, also listed their address at the homeless shelter.

Three of the candidates also hired the same signature-collecting firm.

In a complaint filed June 13 against Republican Sandra Dowling, who is running for the 8^th Congressional District, attorney Kory Langhofer questioned the legitimacy of at least 222 signatures that were collected by Curry. Langhofer alleged that Curry forged or falsified the signatures, arguing that the signatures on the sheets Curry circulated appeared in consecutive, or nearly consecutive order, based on numbered addresses, were written in the same handwriting, and he had an unusually high collection rate.

Curry faces similar fraud allegations in a complaint Langhofer filed against Syms on June 11, and in a complaint filed against Rep. Ray Martinez, D-Phoenix, who was seeking to fill the vacant Senate seat in Legislative District 30.

Langhofer also questioned several petition sheets submitted by someone purporting to be Anthony Garcia, a veteran petition circulator. The attorney alleged that the petitions were circulated by someone falsely claiming to be Garcia and using a fake address. The petition challenge against Syms also claims that someone falsely claiming to be Garcia collected signatures for him. The person purporting to be Garcia listed two different addresses on Dowling’s and Syms’ nominating petitions.

On most of the petition sheets circulated by the other circulators the candidates have in common, the signers’ addresses are also listed in numerical order, the voter information is written in similar handwriting and they are signed by every registered voter who resides at the address.

Langhofer argued in the complaints that it was “highly unlikely” that this could occur given that during the course of signature gathering, circulators will often encounter people who will refuse to answer the door or decline to sign the petition.

He alleged that the circulators likely filled out the nominating petitions using voter registration rolls and then forged the signatures themselves, adding that many of the signatures were similar in size, spacing and had the same slant.

The circulators also all had high collection rates and high validity rates, meaning that most of the signatures collected are associated with voters in that district, which the attorney also said is unusual.

The circulators’ signatures themselves also varied from sheet to sheet. For example, a woman named Renae Young who collected signatures for several candidates sometimes signed her name “RY,” “Renae Y,” or her full name.

Langhofer alleged that some of the circulators were recruited by a man named Larry Herrera, according to the Dowling complaint.

Dowling told the Arizona Capitol Times that she hired Herrera to help her gather signatures after he was “highly recommended” to her by several people.

Gubernatorial candidate Ken Bennett, whose petitions were also challenged for alleged forgery, said Herrera reached out to his campaign while both parties were collecting signatures during the “Red for Ed” rally at the Capitol and offered to collect signatures on his behalf. Bennett said he had never heard of Herrera before.

Among the more than 1,300 signatures attorneys challenged in the Bennett complaint are several collected by Curry. A review of Bennett’s nominating petitions found that another resident of the downtown Phoenix homeless shelter, Joe Lozano, also collected signatures for him.

Dowling and Bennett said they have never met Curry and have never heard of him before.

The Arizona Republic reported that Syms’ campaign also hired Herrera.

Syms did not immediately return a request for comment.

Herrera’s problems with signature gathering didn’t begin with the Dowling and Bennett campaigns.

Herrera, a Clean Elections candidate who was running as a Democrat for the Senate in Legislative District 20, is also facing fraud allegations.

Herrera withdrew from the race after the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office invalidated 101 of the 200 $5 Clean Elections qualifying contributions he filed because, among other reasons, the signatures on the sheets did not match those on voter registration records, including four that were signed in the name of dead people.

While he eventually qualified for $16,995 in Clean Elections funding after turning in a supplemental batch of signatures, the Citizens Clean Elections Commission withheld funding from Herrera until the problems with his signatures could be further investigated.

During a meeting on April 3, Herrera told the commission that he collected 30 to 35 of the initial 200 signatures, mostly from friends and family, none of whom were flagged as deceased. The rest of the signatures were collected by volunteers, he said. Herrera said he collected 115 of the second batch of signatures.

However, a review of his qualifying contributions by the Arizona Capitol Times found that Herrera was listed as the solicitor on almost all of the sheets. His signature though, appeared to vary from sheet to sheet.

The commission has since asked the Attorney General’s Office to investigate the matter.

AG spokesman Ryan Anderson confirmed that the agency received the complaint on June 11 and is reviewing the matter. He could not provide details about the case.

Anderson said the Herrera complaint is the only current complaint the office is reviewing related to petition signatures or petition gathering.

A review of Herrera’s nominating petitions also found that at least five people who circulated petitions for him all listed their address at a home or complex on East Kathleen Road, the same address that the fake Anthony Garcia listed on Dowling’s petition.

But while Garcia and the other circulators all listed the same street address, they listed varying zip codes – 85302, 85304 and 85053. Such an address doesn’t exist at any of those zip codes. The zip code for an apartment complex on East Kathleen Road is 85032.

Herrera did not respond to several requests for comment and no one answered the door at his north Phoenix home.

The allegations and subsequent investigations have derailed two of the candidates’ campaigns.

Martinez was kicked off the August 28 primary ballot after the court found that he didn’t have enough signatures to qualify. The County Recorder’s Office invalidated 420 of the 429 signatures that were challenged, including 105 in which the signature on the sheet didn’t match those on record.

The county invalidated 1,675 signatures Syms turned in, leaving him 767 signatures shy of the 1,250 he needed to qualify for the November general election ballot.

The lawsuits against Dowling and Bennett were dismissed after the Recorder’s Office found that they had enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, despite dozens of signatures that were invalidated because they didn’t match those on record.

Democrats abandoned their single-shot strategy in the Legislative District 28 House race this year, and it paid off.

Incumbent Rep. Kelli Butler and fellow Democrat Aaron Lieberman pulled ahead of Republicans Rep. Maria Syms and Kathy Pappas Petsas early on and maintained their lead.

Syms sparked controversy early in the cycle when her husband, Mark Syms, challenged Republican Sen. Kate Brophy McGee as an independent, a move many saw as jeopardizing Republican control of the Senate. And she didn’t redeem herself in the eyes of fellow Republicans. During a debate in September, Petsas said Syms sowed disunity among the Republicans seeking to represent LD28 in both chambers.

In the midst of the Republican infighting, Lieberman pulled ahead of the pack in the money race, raising about $236,000 in total contributions as of the latest campaign finance reporting period. Butler was never far behind.

Some Democrats worried that abandoning the previously successful single-shot strategy and not focusing on protecting Butler’s seat was the wrong move. Those in the party seem to have called it wrong.

But Republicans may have found some redemption in Brophy McGee, who was leading her Senate race against Democratic challenger Christine Marsh by just about 1,500 votes Wednesday afternoon.

Lieberman was one of at least three Democratic newcomers who overcame Republican incumbents in the House. Domingo DeGrazia topped Rep. Todd Clodfelter in Legislative District 10, and Jennifer Jermaine ousted Rep. Jill Norgaard in Legislative District 18. Those outcomes narrow the party split in that chamber to 32-28.

And Dems could gain a fourth seat. Rep. Jeff Weninger won his re-election bid in Legislative District 17, but the race for the second seat was too close to call. Weninger’s fellow Republican Nora Ellen was behind Democrat Jennifer Pawlik by 1 p.m. Wednesday, but just about 400 votes separated the two.

LD28 House by the numbers

Early votes

Republican

Maria Syms 24 percent

Kathy Pappas Petsas 24 percent

Democrat

Kelli Butler 27 percent

Aaron Lieberman 25 percent