Arizona’s GOP Went All In on Trump’s Big Lie—Now It’s Broke
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastFor Republicans who are worried the Trump party is turning into a rump party, the Arizona GOP serves as a cautionary warning: Things can always get worse.In case you missed it, political writer Jon Gabriel sounded the alarm in a recent AZCcentral...
For Republicans who are worried the Trump party is turning into a rump party, the Arizona GOP serves as a cautionary warning: Things can always get worse.
In case you missed it, political writer Jon Gabriel sounded the alarmin a recent AZCcentral political column.
“The Arizona GOP had less than $50,000 in cash reserves as of March 31. That’s not much money to fund crucial expenses such as rent, payroll, and campaign operations. Four years earlier, it had close to $770,000,” Gabriel wrote.
The cobwebs in the bank vault aren’t as important as all the money wasted. The party blew $300,000 on ‘legal consulting,’ much of which focused on overturning Trump’s 2020 defeat. All they have to show for it are a Democratic governor and U.S. Senate delegation,” Gabriel continued.
But as Arizona demonstrates, election denial isn’t the only thing to fear from a MAGAfied GOP.
From 1995 until 2019, Arizona boasted not one, but two Republican senators. What is more, from 1991 until 2023, Republicans held the governorship for all but six years. And before 2020, the last time a Democrat won the state’s presidential election was 1996.
Interestingly, the shift toward electing Democrats has little to do with the notion that the state has somehow turned blue. It has much more to do with candidate quality and incompetent management by the state’s Republican Party.
Aside from wasting money on two Big Lies, the Arizona GOP spent more than $530,000 on “vanity projects” like a 2022 victory party and bus tour. When you consider the close down-ballot races (most famously, Arizona’s Republican attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh lost by just 280 votes out of 2.5 million cast), this expense becomes even harder to justify.
In the Grand Canyon State, independent registrations just surpassed Republicans and Democrats. At least some of this is due to Republicans and Democrats abandoning their parties. According to Chuck Warren, a Republican strategist who has worked on voter registration in Arizona, “There are 48,893 people who have switched their registration from Republican to independent since 2018.”
I guess the MAGA crowd drove away the Mc Cain crowd. For some reason I think Arizona votes for Biden.
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