Green Party says it’s target of mischief in Arizona
The Arizona Green Party says it believes that two of the people set to appear on its primary ballot are both candidates planted by the major parties in a bid to sway the results of one of the country’s most hotly contested Senate races.
The state’s Green Party, a liberal group with just about 3,000 registered voters, suspects one candidate for its nomination, Arturo Hernandez, is being boosted by Republicans and that the other, Mark Norton, is actually supported by Democrats.
“We have been suspicious of both of these people since the day they filed because we know our Greens,” said Arizona Green Party co-chairman Cody Hannah. “We’re a small group. When somebody random jumps onto the primary ballot and starts collecting signatures, it sets off alarm bells.”
Hannah says neither candidate has been a volunteer, officer or dues-paying member of the Green Party.
The Green Party rejects both candidates on its July 30 primary ballot and is urging its members to write in Green Party of Pima County Chairperson Eduardo Quintana, who did not gather enough signatures in time to officially make the ballot.
Neither Norton nor Hernandez could be reached for comment.
The Arizona Senate race, which is likely to feature Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., facing off against Republican Kari Lake, is expected to be close in the competitive swing state after independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced she wouldn’t seek reelection. A third-party Green candidate could siphon off enough votes from the Democrat to tip the race, one of several Senate contests that will determine which party wins the majority in 2025.
“A Green Party candidate historically has negatively impacted Democrats,” said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona who is not affiliated with any campaigns this cycle. “In a presidential race or a Senate race here in Arizona that will maybe be decided by 10,000 or 12,000 votes, a Green Party Senate candidate can really have an impact on this election.”
Requests for comment to the Gallego and Lake campaigns about whether they are involved in or had knowledge of the third-party candidates went unanswered, as did inquiries to both state parties.
The episode is part of a larger panic around third-party candidates in other Senate races and at the presidential level this year. The presidential race set between Joe Biden and Donald Trump may be so close that any third-party candidate could have a disproportionate impact.
In Montana, Republican lawmakers attempted to bar third-party candidates in the Senate race featuring vulnerable Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. And Democrats are gearing up to challenge attempts by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent, to get on the presidential ballot in various states, fearful that his presence could hurt Biden’s chances of winning reelection.
In Arizona, allies of both parties are seeking to control the third-party slot on the ballot by each fielding candidates, according to a person familiar with one candidate’s strategy who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the cloak-and-dagger tactics candidly.
“There’s an opening; why wouldn’t we at least throw our hat in there?” the person said.
If Norton, the Democratic-linked candidate, wins his primary, Green Party officials suspect that he would drop out, ensuring that no Green Party votes were siphoned away from Gallego. The GOP-linked candidate, Hernandez, would probably stay in the race if he wins his primary, in the hopes of posing a greater threat to Gallego in November, they believe.
Third-party candidates in the state have dropped out in the past. In 2018, a Green Party candidate stepped down and endorsed Sinema in her Senate race just a few days before the election, boosting her chances in the state.
Firms led by GOP and Democratic attorneys with connections to past presidential candidates have clashed in court over the Green Party ballot in the state. Arizona Republican attorney Kory Langhofer represented Hernandez in a challenge to his candidacy brought by a law firm led by Democratic attorney Marc Elias, according to a court filing. Langhofer was a litigation attorney for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, while Elias has represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Hernandez also lists Chrissie Hastie, a Nevada campaign finance consultant who helped direct an organization supporting the state’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, as treasurer.
Then there’s the Democrats. In his April quarterly report, Norton listed $37,501 in donations to his campaign, many of those coming from Democratic donors or PACs. The PACs include Save Democracy PAC, End Citizens United and Defend the Vote. The latter two groups list Gallego as one of their endorsed candidates. Save Democracy PAC describes its mission on its website as “investing millions of dollars to elect strong leaders that will protect our right to vote, ensure the security of our elections and reform our broken campaign finance system.”