State GOP jittery after narrow win by Lesko
Is normally safe district a sign of a ‘blue wave’?
Arizona Republicans got a glimpse of a coming “blue wave” in Tuesday’s congressional special election, which has triggered new anxiety about the GOP’s party leadership, direction and message in the traditionally red-leaning state.
Here’s what has given Arizona Republican insiders the jitters: Republican Debbie Lesko, a longtime state lawmaker, managed to keep the U.S. House seat vacated last year by disgraced Rep. Trent Franks in Republican hands.
But just barely.
Despite a lopsided Republican vot-
er-registration advantage and the area’s historical conservative tilt, Lesko posted just a 5 percentage-point win over a political newcomer, Democrat Hiral Tipirneni, in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District race, unofficial results show.
That’s in a district that President Donald Trump dominated by 21 points in 2016.
Republicans expected Democrats to perform well in the special election, given the anti-Trump mood motivating liberal and independent voters, the heated passions over health care and the more local debate over teacher pay and looming teacher walkouts, which Republicans now are grappling with at the state Capitol.
But they were startled that Tipirneni managed to pull off such a strong showing in the deep-red district.
Lesko’s lackluster performance left Republicans with a sinking feeling as they barrel toward the 2018 cycle. The numbers don’t bode well for GOP candidates up and down the ballot.
“It’s a big concern if people think they’re in a safe seat,” said Steve Pierce, a Republican former state Senate president. “It’s a wake-up for everybody to work harder and don’t take anything for granted. If you’re running for office, you need to run scared.”
Arizona’s two Republican U.S. senators are marginalized within their own Trump-centric party, and one, senior U.S. Sen. John McCain, is battling a deadly form of brain cancer.
Junior U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake in October abandoned his 2018 re-election bid after concluding he probably couldn’t win renomination in the Aug. 28 GOP primary without compromising his integrity on issues such as immigration reform.
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, meanwhile, is under siege on teacher pay and other controversies as he, too, faces a potentially tough re-election campaign.
That leaves some Republicans starting to panic about a perceived partyleadership vacuum — a lack of a leader who can effectively drive home a winning message to base voters, independents and women to ensure the party maintains its control of Congress and all of the statewide offices.
Scott Gordon, 69, is a Republican from Glendale who feels the anxiety.
In the congressional race, he broke from his party and voted for Tipirneni. Lesko, he thought, was “pretty well reduced to just buzzwords” such as “the wall, “secure our borders” and “protect our Constitution,” he said.
With Tipirneni, he said, “it was refreshing to hear somebody offering solutions — specific solutions.”
A moderate Republican, Gordon isn’t changing his party affiliation. But as the party moves further to the right, he is looking for a “voice of moderation” among Arizona Republicans.
Asked if he could think of any Arizona Republicans who could be that leader, Gordon sighed heavily.
“I’m not aware of one,” he said. “I can’t right now.”
On Wednesday, Republicans in Arizona traded text messages with counterparts in Washington trying to assess the situation and plot a path forward.
That is complicated by divisions within the party over whether to embrace Trump to boost GOP enthusiasm or keep him at greater length to win back independents.
Trump chimed in on the Arizona special election Tuesday with a tweet urging voters to back Lesko.
Robert Graham, who served as the state Republican Party chairman from 2013 to 2016, said the results from the congressional race signal the swelling of a blue wave, similar to the groundswell that put Trump into office.
“It’s like we rode this great big wave of victory into the White House and now we’re riding the wave into the beach,” Graham said. “The ‘Make America Great Again’ message — it worked. Why hasn’t the (state) party picked up on that message?”
In his view, the state party has not effectively reinforced “the good things” that are happening under a Republican president.
“Here, you just don’t see the mobilization right now” of Republican voters,
Graham said. “It can be terrifying. There’s been a lot of movement on the progressive side, and if we don’t keep pace, we’re in real trouble.”
Jonathan Lines, Arizona Republican Party chairman, acknowledged Democrats are energized.
“For me, a win is a win,” he said. “Definitely room for improvement as we continue to build this ground game, and going forward.”
Lines said the party would continue to try to improve its efforts to reach voters.
“We have a ground game that’s unlike any other ground game that’s ever been put forward in the state party — a record number of field operatives on the ground for the Lesko campaign,” he said.
On the question of leadership, Lines said the party looks to Ducey.
“Everybody has challenging moments, and this is the opportunity for the governor to shine,” Lines said. “He hasn’t lost on anything that he’s put forward before.”
J.P. Twist, Ducey’s campaign manager, said he would discourage either party from reading too much into the special-election results.
Twist said he has “no doubt” the Arizona Republican Party will perform well in November.
Election experts will pick over the precinct-level results for days to come, but Tipirneni clearly did very well with independents and even picked off some Republicans.
Daily ballots tracked by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office showed that heading into Election Day, there were 75,000 votes cast by registered Republicans, 43,000 votes from registered Democrats and 36,000 from registered independents.
Lesko received 91,000 votes and Tipirneni pulled in 82,000, according to the unofficial results. That includes the 18,000 ballots received on Election Day.
The numbers suggest that Tipirneni likely won overwhelmingly among independents.
Even worse for Republicans is that the 8th Congressional District is among the state’s reddest locations. That means there are fewer Republicans, and more Democrats and independents, in most other congressional districts in Arizona.
Apart from the numbers, the basic message of the campaigns should have favored Republicans in a district where the GOP has a 17 percentage-point registration advantage over Democrats.
Lesko spent nine years in the Arizona Legislature and 20 years active in the West Valley, holding posts from the PTA on up.
She faced a campaign-finance complaint at the Federal Election Commission but was otherwise scandal-free.
She gave unambiguous support to Trump’s plans to strengthen the southern border with Mexico, crack down on illegal immigration and make permanent the tax cuts Trump signed into law in December.
By comparison, Tipirneni was a political newcomer who ran as a relatively mainstream Democrat.
She favors a public option to help offer universal health-care coverage and talked about gun control. She called Trump’s tax cuts poorly designed and supports abortion rights.
Together, it was the kind of classic contrast that has helped Republicans win in the West Valley and all over Arizona for decades.
On Tuesday, the GOP limped past the finish line with the kind of winning margin normally associated with Arizona’s competitive districts.
Nathan Gonzales, a national political analyst and editor of Inside Elections, said the Lesko race did nothing to change the sense that Democrats have the upper hand in the battle for control of the House.
“The overall trend favors Democrats,” he said. “Arizona’s 8th District should be a little more alarming both because of the timing, six months before the elections, and because it’s very difficult to explain away. … It’s harder to blame the candidate for the result.”
Even so, Gonzales said Democrats can’t just presume that the energy in one race will transfer to others. Democrats have long targeted U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, R-Arizona, who holds a seat that voted for Trump by half the margin of Lesko’s district.
Gonzales said Schweikert has a stronger connection to his constituents than Lesko has with hers, giving him a better chance at holding that seat.
Still, Tuesday’s election has Democrats savoring the races to come.
“The same chaos and dysfunction that we’re seeing in the Republican GOP in D.C. is reflected in Arizona’s GOP ... (and) the lack of leadership, the lack of a platform that speaks to Arizona,” Arizona Democratic Party Chairwoman Felecia Rotellini said.
“But the voters have awakened.”
Follow the reporters on Twitter @yvonnewingett and @ronaldjhansen. Contact them at yvonne.wingett @arizonarepublic.com and ronald .hansen@arizonarepublic.com.