Dem gubernatorial hopefuls answer: How do you win?

Gov. Doug Ducey is seeking re-election. One Republican candidate and three Democratic candidates are looking to take his job.

One is a political novice; one is a state lawmaker and artist instrumental in the creation of Tucson’s streetcar; one is an education-policy expert looking to become the first Latino governor in decades.

The candidates answered detailed policy questions in The Arizona’s Republic’s voters guide at azvotes.azcentral.com. In an effort to understand strategy and gain insight into each candidate,

The Republic asked each of the contenders to answer the same question: How do you win?

Sen. Steve Farley: ‘Impossible to get too wonky’

Steve Farley, 55, is a policy wonk who is not afraid to get into the minutiae.

“It is impossible to get too wonky with me,” said Farley, an artist and a 12-year member of the Legislature from Tucson.

It is a trait his television commercials, which started airing in late July, both celebrate and mock.

The spots show what Farley considers a good time: finding corporate tax loopholes to close.

“Boring has never been so exciting,” the ad concludes.

“This is a time when people don’t want ideological warriors or reality show stars,” Farley said. “They just want grown-ups in the room to solve problems. They see me as a guy who has the experience to do that.”

Farley, the assistant minority leader in the state Senate, is touting his knowledge of the legislative process and his detailed handling of state finances from serving on the Ways and Means Committee and the Finance Committee.

He also touts a project he started as a private citizen. Farley worked on getting a transportation plan on the ballot that included plans for a streetcar in Tucson.

The measure failed in 2003, in part because of a campaign against it funded by the homebuilding industry.

“Instead of getting angry and giving up,” he said, “I went to the homebuilders the next day.”

A countywide plan, including the streetcar, passed in 2006. The homebuilders helped support it.

“That’s one of the things I can do best as governor,” he said. “We can actually come to a consensus on some of the most intractable problems in the state.”

Farley has garnered the most in campaign donations on the Democratic side. That cash is allowing him to air his ad throughout the primary season.

Farley is counting on getting traditional Democratic voters along with Republicans looking for an alternative to Ducey, whom Farley said has mismanaged the state. He sees a sharp contrast to the businessman appeal on which Ducey campaigned.

“I’m not the sort of person who will run one way in the primary and one way for the general,” he said. “My message has strong appeal for Democrats, independents and Republicans.”

Indeed, should he win the primary, Farley said he plans to run the self-deprecating campaign commercial he produced through November.

Kelly Fryer: ‘The ovaries to call out the BS’

Kelly Fryer, 56, has served as the executive director of the Tucson YWCA for the past five years. She ran a political group that aimed to get women elected. She has run her own consulting company. And she has been an ordained minister since 1979.

What she has not done is run for political office. But Fryer does not see the lack of political experience as a drawback. Instead, she says voters will connect with her blunt style.

“I’m the only one with” — here she paused to find the right word — “the ovaries to call out the BS,” she said. “I’m the only one.”

Fryer said she is an unconventional candidate in a race that could yield an unconventional result.

“It looks absurd on its face,” she said. “By the usual metrics of who is supposed to be in a campaign, I don’t meet any of them.”

But she said she has connected with voters while traveling the state. She said she has put 26,000 miles on her vehicle since announcing her campaign in January.

“In rural communities, people are not happy with the two (other Democratic contenders) they’ve had and are mad as hell at Doug Ducey,” she said.

Fryer said she expects it to be hard to peg politically. She has a plan to boost small businesses in Arizona, like the wine and cheese shop in Tucson she co-owns with her wife.

“Is that a liberal idea? Is that a conservative idea?” she said of the business plan. “What is that?”

Fryer said she expects to knit together disparate communities: women, tribal residents, LGBT residents and progressive voters.

“We don’t win this with money,” she said. “We win this with a vision. We win this with a candidate that has the ability to communicate with regular folks about what is going on the state.”

Fryer said her base of support will come from the Tucson area. She said she needs to “hold my own” in Maricopa County.

“And if I win a handful of rural counties,” she said, “I win.”

David Garcia: ‘Arizona is going to change’

David Garcia, 48, came close to winning a statewide election four years ago, when he ran for superintendent of public instruction and lost to Republican Diane Douglas.

In that election, he gained more votes than any other Democrat on the ballot, giving him hope he can win the governor’s seat in this, his second election.

But Garcia is not planning on pulling together the same voters. He is counting on increased turnout, particularly from the Latino community.

“We need to change the electorate,” he said. “I believe my campaign, and me as a person, are best suited to making sure we increase voter turnout.”

Latinos do not vote in the same numbers as non-Latinos, Garcia said. But Latinos often play defense at the ballot box, he said, by voting to keep a certain policy from being enacted or a politician out of power.

He said the chance to vote for a Latino governor will bring out voters who would otherwise stay home.

“Arizona is going to change,” Garcia said. “I believe we’re going to hear the true voice of Arizona.”

Garcia has been a college professor who has studied the ramifications of Arizona’s school choice movement. He also worked at the Department of Education.

He said that makes him uniquely qualified to debate Ducey, whom he sees as the likely Republican nominee, on education.

“This year, more than any other years, there’s been activism among educators and activists for a real change in public schools,” Garcia said. “We will never have a governor more committed to public education than me.”

Garcia is touring the state in a yellow school bus to show education is the centerpiece of his campaign.

Garcia, an Army veteran, grew up in Mesa and was the first in his family to graduate college.

He said his family represents the changing face of Arizona and his election would send a national signal about how the state has changed, shaking off any residual reputation as a state that passed anti-immigrant laws.

While some Democrats both nationally and in Arizona have campaigned on a playbook of being more like a moderate Republican, Garcia said he is running while “taking a strong stance about issues that matter in Arizona.”

Garcia is counting on a national wave of Democratic energy. But he said he will go over the top with an energized Latino vote.

If Latinos vote at the same rate as the general population, he said, “they now have enough influence to change this state.”

Garcia will produce Spanish-language ads, but his English-language commercial concludes with a word in Spanish. “Imaginémonos,” which he translates to “Just imagine.”