Legislative primaries offer key matchups

Half a dozen contests to watch in Aug. 4 vote

Nobody fights like family.

While Democrats and Republicans will assuredly give the voters of this battleground state a rough and tumble general election, primaries force the bases of the parties to look inward and grapple with their own contradictions and rivalries.

That dynamic is playing out in primary races for seats in the Arizona Legislature and voters in several districts face some big decisions.

Will Republicans boot Sen. Heather Carter, R-Phoenix, for bucking GOP leadership a few too many times, or will they reject challenger Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, as too radical, with her outspoken views on sex education and vaccines?

What are Democrats to make of the allegations swirling in the Valley’s most liberal bastions that business groups are subtly backing challengers to left-wing legislators in the hopes of toning down a caucus that might win majorities for the first time in decades?

And can Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, outrun sexual harassment allegations she has avoided discussing but which now burst forth in the form of graphic flyers in constituents’ mailboxes?

Every legislative seat is on the ballot this year and every legislator is elected to a two-year term.

Sixty of the Legislature’s 90 members represent districts that at least partially touch Maricopa County. That leaves voters in this county to help elect a supermajority of the Legislature.

Districts to watch on Aug. 4:

District 15: Ideological fight for north Phoenix Republicans

The Republican primary for this north Phoenix district’s Senate seat has featured all the classic mud slinging you can expect from an intraparty war.

There are the turf wars over campaign signs and outside groups pouring money into the race. Both candidates have launched websites dedicated to attacking the record of the other.

It can be hard to tune out the hyperbole, but no Republican in this district can complain that they lack a real choice.

Instead, the race between incumbent Sen. Heather Carter and her challenger, state Rep. Nancy Barto, offers some clear contrasts.

Barto accuses Carter of being too liberal and joining with Democrats too often, such as when she broke with the GOP and voted to end this year’s session, helping doom a bill on coronavirus-related legal liabilities (though it may not have had enough votes to pass

either way).

Carter, meanwhile, has cast Barto as a zealot — “a dangerous anti-vaccine crusader” — and a former senator whose campaign for a return to the state Senate amounts to an end run around Arizona’s term limits.

To be sure, Carter has been a thorn in the side of Senate leadership. First elected to the House in 2010, she won a seat in the Senate in 2018 and during her first term, helped hold up passage of a budget to save legislation that would help firefighters with workers compensation claims. Carter has also been willing to buck party orthodoxy, such as by supporting equal rights for LGBTQ Arizonans.

Barto, meanwhile, has run on the right. She pushed this year to ban transgender girls from girls sports. Barto also proposed a slate of bills that critics argued would lead to fewer school children receiving vaccinations.

First appointed to the House in 2006, Barto won a Senate seat in 2010, hit the term limit in 2018 and ran for the House again. Now, she is running to get back to the Senate.

Mainline business groups, like the Greater Phoenix Chamber PAC, as well as police and firefighter unions have endorsed Carter. She also has former Gov. Jan Brewer on her side.

Barto has the support of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club and the conservative Center for Arizona Policy. A decent chunk of the state’s congressional delegation are backing her, with U.S. Reps. Debbie Lesko, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs all endorsing Barto.

District 23: Scandal a focus of GOP race in Scottsdale, Fountain Hills

A Capitol lobbyist testified in a deposition made public earlier this year that she felt harassed and intimidated by Ugenti-Rita and her future husband after receiving sexually explicit photos of the couple.

The lobbyist said she believed Ugenti-Rita knew about the photos at the time but that a sweeping report on sexual harassment at the state Capitol did not accurately portray her allegations.

The testimony would not only roil a Legislature already rocked by its share of scandals but also fuel a particularly personal primary fight.

Alexander Kolodin has jumped into the race to challenge Ugenti-Rita for the Republican senate nomination in this district that spans much of Scottsdale and Fountain Hills.

And Kolodin has pointed to the scandal in arguing that the GOP ought to ditch the incumbent senator.

A legislator’s private life would not ordinarily be anyone else’s business, Kolodin wrote in one mailer to voters.

“But how can Ugenti-Rita stand up for us against special interests when she’s busy using her power to recruit lobbyists for sex with her boyfriend,”

Kolodin adds in the flyer.

Ugenti-Rita has dodged reporters’ questions about the lobbyist’s allegations. She referred The Arizona Republic to her attorney when asked about the mailer. Mark Goldman, her lawyer, accused Kolodin of engaging in a smear campaign “using false and defamatory accusations.”

In any event, Ugenti-Rita has won conservative street cred as one of the most outspoken Republican legislators on election policy. She has pushed for tighter rules on voting by mail, for example.

Still, Kolodin is not running a merely symbolic campaign. A lawyer and former Goldwater Institute fellow who founded his own law firm, he is plopping a large stack of money onto his campaign and has won praise from the likes of conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt and the Center for Arizona Policy.

For her part, Ugenti-Rita has got the backing of business groups, like the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and the Arizona Free Enterprise Club.

The district’s Republican House race has less drama, by comparison, but has still been a fight as businessman Joseph Chaplik challenges incumbent Reps. John Kavanagh and Jay Lawrence.

Chaplik’s only hope may be capitalizing on his relative youth compared to Lawrence, a conservative radio host and longtime fixture of the local political scene who is also prone to gaffes, such as his recent (and quickly rescinded) praise for supporters of the QAnon conspiracy.

District 26: Battle for the left in Tempe and Scottsdale

Incumbent state Rep. Athena Salman and Sen. Juan Mendez are running for reelection this year as part of a Democratic slate that advertises itself — in true Tempe fashion — as entirely Millennial and publicly financed.

Salman is running with paramedic Melody Hernandez for the district’s two House seats while Mendez seeks another term in the state Senate.

The trio are running to the left. The slate is campaigning on a platform that calls for — among other things — 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, universal access to contraception and abolishing cash bail.

But they have company.

Debbie Nez-Manuel is running for one of the House seats. She is an advocate who has worked at the Legislature on creating a committee to study cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. She also sits on the board of Arizona Humanities and ran unsuccessfully for a seat representing the district in 2018.

Tempe Elementary School District board member and Arizona Democratic Party Progressive Caucus co-chair Patrick Morales is also running for one of the district’s House seats. He is touting his work on the school board, such as the district’s implementation of district-wide preschool and increased pay.

Meanwhile, Jana Lynn Granillo is challenging Mendez in the race for state

Senate. An Air Force veteran, she used to work with the Department of Health Services and sat on the board of the Arizona Public Health Association.

Though the self-styled Millennial slate is publicly financing its campaigns, they accuse business groups and moderate Democrats of backing their challengers as part of an effort to undercut some of the more left-wing voices in a Democratic caucus that could find itself in the majority in the House, Senate or even both next year.

Greater Phoenix Leadership (formerly known as the Phoenix 40) has spent money supporting Nez-Manuel for one of the district’s House seats, for example.

The group Revitalize Arizona has sent out mailers promoting Granillo, Nez-Manuel and — potentially confusing to some voters — Salman.

Conspicuously absent from the race is Rep. Isela Blanc, another one of the Legislature’s more outspoken progressives. She has run in the past as a slate with Salman and Mendez (who are partners). The trio had a falling out, though, and Blanc filed to run against Mendez. She ultimately decided to forgo another term at the Capitol altogether.

District 27:Familiar name in race among south Phoenix Democrats

Catherine Miranda comeback.

The former state legislator is running for a seat in the state House in this Democratic district spanning south Phoenix, which she represented in the Legislature from 2011 to 2019.

In announcing her campaign, Miranda railed against what she described as “partisan resistance politics that has gridlocked our Legislature” and said “bipartisanship is the only way forward.”

Incumbent Reps. Reginald Bolding and Diego Rodriguez have been quick to argue that Miranda is simply too conservative.

They note that she voted with Republicans on abortion legislation and endorsed Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in 2014.

Bolding and Rodriguez have positioned themselves as the progressive slate. In recent weeks, for example, both have been among the most outspoken legislators on police brutality.

It seems like an uphill battle for Miranda. She ran for Congress in 2018, losing every precinct in her own legislative district to Ruben Gallego during the primary.

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District 25: Can popular Mesa incumbent survive the primary?

In a building full of people who love to talk — and talk to an extent that often gets them into trouble — second-term Republican lawmaker Michelle Udall has developed a reputation as someone who eschews bombast.

Turns out that can get you into plenty of trouble, too.

A high school math teacher and former Mesa school board member, Udall knows the ins and outs of education policy but that has put her at odds with party leaders on issues like school vouchers.

Udall voted against an expansion of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program in 2017, for example, arguing that it would be financially unsustainable.

Accusations that she was a “Republican In Name Only” soon followed.

The Arizona Free Enterprise Club has endorsed Udall’s seatmate, House Speaker Rusty Bowers, and challenger Kathy Pearce and bought Facebook ads denouncing Udall as too liberal.

Udall is hardly on the left. She is endorsed this year by the NRA, for example.

Still, several conservatives are backing Pearce in the Republican primary for state House in this district, which includes much of Mesa.

Pearce has said she runs a nonprofit that helps returning veterans. Her son lost both of his legs in Iraq. She is not necessarily a political novice, either. Pearce is sister of former state Sen. Russell Pearce, who was recalled from the Legislature in 2011.

Udall has survived competitive primaries in the past. She finished second during three-way GOP nominating contests in 2016 and 2018.

And Udall would go on to prove popular with general election voters, winning more votes than Bowers in both years.

District 24: Central Phoenix incumbent faces challenger

Ryan Starzyk argues that incumbent Democratic Sen. Lela Alston has simply been at the Capitol too long.

Alston served in the Senate from 1977 to 1994 and returned to the Legislature in 2011.

But having been around long enough to vote for the removal of Evan Mecham from the governor’s office may be more of a badge of honor in this reliably Democratic central Phoenix district than anything else. With Senate Minority Leader David Bradley retiring, she may also be able to play tenure as an advantage that makes her potential leadership material in the coming session.

A retired longtime Phoenix Union High School District teacher and, now, board member, Alston has racked up endorsements from Planned Parenthood and the Greater Phoenix Chamber.

But Starzyk is making a go of it, turning this into the only competitive Democratic primary in a district where the two House members are unopposed. (In fact, the Republicans’ only hope of fielding candidates in the general is to get write-in candidates through the primary).

Vice president of Phoenix Pride, Starzyk is an Air Force veteran who has made veterans issues, mental health and LGBT rights a center of his campaign. A political novice, a win for him would be a big upset in the middle of Phoenix.