Third Democrat enters race for Arizona governor
Kelly Fryer of Tucson is 1st female from major party to enter contest
A third contender has entered the race for the Democratic nomination for governor this year, and she wants to shake up a contest that has not yet coalesced behind either of the candidates who have been in the running for the past year.
Kelly Fryer of Tucson stepped into the fray in January, and is on sabbatical from her job as CEO of YWCA of Southern Arizona as she becomes the first female from a major party to enter the gubernatorial race.
“It’s been clear, especially since November of 2016, that women are taking an increasingly visible leadership role in creating positive change across the country, and it’s important that voters have all the options that they can possibly have.”
She said the YWCA provides workforce education, leadership development, business training and other services for low-income women, and “the state of Arizona has made life increasingly difficult for them. And I just got tired of watching people working so hard to better themselves just get crushed by the irresponsible, inhumane and unethical policies of this current administration.”
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is running for a second term, and holds a large fundraising advantage over Democrats Steve Farley and David Garcia.
Fryer said she wants policies that can help establish new businesses, especially “green” ones, in economically distressed areas, using a Cleveland nonprofit formed by state, city and local interests as an example.
The YWCA she’s been leading is spearheading an effort to research development efforts such as the one in Cleveland, with teams “bringing back those ideas to begin innovating them on kind of a small-scale, seed level in Pima County. That’s the kind of work I want to see happen across the state.”
She added, “So the message is really about equity when it comes to education, equity when it comes to economic development, equity when it comes to water. And particularly in smaller towns and rural parts of the state, people have just been left behind.”
Fryer came to Yuma on March 8 to meet with several groups, including the Yuma Democratic Party, and meet with voters at an event at Prison Hill Brewing Company.
She said her policy on the state’s dwindling water supply would be to form a blue-ribbon panel, which she would want to call “an environmental Justice League,” made up of the scientists who she said are not a part of the current discussion about how to deal with the ever-deepening drought in the state.
She would include Yumaarea growers in the process, she said.
“I want to bring together the smartest people in the state, scientists, professors who are already working on this issue, as well as the people who are already being impacted, like farmers, vineyard winemakers, the tribes, low-income communities. Really bring together people who have onthe-ground expertise about what’s actually going on,” she said.
Fryer wants to promote broader participation in state and local elections through automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration and automatic restoration of voter privileges to felons who have served their prison sentences.
She would even extend that to the annual state budgeting process. “We live in the day and age of the internet. There are all kinds of ways that people can be communicating back and forth,” she said. “My tour is not just a stunt or a way to get votes. It’s about getting people to really be engaged, in being part of the government.