9.2 million indicators Gov. Ducey is spooked

#RedForEd and talk of a “blue wave” crashing over the desert must have Gov. Doug Ducey and the powersthat-be seriously spooked.

Already, the Republican Governors Association has spent $9.2 million on getting Ducey re-elected, according to its latest campaign-finance report.

Yes, $9.2 million. And it’s only August.

And Ducey's only opposition in the primary is from Ken Bennett, a guy who couldn’t even scrape together enough $5 contributions to qualify for public funding.

Then again, most of that $9.2 million has been spent attacking — or reserving general-election ad time for attacking — Democratic front-runner David Garcia, a guy who is so strapped that he had to send out a plea for funds last week because he had run out of printer toner.

I’d ask what Ducey and the RGA are so afraid of, but that much already is clear.

They’re afraid of #RedForEd, the movement that sent teachers streaming into the streets this spring and Ducey racing for his panic room, where he quickly produced a plan to give teachers a real raise — something he previously had refused to do.

And they’re afraid of voters. Talk of a coming blue wave is easy to dismiss in Arizona, where every four years we hear about awakening giants. That's because every four years, said giants push the snooze button when Election Day rolls around.

Republicans in Arizona traditionally have enjoyed a 12-point advantage in midterm elections because they turn out while everybody else sleeps in.

But this year there is President Donald Trump, who I suspect will inspire thousands of previously MIA voters to set their alarms for Nov. 6.

This year, there is Arizona’s most competitive and consequential Senate race in decades — one that may well decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.

This year, there is that #RedForEddriven #InvestInEd proposal to soak the rich to boost school funding.

Already, the Secretary of State’s Office is reporting that Democrats, in early balloting, already have surpassed their total 2016 turnout in some precincts, and the primary hasn’t even happened. Republicans, not so much.

That’s got to leave Ducey and the power set shaking in their Ferragamos about what might happen between now and November.

Which is why you see the RGA spending an astonishing $9.2 million to get Ducey re-elected. (Putting to good use that $175,000 that Pinnacle West Capital Corp., parent of Arizona

Public Service Co., has donated to the RGA this cycle.)

Which is why you will see a river of “dark money” flowing his way in the weeks to come, as it did in 2014.

Ducey already has spent $1.7 million on his re-election bid. According to campaign-finance reports filed this week, he still has $3 million in the bank. Garcia, meanwhile, has just over $145,000 while still fending off his closest Democratic opponent, Steve Farley, who has $97,000.

And yet the RGA already has spent $9.2 million.

Oh, yeah, they’re spooked, all right.