Arizona Republican who resisted pro-Trump pressure in 2020 to stand down
A Republican elected official in Arizona who protected the vote and withstood a barrage of pressure and threats in 2020 from within his own party to sway the election toward Trump announced on Thursday that he will not seek reelection.
Clint Hickman, a supervisor in Maricopa county, the state’s largest county that includes Phoenix, faced death threats for doing his job to confirm the county’s vote totals in 2020, when the state narrowly chose Joe Biden. State Republicans then initiated a sham “audit” of the county’s results, a costly hand count that took months only to conclude that Biden did indeed win.
In a statement on Thursday, Hickman cited his family and the desire to spend more time with them as a reason for not running again, the Washington Post first reported.
“My family has been gracious and unselfish in supporting me as I’ve campaigned, served, held town halls and breakfasts with constituents, been part of early morning and late-night meetings about county business, made decisions that brought significant attention and had profound impact – all things that come with public service,” he wrote. “I’m proud of this period of my life, but I want more time with my family.”
Hickman, who first took office in 2013, will still be in office when the county canvasses the 2024 vote, with his term ending in early 2025. The Maricopa board is dominated by Republicans, with four of the five members affiliated with the GOP.
One of the people who threatened Hickman, an Iowa man named Mark Rissi, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison over a threat he made to Hickman and to the state’s attorney general.
Rissi had left a voicemail for Hickman in September 2021, telling the supervisor: “When we come to lynch your stupid lying Commie [expletive], you’ll remember that you lied on the