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>> Ted: In the next hour, on "Arizona horizon, the Journalist's roundtable, a look at the top stories including Tuesday's state-wide primary elections and later, an update on the spread of Covid in the state.

That's all ahead in the next hour on Arizona PBS.

Welcome.

It's Friday and that means it's time for the Journalist's roundtable and joining us is Mary Jo Pitzel of the Arizona republic and Stacey Barchenger of the Arizona republic and Jim small of the Arizona mirror.

Good to have you and thanks for joining us Mary Jo, it sounded like the night was big for the pro trump slate and U.S. senate to governors down to the state-wide offices and I think the five state legislative seats that were Maga supported.

>> Ted: Stayce, the close races for the trump candidates, when it was diffuse, trump slates ran wild.

>> Absolutely, the more candidates you had in a race, it seemed the bigger the trudge candidate's lead.

This was something I was watching and the former president showed up and we thought that would be to boost the lower candidates and it seemed like it paid off.

>> Ted: Do we take it that trump's appearance carried more water than Mike Pence and Doug Ducey at the last minute?

>> Governor Ducey endorsed in two of these races and not playing in all of them and trump has an energy with voters that Doug Ducey and Mike Pence do not.

>> Ted: The governor wasn't all for all of the races and Karri lake wins it.

>> A come-from-behind and I think you saw robson jumped into this race, she went from, basically, no one knowing who she was from who work in the government sphere and voters didn't and she made a run of it.

Although, she got close for, I don't know, $20 million and still couldn't get across the hump there.

And I think that's telling.

I think it's clear that like Stacey said, Donald Trump is still the king makeer and trumpism is still the force in the republican party.

>> Ted: Robson did judge out jump out and day of voting and Karri lake went crazy.

>> That's where she cleaned up and we're still waiting for final data, but there's been a strong message ever since 2020, like don't trust mail-in ballots and we have 80% of the electorate that voted and people were showing up at the polls with mail-in ballots exasking forballotballots and askingfor a new ballot and that was going out a lot to republican societiers.

That's partvoters and that's why Pinal county ran out of ballot papers.

>> Ted: Those are the folks who do not trust the system because someone like Karri lake says don't trust the system.

>> She was an early voter and voted early for the first time and she has been telling people that the safest way is in-person on election day.

If she's elected governor, that's a change she would like to make.

I do think, and I want to point out, trump certainly helped in her race, but Arizona and particularly phoenix, knows lake.

She was on TV for 22 years.

You can't talk about her win without talking about her history here.

>> Ted: Very familiar face and name.

>> You know, despite lake, her add hiranceadherence, she was encouraging people to vote in early ballot and just vote, people.

So to a certain degree, this was a trial run and a bit of a referendum on mail manufacture-in voting and still contested before the Supreme Court by the state republican party with support from photoably, Karri lake and mark Finchham and voters, I think, are voting with their postage stamps.

>> Ted: Is Karri lake still standing by claiming that there was stealing in the election?

Is that still going on?

>> That's the official line and, of course, a press briefing and would not provide any evidence and said they had some and would turn it over to the authorities to investigate, but it seems -- you know, it's hard to take it seriously as more than campaign bluster when they're repeatedly asking, what are you talking?

And they cited Pinal county which was a problem and something of a disaster.

>> Ted: What happened down there?

>> Basically, two things.

Early ballots went out and a screw-up where they left local candidates off of 60,000, 80,000 ballots without all of the races on them and then on election day, Pinal county, precinct level and you have to vote and they clearly misestimated how many ballot needed and they quickly ran out and there were places that ran out before lunchtime and they had to find ballots to bring them in.

And it was across the board, republicans and Democrats and it was not -- an obvious failure of planning.

>> Ted: It was caught, heads rolled as they should have in this situation and so you can't really -- what are you saying, it's incompetence as opposed to fraud?

How is this being played?

>> A lot of people suspect fraud and senator Kelly townsend called for an investigation.

But the election's director was appointed in march and he has experience working elections in Washington.

But did anybody leave behind a manual?

Don't have have protocols and policies written down for the elections because the election's director handles the day of elections and the recorder handles what happens beforehand but the format, that goes to the election's director and promptly got fired yesterday and they moved the recorder over into the election's position because she's got experience and they'll have to get a if you recorder.

>> I think the facts of context, though, are missing when we hear candidates like lake talk about it.

This is the example she just turned to as problematic elections.

In that press conference on Wednesday, she used to portray Katie Hobbs as incompetent and Katie had to involvement in Pinal county.

She's a figurehead and oversees this and not down there printing ballots.

>> Ted: She's not.

We're seeing a 1 little bit of Karri lake saying we're all the same party and will that play?

>> We will see.

All of the people she called swamp creatures, she needs them to support her.

It's important to remember and not just for Karri lake, but for the other races, state-wide races, that none of the republicans got 50% of the vote and they need to unify the party and bring other republicans on board with them and they need to bring the 50, 55%, 58% who did not choose them and they need support in general and if they don't get it, that will be really problematic, right.

>> How do you get that support after you've called people swamp creatures?

[ Laughter ] >> Karri has this little story that she's the youngest of nine siblings and multiple times since Tuesday, I've heard her say in a big family, you fight and thing get tense and things come together and whether that's an answer to bring people together, I'm not so sure.

>> You know, yeah, she needs to bring things together and extends olive branches, and at the same time, she said, I won't change the way I campaign or pivot and basically being the hard-charging, you know, red-hat wearing Maga flag waiving candidate and that's the thing that, you know, like it or not does offput a certain segment of republicans and they will not turn out for that.

>> Ted: On the democratic side, Katie Hobbs won big, bigger than anticipated.

Were Democrats quietly celebrating the trump slate sweep?

>> I mean, I wasn't party to their internal discussions, but I would think so, the conventional wisdom, Karri lake candidacy is their best hope and they can paint her as extreme.

Robson had somewhat similar views on the key issues and did not come across the same way and yeah, I think this is the best they can do.

>> Ted: HantyHandicap the November match-up.

>> A prediction here?

>> Ted: Can we expect like to pivot and will that work and will the Doug Duceys say she's not a Democrat and have to go for her?

>> I don't think lake will pivot.

She said she wouldn't and I think the press core here would not let her pivot too far from the views she's taken, especially about the 2020 election.

, but II wonder governor Ducey speaks ill of republicans and is a republican's republican.

I don't know he'll be out very vocally going forward and I have a hard time seeing him working against lake.

>> Ted: Let's go to the senate race and republican said, Blake masters beats Lehman.

He just miss this, didn't he?

>> I mean, given the events of the better part of this year, are you surprised?

He didn't do a lot of campaigning.

It looked like a lot of it was coming out of the attorney general's office in terms of weekly lawsuits against the Biden Administration for this, that or the other thing.

He never -- he has yet to act in any big way on the investigation that is coming out of the audit results or the ballot review.

We got a couple of -- they ran down dead voters, alleged dead voters and, you know, hasn't done much.

>> Ted: I am surprised.

Third place and maybe not that big, and 20 points behind and the thing never got started and he is a state-wide presence and is the attorney general and Jim Leh man and masters, I don't think people know who would they would be if they sat down on their sofa.

>> If you watched what happened in the past year, it's obvious what happened, be mark Brnovich torqued Donald Trump by not adhering to a big lie and not going out there and arresting people and frog marching them in front of the cameras.

Trump brutally savaged hum and trudge supported masters and it was a matter of whether masters or Lehman had ties to the trump campaign and charging hard for the endorsement and it seemed like that won't be the thing that would change the dynamics of the race and it's clear and you could see it in the polling.

You know, you end up with mark Brnovich who spent the last year, year and a half trying to play footie with a lot of trump's ideas and trying to do something with robson did, which was walk that fine line in the middle and try to appeal to it and not endorse it.

And, you know, he did a half measure, right, and I think today's republican politics show if you don't go the full measure, you'll be left out in the cold because republicans will reject you because you're not following the party original Orthodoxcy and you need to arrest Democrats.

And march Brnovich with the power to do that, blanched at that.

>> Did we see a republican candidate that criticized trump?

Everybody tried to walk that fine line, to your point.

And even governor Ducey and Mike Pence, it was them against trump and they were criticizing them.

>> We had a couple of candidates that said, yeah, I accept Joe Biden won, not happy about it, but he won.

>> The election was unfair, robson, but not riddled with fraud.

>> Ted: You want to handicap the senate race here does Blake masters who people will find out who he is, and they'll be introduced to this guy, the general public and does he have a chance again incumbent, Mark Kelly.

>> Masters has had controversies to get to this point that will stick with voters and social was a little bit surprising, I think, especially when you're going up against Mark Kelly who is a moderate Democrat in a state that loves moderate Democrats.

>> You know, he came out today blasting Tucson mayor, a Democrat, and so, you're starting off your general election campaign not reaching out and continuing to attack, so you don't know if that will be a motif he'll folly follow, but it sets a different tone and Kelly, who doesn't attack and tries to talk to everyday issues of everyday people in Arizona.

>> Ted: Democrat Adrian Fontes beatingbeating Bolling and the denying wins big.

>> The Democrat race was hard to get a sense of beforehand and not a lot of good polling on it and I think both appealed to different segments of the democratic party and Fontes has experience as an election administrator and having served four years as Maricopa county recorder.

There was not a lot of resources into that campaign, beau lane, the advertising executive who came in second had some money and I think mark Finchham built up a national presence and capitalled on that.

Again, he would ride that idea of election truthism to a victory.

>> Ted: Was there a surprise?

>> I mean Finchham had the stage and the clear frontrunner into the race.

>> Ted: These are republican voters into the republican primary.

So Fontes and Finchham, what to youdoyou think?

>> Finchham didn't attack anything.

He didn't go after any of his opponents and he doesn't talk to the media a lot, not to the mainstream media and whether he will Perry with anything thrust out by Fontes, we have yet to see and I think it will be rockem, sockem.

>> Ted: Can he pivot at all?

>> I don't think that word is in his vo vocabulary.

>> Lake already said won't do it, given mark Finchham's style and I don't think there's a chancechance of that.

>> Ted: Andrew GChris mays and Hamade and Mays came out talked about abortion and what happened in Kansas has everyone kind of going, how will this play if November's general election?

If she continues to push that point, does that factor and how does that impact the vote?

>> I think that's one of the things that voters will be judging in these two candidates.

You have Abe who believes the 1864 law, banning abortions is the prevailing law in Arizona and Chris mays who believes the Arizona constitution and the route toright to privacy and as voters look between these two candidates in November, it's a chief issue that could decide that race.

>> I don't see this being the only issue, but one of the lessons, early lessons from Kansas is that this -- you look at that lopsided vote which surprised everybody and in a generally red state and it was sold as a way of government overreach and too much to take the right to privacy out of the right of constitution and that tells you it was able to attract a lot of republican voters.

And Mays will need those to win and I think it could poll, especially, republican women and independents over to the candidate who is say, you know, keep the government out of these decisions.

>> Ted: Chris mays is someone not considered on the far left.

>> Absolutely.

I think she's kind of built her political career up to this point as being that center figure and she came out of the Nepol issue irkitano increaseo administration in a red state.

>> Ted: Tom horn, what do you know, he's back?

>> He was school superintendent and I don't know about, eight years ago, 12, perhaps, and then went off and attorney general and out in the wilderand the run again and has embraced the critical race theory business, which is a fading issue.

We're moving onto other issues to be alarmed about.

But he had a lot of his own money that he used for this campaign and notably, he was up against lawmaker Michelle Udahl who didn't run much of a campaign and the education chairperson for four years.

That's her background and the newcomer, Sapir.

>> Ted: Udahd was 17 points out and the campaign never started.

>> Yeah, I don't know.

[ Laughter ] >> I think that's what happens when you don't have money to get your message out and Udahl was constrained because the legislation session ran until late June and early voting started ten days later exit was days later.

>> Ted: It never got traction.

>> Mary Jo is spot on and she was really, I think, intensely involved in budget negotiations, as well, for education funding.

And she did not have the resourcesresources to mount a campaign.

>> Ted: Horn and Hawthorne.

>> Horn, people know who he is and republicans know who he is and on ballots in one form or another for 30 years and 25 years.

And from state legislature up to state-wide office and so, you know, he's got a built-in advantage and Hawthorne, as the incumbent, that gives her a big edge and a lot of the down-ticket races depends with the general political climate.

Are we going to see this gigantic wave in 2022 that people have been predicting for the past several months or templar and be small.

If it's a huge republican wave, it's tough to down the ticket to get traction and make inroads into the republican voters.

>> We have a referendum drive right now to roll back the universal school vouchers which might -- there's people out there pounding the pavement to get signatures and that might roll over to benefit the current superintendent.

>> Ted: I want to get to the legislature and I know you've been focused on the governor's race and we'll ask these two over here.

And first glance, it looks like the legislature next section is more than the next go-round.

>> With the caveat we don't know how the general will turn out and a number of races that are competitive and Democrats stand a nominal chance at winning and I think we saw a lot of incumbents not coming back.

I think it was 11 or 13 that are not coming back and on top of that, you know, a lot on the republican's side, people who got defeated were defeated by opponents that were far to their right, that were -- >> Ted: Townsend and Rocheers Rocheers.

Look at rusty bowers and he lost to David Farnsworth and he was endorsed by trudge trump and I don't think bowers would be close to the center and in today's republican party, he is.

You know, other cases, I think the neighboring district, pace is a republican who was viewed as a vote that Democrats could go and appeal to to kill things and they did that over the past few years.

He's gone and his opponent was anotheranother trump-endorsed candidate in a dem-leading district which is a challenge.

>> Senator Vince leech defeated by Justine wadsack out of Tucson and I don't think anyone saw that one coming into a three-person race for the one nomination and that might have factored into it and leech has been -- and it's also important to note that a lot of these changes come in the walk of redistricting.

And so it scrambled the lines and the allegiances.

>> Ted: We'll give you the last word here, the headline is that trump has a strangle-hold on the republican party and now, they need to see how that plays in a general election.

That really is it, isn't it?

>> That's the big question.

You know, people view Arizona as very purple, but I think this upcoming election in November will be a huge test of that and you have a trump slate on the republican side and then Democrats and are people who are alienated by trump, where do they land?

I don't think they know.

>> Ted: We'll find out.

Panel, do to have you here and that's it for now.

I'm Ted Simons and thank you for joining us and you have a great weekend!

Later this hour, an update on the spread of Covid in the state.