by Daniel Stefanski | Jul 3, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Another poll shows former President Donald J. Trump with a growing lead in Arizona for the 2024 General Election rematch with President Joseph R. Biden.
Last week, a P2 Insights poll revealed that Trump led Biden by eleven percent (47-36) in a June 2024 survey. The poll was conducted between June 11-20 with likely voters in the all-important swing state.
The firm conducted a similar poll in May, which had Trump leading Biden by only three percent (41-38).
According to the numbers produced by this report, Trump is winning 87% of his 2020 Arizona voters, while only losing one percent of voters who cast their ballots for him in the most recent presidential contest. Meanwhile, Biden is only winning 81% of his 2020 Arizona voters, while losing six percent of his former ballot box supporters to his Republican opponent.
The memo from P2 Insights Partner, Ryan Tyson, states that “around 60% of swing state voters across all states agree that Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president and that he can’t handle four more years in the White House.” Tyson added that “Trump’s greatest advantage in this race remains that he is more trusted to handle the economy than Biden, [and that] positive perception of Trump’s economy outperforms his baseline image by roughly 10 percentage points in every swing state.” In June, Trump leads Biden by 22% (59-37) among Arizona voters who agreed that “the economy was better under Trump than Biden” compared to ten percent in May (52-42).
This new poll on the current state of the 2024 presidential race in Arizona came just before the first debate between Trump and Biden last Thursday night. In his conclusion for his latest polling memo, Tyson opined that “Joe Biden is in desperate need of a moment in Thursday night’s debate to turn his campaign around.” With Biden’s debate performance receiving harsh marks from nearly all sides following the event, it may be safe to surmise that the Democrat president may have lost even more ground in a swing state like Arizona per the analysis from Tyson’s survey.
In the Real Clear Polling average, Trump leads Biden by 5.8% in the Grand Canyon State. At this point in the 2020 campaign, Biden led Trump in Arizona by a 5% average, and Clinton led Trump by an average of .5% in 2016. In 2020, Biden went on to narrowly edge Trump by .3% in Arizona, and Trump defeated Clinton by 3.5% in the state for the 2016 contest.
Arizona’s eleven electoral college votes will be critical to securing the presidency. Both Republicans and Democrats realize the importance of this state and those votes and are deploying a massive number of resources for this race and many others that will determine the political future for the southwestern state.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Jun 25, 2024 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
Senator Laphonza Butler (D-CA) Chair of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution will be holding a ‘field hearing’ on ‘Reproductive Rights’ in Arizona on Tuesday, June 25th. The stated purpose of the hearing is to “examine the impact that various state laws have had on abortion patients and providers across the country in the two years since Dobbs.” Arizona is to serve as the hearing’s backdrop just one day after the ruling’s anniversary, likely due to the resurgence of a pre-statehood abortion ban following the Dobbs ruling that threw out Roe v. Wade and it’s later repeal.
Arizona’s post-Roe abortion law saga may not tell the whole story though. Given that Arizona legislators repealed the near-complete ban on abortion in May, reverting back to the 2002 15-week abortion ban, politicos have instead suggested that the hearing has far more to do with the contentious Senate race for ex-Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-AZ) seat.
As previously reported by AZ Free News, the race between closely matched candidates Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ03) is down to a single-point lead.
In April, Gallego told NBC News that a repeal of the abortion ban would be too late. He told reporters, “The damage is done,” adding “Any initiative they pass right now wouldn’t even take effect for quite a while.” The reversion to the 2002 15-week ban takes effect on September 24, 2024. “To make matters worse, it could just get overturned later by another state House or state Senate,” Gallego noted. “The only protection we really, really have is to codify this and put this on the ballot and enshrine Roe and protect abortion rights,” he said. Just hours before speaking with reporters, he had held a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris ginning up support on the back of the abortion debacle.
It seems unlikely that this is an event that Gallego would sit-out, and even if he should stay on the sidelines. The hearing seems likely to play out as an informal campaign event.
As reported by Deadline, Gallego was in Los Angeles fundraising for his Arizona race as recently as June 10th, shmoozing with show-business executives and Democrat power-brokers at the home of political strategist Donna Bojarsky. In 2018, both Bojarsky and Butler enjoyed appointments to positions of prominence in the L.A. area by then-California Gov. Edmund Brown. Bojarsky was reappointed to the California Volunteers Commission, and Butler was appointed to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission.
Butler, the former President of pro-abortion lobbyist group EMILY’s List, has been working collaboratively with Arizona Democrats since at least September 2022 when then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs joined the group for a round-table event in Pima County.
In a press release from Hobbs’ campaign for the roundtable, Butler reportedly referred to Gallego’s opponent, Kari Lake, as an “extremist.” The release noted, “Butler also highlighted the dangerous policies that anti-choice extremists like Kari Lake want to force on Arizonans, stressing how crucial it is that we elect Katie Hobbs as governor to defend the state from life-threatening abortion bans.”
According to the Arizona Republic, the Bulter hearing entitled, “Chaos and Confusion: Examining the Patchwork of Abortion Restrictions Across America Since Dobbs,” is scheduled for 12:30PM at the A.E. England Building, at 424 N. Central Ave in Phoenix and will feature testimony from a panel of so far unnamed guests. Butler said in an emailed statement, “For nearly 50 years the U.S. Supreme Court, in decision after decision, guaranteed women of the United States the constitutional right to privacy and the right to make decisions about their own bodies.” She added, “As Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, I lead this field hearing to further examine the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision to roll back that right.”
Senator Butler’s office told AZ Free News in an email that the witness panel will include “Mini Timmaraju – Policy Expert, President and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America), Eloisa Lopez – Patient Witness, Executive Director of Pro-Choice Arizona and the Arizona Abortion Fund, and Dr. Misha Pangasa – Provider Witness, a Phoenix-based OBGYN, abortion provider, and physician advocate with Physicians for Reproductive Health.” As of this report AZ Free News has not been able to ascertain if Gallego will be in attendance.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jun 22, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
A Republican member of the Arizona Legislature is sounding the alarm after the release of a shocking revelation tied to the southern border.
Earlier this month, national media reported that eight suspected terrorists were arrested in major U.S. cities. The aliens, who were Tajikistan nationals, were apprehended in New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia by ICE and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Bill Melugin, a Fox News journalist, shared that he was “told all 8 crossed the southern border illegally, received ‘full vetting’, and had no initial derogatory information that flagged.” He noted that “derogatory info/potential national security concerns flagged later on – apparently after release into the U.S.”
Arizona State Senator Frank Carroll reacted to the stunning news, writing, “A recent Fox News report revealed eight Tajikistan nationals with ties to ISIS were caught by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in conjunction with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in three major cities across America. These terrorists crossed the border illegally and were processed then released into our country without being flagged. Luckily, we were able to catch them later on, but eventually, our luck WILL run out! Clearly, our vetting process is not very efficient, and that’s for the people who we actually processed! This doesn’t include the millions of gotaways who’ve entered our country illegally and were never caught. How many more terrorists will we allow in before we wake up to the reality of what’s really going on?
Carroll added, “Thankfully, Republicans get it. That’s why we’re sending the Secure the Border Act to the November ballot. It will help prevent these violent terrorists and criminals from entering our country. The threat to our safety as Arizonans and Americans is at an all-time high!”
The FBI and DHS issued a joint statement to Fox News about the news, stating, “Over the last few days, ICE agents arrested several non-citizens pursuant to immigration authorities. The actions were carried out in close coordination with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The individuals arrested are detained in ICE custody pending removal proceedings. As the FBI and DHS have recently described in public and partner bulletins, the U.S. has been in a heightened threat environment. The FBI and DHS will continue working around the clock with our partners to identify, investigate, and disrupt potential threats to national security.”
Melugin later called attention to an earlier interview with an illegal alien from Turkey, who told the media how American citizens should be “worried” about the state of their border security and the individuals who are making their way into the homeland from all parts of the world.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Jun 19, 2024 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
The State of Arizona has passed a balanced budget through the Republican controlled House and Senate not only hammering down a $1.4 billion shortfall in projected tax revenues but actually expanding and reforming the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA), and School Tuition Organization (STO) eligibility, much to Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs’ chagrin. Hobbs, despite her opposition toward the ESA program, implied her acceptance of the budget in a Saturday post to X, and on Monday evening signed the budget into law.
As reported by 12News, the budget was approved in a marathon of votes that stretched throughout the Saturday workday and landed on Hobbs’ desk where it was approved at the end of the business day. Many agencies in Arizona are now working with a budget cut of approximately 3% that arose primarily from depressed sales tax collections in 2023-24. Hobbs and her fellow Democrats have tried to assign the blame to former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey for tax cuts and expansion of the ESA program to allow all students access to the education of their choice.
In spite of this rhetoric, the GOP led legislature successfully prevented a reduction in the funds directed to putting students in underperforming schools into private schools and under the tutelage of homeschooling parents. The budget even included a 2% inflation-driven increase in the K-12 public schools budget.
Senate Majority Whip Sine Kerr explained in a statement from the AZ Senate Republicans:
“What’s not included in the $16.1 billion budget is an elimination of the historic Universal Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program or our School Tuition Organizations program providing tens of thousands of Arizona families the freedom to pick the best schools to meet their children’s unique learning needs.
We are continuing our commitment to providing every family in the state of Arizona with a quality education, no matter their zip code or economic status. Additionally, we said ‘no’ when Governor Hobbs and Democrats proposed eliminating our Arizona Freedom Schools at our public universities, which are dedicated to civics education and ensuring students are equipped down the road to lead our state to a brighter tomorrow.”
In the new budget, the ESA program sees an expansion to “allow the use of account monies to reimburse the parent of a qualified student or a qualified student for the purchase of a good or educational service that is an allowable expense.” Reforms to the ESA will be extensive with the Arizona Department of Education to work in consultation with the Auditor General to generate risk-based audits of the program and ensuring that educators being paid through the program are not subject to disciplinary action by the State Board of Education and requiring all teaching staff and personnel with unsupervised contact with the students be fingerprinted as public school teachers already are. Expansion to the STO program grew the student eligibility to include any students who “are placed in foster care … at any time before the student graduates from high school or obtains a general equivalency diploma.”
In her comments posted to X, Hobbs commented, “While this bipartisan budget delivers reforms to ESAs, they are not enough.” She added a commitment to bring “accountability and transparency” to the program referring to it as “unsustainable.”
In addition to the preservation and expansion of Arizona’s ESA and STO programs, the AZ Senate GOP offered the following highlights from the budget:
- Reduces state spending by $1.7 billion below the 2023-2024 enacted budget (a 10% reduction).
- Reduces ongoing spending by $330 million.
- Protects school choice programs—both Empowerment Scholarship Accounts and School Tuition Organizations are funded for continued growth.
- Protects Arizona Freedom Schools.
- Does not pull dollars from the rainy-day fund.
- No new taxes or tax increases.
- No new debt.
- Reduces ongoing funding of state agencies by 3.5%, including cuts to universities by $23 million.
- Maintains law enforcement funding, while adding $5 million for local border security support and $4 million for fentanyl interdiction and law enforcement response.
- Prohibits board fee increases for 2 years.
- Lowers vehicle emissions testing fees by 5%.
- Ends ongoing funding for COVID federal programs.
- Maintains road infrastructure funding.
- Adds additional full-time employees to reduce concealed carry permit application and renewal time frames.
- Makes conservative policy and spending reforms to the Arizona Commerce Authority, the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Industrial Commission of Arizona, and the Board of Technical Registration.
Senate President Warren Petersen summarized the contentious budget in statement, “Following last year’s state budget, where Republican lawmakers provided inflationary relief to everyday Arizonans through $274 million in tax rebates distributed to struggling families, as well as a ban on the tenant-paid rental tax taking effect this January, Republicans are again successfully supporting our hardworking citizens while simultaneously reining in spending.” He added, “In this year’s budget, we defended more than $520 million allocated last year for much-needed transportation projects statewide. We also cut fees for Maricopa County drivers on emissions testing by 5%, and we banned fee increases on Arizonans from state boards for the next two years.”
“Arizonans can rest assured that their state has a balanced budget. I’m thankful for members of the legislature who came together, compromised, and passed this bipartisan agreement,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a statement reported by AZ Mirror. “But I know we still have more work to do.”
Despite the modest gains of the budget, not all Republicans supported the compromise. The Arizona Freedom Caucus seemed very displeased and took their case to the public in a post to X, writing, “It’s a perfect example of the Swamp that establishment Republicans at the Arizona Capital are saying ‘the Freedom Caucus is the problem’ on this budget The reality is that this is what happens when weak Republicans negotiate a budget in secret with Democrats.”
The Caucus cited a dozen shortcomings in the budget, namely that the Democrat and Republicans who formulated it, “Fail to appropriate any new meaningful border security money for local Sheriffs, kneecap a school choice tax credit, regulate private faith-based schools, weaponize public schools’ ability to stop conservative teachers from providing instruction to ESA students, impede parents’ right to educate their children as they see fit, gift hundreds of millions of your tax dollars to the healthcare industrial complex, refuse to do anything meaningful to fix our elections, use budget gimmicks to pretend to solve the state’s deficit, rather than actually solving it, sweep $430M of water funding intended to help solve our state’s water crisis, fail to hold Hobbs accountable for her illegal pay-to-play scheme, fail to hold Mayes accountable for weaponizing the justice system against her political opponents,” and “fail to hold Fontes accountable for his totally illegal Election Procedures Manual.”
They added, “In the case of the current budget, when @AZFreedomCaucus members approached leadership, raised concerns with some of the nonstarters in the budget, offered solutions, and indicated that with changes we could achieve Republican unity… Warren Petersen and Ben Toma rejected the changes instantly without even considering them, and then spent the rest of the day attacking, defaming, and insulting the members of the Freedom Caucus for not just blindly following orders. Unfortunately, establishment Republicans’ failure to see the present battlefield for what it really is will cost us the legislature. When Democrats take control, whether it’s in November or in two years… you can look back at who voted YES on this year’s budget to figure out who to blame.”
The budget is also likely to draw a legal challenge from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes regarding the ‘sweep’ of funding from the $1.14 billion, 18-year opioid One Arizona Agreement. The agreement, long a bone of contention between the AG, Governor, and Legislature, stems from a lawsuit that capped the Big Pharma opioid scandal and resulted in then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich signing onto to a $26 billion national settlement with Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen and Johnson & Johnson, which distributed, manufactured and marketed opioids respectively.
The funds are held by the AG’s Office as steward for the money designated for opioid treatment, prevention, and education. Mayes told 12 News’ Brahm Resnick, “I am not giving that money to them. It’s in my bank account at the Attorney General’s Office. It’s not going anywhere.”
In a lengthy statement posted to X, Mayes said, “I have stated publicly + very clearly that I refuse to release these funds in this way as it would violate the agreement, & I stand by those words today. This is an egregious grab, and I will do everything in my power to protect these opioid settlement funds for all Arizonans.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jun 13, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Another Arizona official has weighed in on the pending investigation of the Governor’s Office.
On Monday, Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee sent a letter to Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, requesting “that [she] investigate the allegations that have occurred in [her] jurisdiction.”
With the transmission of the letter, Yee became the latest elected official to insert herself into the discussion about what happened and what to do next with the recent allegations of improper use of state taxpayer dollars from Governor Katie Hobbs’ administration.
Less than a week ago, The Arizona Republic broke a story about the Arizona Department of Child Safety “approv[ing] what amounts to a nearly 60% increase in the rate that Sunshine Residential Homes Inc. charges to care for a child for a day.” The alleged action to approve the rate increase for the one organization was made while “DCS has denied pay increases to home operators and cut loose 16 providers during the contract renewal process.” The Republic also asserted that “no other standard group home provider was approved for any rate increase during Hobbs’ tenure.”
“As the Treasurer of Arizona, I am responsible for overseeing, safekeeping, and managing the State of Arizona’s securities and investments, which are duties I take seriously. Arizona taxpayers need financial accountability and deserve to know how their money is being spent,” said Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee. “Providing state dollars to political donors is a grave misuse of public funds. “Pay to play” and special favors have no place in state government.”
The Republican Treasurer also sent a letter to Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, highlighting the state’s top cop’s recent assertion to the State Auditor General and the Maricopa County Attorney that her office had singular control over any investigation “is not appropriate or authorized by law, as those entities have separate jurisdiction to investigate this matter.”
Yee added, “The Attorney General wrongfully asserted that she has singular control over any investigation. I have requested a separate investigation to be conducted by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has separate jurisdiction in this matter and the current investigation by the Attorney General’s Office raises concerns of potential ethical conflicts of interest in representing state agencies and officials involved in the alleged scheme.”
The maneuvering to stake out a claim to investigate the Governor’s Office seemingly began after Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope sent a letter on June 5 to both Mayes and Mitchell, asking both officials to “examine the facts surrounding the Department of Child Safety’s alleged decision to approve a nearly 60% rate increase for Sunshine Residential Homes and determine if conduct by any of the involved parties warrants a criminal or civil investigation.”
State Representative Matt Gress followed up with a letter on June 6 to Mitchell, letting her know that “the Auditor General’s Office stands ready to partner with you in getting the facts about this troubling matter,” and that the Joint Legislative Audit Committee “will allocate the resources the Auditor General needs to help restore what appears to be a major breach of trust in our government.”
That day (June 7), Mayes fired off two letters to both Mitchell and the Arizona Auditor General, Lindsey Perry, over the investigation. Mayes told County Attorney Mitchell that “it would not be appropriate or in the best interest of the state to conduct parallel investigations into the same matter,” and that “a separate process conducted by the MCAO could jeopardize the integrity of the criminal investigation that my office will now proceed with.”
Mayes similarly told Auditor General Perry that “while [the Auditor General’s] office is statutorily authorized to examine records and conduct audits at the direction of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, at this time, the assistance of [her] office is not needed by the Attorney General’s Office for our investigation.”
The letters from Mayes led to the communication from Yee, who will likely not be the last Arizona official to comment on the direction of this pivotal investigation.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
