by Matthew Holloway | Apr 14, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has made it clear that it is targeting the congressional districts of Congressmen David Schweikert (AZ-01), Eli Crane (AZ-02), and Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06) in 2026.
On Wednesday the Arizona Democratic Party said it is “focused on winning these critical seats, paving the way for a Democratic House majority in 2026.” The release referred to the three Republican Congressmen as “vulnerable,” and their districts as “competitive.”
Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Robert E. Branscomb, II claimed, “Arizonans are tired of David Schweikert, Eli Crane, Juan Ciscomani and other MAGA-cronies playing politics with the issues that impact their ability to make ends meet. As a Party, we will stop at nothing to hold them accountable and to finally elect leaders who will move Arizona forward.” However, the state of play in each district doesn’t seem to be that simple.
Schweikert and Ciscomani both won their 2024 elections with 2-3% margins with Schweikert serving as Ciscomani’s CD6 predecessor before moving to CD1 with redistricting. Each of these constituencies are competitive by their nature and by design, according to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC). The 2021 commission held District 1 competitiveness at a 2.6% vote spread and District 6 at a 2.4% spread, both of which proved accurate in the 2024 race.
Historically, the area that is now District 6 has seen six Republican victories and only three for the Democrats in the in the past nine statewide elections, making District 1 truly the most “competitive” with a more even split of 5 GOP victories to 4 losses per the AIRC.
The same day the Arizona Democratic Party issued their press release, both Reps. Ciscomani and Crane held telephone town hall meetings with their constituents.
The DCCC’s calculus seems to fall short with Rep. Eli Crane’s District 2 seat though, which has seen historically zero Democrat wins in the last nine races and was designed to hold a 7.2% vote spread competitively. That spread Crane decisively beat in his 9-point victory over Democrat Jonathan Nez last year.
As AZ Free News reported in February when a Democrat SuperPAC bankrolled by leftist billionaires announced they would target his seat, Crane’s response was blunt. He wrote in a post to X, “The great thing about #AZ02 is they see through phony attacks by coastal elites. Bring it.”
Given the historic makeup of these districts: two of them designed to give Democrats a chance and a third that appears nearly unassailable, the AZDems assessment of the three Congressmen as “vulnerable,” and their districts as “more “competitive than normal” seems questionable at best.
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 Corinne Murdock | Mar 15, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
One of the most prominent lawyers for the Democratic Party (DNC), Marc Elias, announced last Friday that he submitted a motion to intervene in a case challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s no-excuse mail-in voting system. Elias filed on behalf of the Senate Democrats (DSCC), Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and the Arizona Democratic Party in the case Arizona Republican Party v. Hobbs.
Not only does Elias specialize in election litigation, he’s been involved in the elections themselves. His December 2017 testimony detailed his role in Hillary Clinton’s Russigate hoax: how he came to hire the intelligence firm Fusion-GPS for the DNC and Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, who then ordered the debunked dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele and sourced by analyst Igor Danchenko, a Russian citizen who resided in Virginia. The FBI arrested Danchenko for the “Steele dossier” early last November.
Elias could be considered a fixture within the Democratic Party establishment. The Jewish New York native worked with the DNC since 1993, notably serving as general counsel for two of the last three Democratic presidential candidates’ campaigns: John Kerry in 2004, then Hillary Clinton in 2016. Elias also followed former President Barack Obama from his days in the Senate all the way to the White House, earning a distinction by 2011 relayed in a Politico profile of being Obama’s “top lawyer.” Although lawyer Bob Bauer was technically Obama’s general counsel, Elias was a critical player.
Those are just the biggest names in American politics — the entire Democratic Party reportedly relies on Elias as their “go-to lawyer.” This was confirmed by fellow establishment members of the Democratic Party, such as former Federal Election Commission (FEC) chairman, Obama advisor, and Biden campaign counsel Robert Lenhard.
“For members of the House and Senate, there is no Democratic-side campaign finance lawyer who is more important than Marc Elias. That is without a doubt,” Lenhard told Politico. “While Bob Bauer served as White House counsel, Marc led that practice group and it thrived under his tutelage.”
Elias has been on all sides of the 2020 presidential election controversy, a predictable involvement considering his decades of redistricting fights, post-election litigation, and work with Big Tech giants Facebook and Google. Elias earned Google a win to effectively manipulate its search results with preferred candidates through its pay-per-click advertisement system, AdWords. The woman behind AdWords, Sheryl Sandberg, was picked up by Facebook in 2008.
Elias founded Democracy Docket on March 5, 2020, a Democratic Party voting advocacy group formed about a week after former President Donald Trump declared the ongoing national state of emergency over COVID-19. Democracy Docket operates out of Fairfax County, Virginia. To date, the group has been involved in nearly 330 cases, 150 of which they’ve won.
Last August, Elias left his legal firm of 28 years, Perkins Coie, to form his own: Elias Law Group.
Elias pledged to sue Arizona if the state legislature approves certain election integrity laws, such as: HB2596, which never made it to committee; HB2238, which passed the House and has yet to be considered in a Senate committee; HB2237, which passed the House and will soon be considered on the Senate floor; SB1058, approved by a Senate committee last month but not yet considered on the Senate floor; HB2170, which passed the House but has yet to be considered by a Senate committee; and HB2243, which passed the House and will soon be considered on the Senate floor.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
