Tag Archives: Kirsten Engel

Reviewing Tuesday’s
Arizona Primary Results

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, August 1, 2024

Senate

Former news anchor and 2022 Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake. Photo by Gage Skidmore

Tuesday was primary day in Arizona, and the Senate race is now set for the November campaign.

There was no mystery on the Democratic side as Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Phoenix) was unopposed in his primary election. Much of the drama from the race evaporated when Independent incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema decided not to seek re-election for a second term. A three-way general election would have sent the campaign in unpredictable directions.

On the Republican side, as expected, former news anchor and 2022 gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake won the open Senate GOP nomination, but her victory margin over Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb was far from overwhelming. Though the results won’t be final for some time, probably weeks under the modern system of mail balloting, and receiving votes after the election, the current numbers find Lake with only a 53-41 percent edge over Sheriff Lamb.

While enough votes have been tabulated, over 500,000 of what is expected to be a total that should exceed 700,000 votes, the Lake victory appears assured but seeing approximately 47% of Republicans support another candidate is not what she needed to enhance her underdog chances against Rep. Gallego.

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Hotly contested congressional primaries were decided Tuesday night, and in at least two cases competitive general elections will follow.

In the tight 1st District, Rep. David Schweikert (R-Fountain Hills) was renominated in the Republican primary, but with a lesser 63 percent against a pair of minor opponents who barely spent more than $100,000 apiece. The district slightly favors Republicans, but we can again expect a major general election battle in this Phoenix suburban district.

For the Democrats, who featured a highly competitive five-way primary, it appears that former state representative and physician Amish Shah, who resigned from the legislature to concentrate on his congressional campaign and lagged in the published polling, has presumptively claimed the Democratic nomination.

With about three-quarters of the vote counted, Dr. Shah has a three percentage point lead over race favorite Andrei Cherni, the former Arizona Democratic Party chairman, which translates into a margin exceeding 1,500 votes, probably enough to clinch the nomination. Former news anchor Marlene Galan-Woods, widow of the late Attorney General Grant Woods (D), is a close third, less than 600 votes behind Cherni.

In the 2nd District, freshman Rep. Eli Crane (R-Oro Valley), one of the leaders in the movement to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, saw no after-effects of his action as he easily won renomination over former Yavapai County Supervisor Jack Smith with almost 79 percent of the vote at this writing. Rep. Crane will now glide through the general election in this safe Republican district that covers most of eastern Arizona.

In District 3, the predicted close contest to succeed Rep. Gallego materialized. With outside support from pro-crypto currency PAC and the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC (DMFI), it appears that former Phoenix City Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari has edged former state Senate Minority Leader Raquel Teran. Ansari has a 1,403-vote lead with approximately three-quarters of the vote counted. Though not yet projected, it appears Ansari is in the driver’s seat to win the Democratic nomination, which is tantamount to claiming the seat in November.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Tucson) was easily renominated against minor Republican opposition, but his 62 percent total, which will likely grow when all votes are counted, is not what the congressman would have preferred. He will again face a tough challenge in the general election from his 2022 opponent, former state Sen. Kirsten Engel (D). This race was decided by just 5,232 votes two years ago, so another close finish in the southeastern 6th CD is again forecast.

With Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Peoria) retiring from Congress and easily winning the Republican nomination for her Maricopa County Supervisorial district, the 8th District became the host to a very nasty Republican primary battle. The subject of most of the attacks, however, 2022 attorney general nominee Abe Hamadeh, who lost the statewide election by only 280 votes from more than 2.5 million ballots cast, appears to have won the GOP nomination to succeed Lesko.

With two-thirds of the vote counted, Hamadeh leads 2022 US Senate candidate Blake Masters by almost 4,700 votes. State House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) is just 818 votes behind Masters, while former US Rep. Trent Franks trails in 4th place some five percentage points behind the race leader. Assuming Hamadeh’s lead holds, he will be heavily favored to win the general election in November.

Robson Won’t Run in Arizona;
Second Lee Poll Confirms First in CA; First Texas Senate Poll Released; House Races Take Shape

By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, May 30,2023

Senate

Former University of Arizona Regent Karrin Taylor Robson (R) announced late last week that she would not enter Arizona’s Senate race.

Arizona: Robson Won’t Run — Former University of Arizona Regent Karrin Taylor Robson (R), who lost a 48-43 percent gubernatorial Republican primary to Kari Lake in 2022, announced late last week that she would not enter what will be a three-way Senate race among the eventual GOP nominee, Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, and who appears to be a consensus Democratic candidate, US Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Phoenix). Lake is a likely GOP Senate candidate.

The Arizona race continues to evolve as possibly the most interesting campaign in the election cycle considering it yields a three-way contest where each of the major candidates, Sen. Sinema, Rep. Gallego, and the undetermined Republican will have a legitimate path to victory.

California: Second Poll Confirms First — A second California Senate poll released in consecutive days, this one from the University of California at Berkeley for the Los Angeles Times (May 17-22; 7,465 registered California voters; 5,236 likely jungle primary voters; online), found similar results to Rep. Barbara Lee’s (D-Oakland) internal data from the FM3, Evitarus, and HIT Strategies research firms that was released on Wednesday.

As in the Lee survey, Republican Eric Early is the jungle primary leader. The LA Times/UC survey finds him attracting 18 percent support, with Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) close behind at 17 percent. Following are Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Lee, who post 14 and nine percent, respectively. The Lee poll found a 27-24-21-11 percent division in the same order but with Early posting a larger margin.

Texas: First 2024 Senate Poll Released — Building upon Rep. Colin Allred’s (D-Dallas) US Senate announcement, the University of Texas at Tyler’s recent poll (May 10-21; 1,413 registered Texas voters; live interview & online) finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R) leading his probable general election opponent, 42-37 percent. If Texas polling history remains constant, in 2024 we can expect relatively close ballot tests reported throughout this campaign between the two-term incumbent and Rep. Allred, with Sen. Cruz in the end winning with a larger margin than forecast.

House

AZ-6: Contested Dem Primary — The 2022 battle for Arizona’s southeastern politically marginal 6th Congressional District saw Republican Juan Ciscomani defeating then-state Sen. Kirsten Engel (D) by a tight 50.7 – 49.3 percent margin. Engel is returning for a re-match, but she will not have a clean primary.

Already, two Democrats have announced their candidacies, one just this week. Previously, former local school board member Vieri Tenuta declared for the seat. Now, business consultant and non-profit organization executive Jack O’Donnell has also entered the Democratic primary. The nature of the district suggests another close general election battle, but the contested August primary will likely help Rep. Ciscomani better position himself for the November election.

DE-AL: Preliminary Moves Being Made — Though at-large Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Wilmington) has yet to say she will run to succeed retiring Sen. Tom Carper (D), already we see four state legislators beginning to position themselves to run for what they believe will be an open US House seat. State Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend (D-Newark), Senate Majority Whip Elizabeth Lockman (D-Wilmington), senator and former Obama White House aide Sarah McBride (D-Wilmington), and state Rep. Kerri Evelyn Harris (D-Dover) are all considered potential federal candidates.

Updated Alaska Results; First Poll From Arizona’s New 6th District; A Resolution in NY-10?

By Jim Ellis — Friday, Aug. 26, 2022

House

Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, now running for US House Representative

AK-AL: Updated Results — Alaska officials have updated the election totals as more ballots have been received, counted, and recorded. Under Alaska voting procedure, ballots can still be accepted from the outlying rural regions until Aug. 31 as long as they were postmarked on primary day, Aug. 16.

In the special election to fill the remainder of the late Rep. Don Young’s (R) current term, Democratic state Rep. Mary Peltola maintains the lead with an adjusted 38.9 percent of the vote. Former governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is second with 31.4 percent of the vote, a total of 5,630 votes ahead of third-place finisher Nick Begich III (R). Palin has maintained this 5,000-plus vote margin over Begich for virtually the entire counting process. Second place is critical, since the first two finishers will advance into the Ranked Choice Voting round.

State officials estimate that approximately 90 percent of the votes are now recorded. This means another 20,000 ballots could be outstanding. If so, calculations suggest that Begich would have to garner approximately 73 percent of the vote pool that remains for a Republican candidate. So far, he has only received 47.2 percent of the ballots that were marked for either he or Palin. Should this standing hold, Palin would need approximately 40 percent of the Begich second choice votes to overtake Peltola and win the special election. This is a reasonable number, but her biggest problem could be the number of votes that are disqualified in the second round for mis-marking the multiple entries due to voter confusion over the new system.

Votes are also being counted for the regular House primary election where the top four finishers will advance into the regular general election. Like in the special general election, the top three finishers kept the same order, Peltola-Palin-Begich. The person currently running fourth, Republican Tara Sweeney, who has only four percent of the vote, says she will not continue if she qualifies. The Board of Elections officials ruled that when Independent candidate Al Gross withdrew from the competition after qualifying for the special general that only three would then advance. Therefore, we are likely to see a rerun of this special general election in the regular November vote.

AZ-6: First Poll, No Surprise — Democratic pollster Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research released the first post-primary survey of Arizona’s new 6th District, the seat located in the southeast corner of the state that encompasses the largest part of the city of Tucson. The district leans slightly Republican, R+6 according to the FiveThirtyEight data organization with a partisan lean index of 52.0-R – 47.1-D from Dave’s Redistricting App.

The GQR survey (Aug. 16-21; 500 likely AZ-6 general election voters; live interview) finds Democratic former Tucson state senator and representative Kirsten Engel posting a two-point lead over ex-Hispanic Chamber of Commerce official Juan Ciscomani (R), 49-47 percent. This is Ciscomani’s first run for elective office.

NY-10: Candidates May Return for General Election — Once all of the thousands of yet-to-be-counted mail ballots are finally tabulated and recorded, it is projected that attorney Dan Goldman (D) will win the crowded open seat Democratic primary. NY election officials are not releasing any new results until Aug. 31, they’ve announced, and it could take as long as just before the Sept. 9 primary election certification deadline to officially crown a party primary winner in this and other races.

Goldman, however, may face another electoral hurdle before taking the seat. He did not hold the Working Families ballot line, and this liberal political party has a slot in the general election. Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-Westchester County), who left his 17th District to run for re-election in the new 10th, failed to win the primary but does carry the WFP endorsement in his previous district. There is an argument that Jones would be entitled to the ballot line in this election.

The Working Families Party, however, endorsed state Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Nioh (D-Manhattan) instead of Rep. Jones for this election, thus a dispute is beginning to arise as to who would represent the party in the 10th District general election. Having the ballot line would give one of these two the opportunity of challenging Goldman for the seat in the general election. At this point, Rep. Jones is indicating he would not pursue running in the general election, thus leaving the ballot line for Nioh.