Arizona primaries focus on education, immigration: Races to watch

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Republicans locked in heated Senate primary in Arizona

Martha McSally, Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio battle for the nomination in a changing electorate; Alicia Acuna reports on the race.

Several big seats are up for grabs in Arizona in this year’s midterm elections and already the races are expected to be tight.

President Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in Arizona by about 4 percentage points — and many races in this year’s midterms election are predicted to be just as close. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is up for re-election, and there’s a fierce battle for a Senate seat left vacant by outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake, a vocal critic of the president.

Democrats have their sights set on a few congressional races in Arizona, too, during their quest to regain control of the House.

Read on for a look at the races to watch in the Aug. 28 primary elections.

Governor

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is up for re-election. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

In the race for governor in Arizona, education is playing a big role. Thousands of educators walked out of their classrooms in April, closing down schools, to protest for more pay and resources.

The average starting salary for teachers in Arizona for the 2016-2017 school year was $34,068, less than the national average of $38,617, according to statistics from the National Education Association.

Incumbent Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican running for re-election, has stuck by his plan to increase teacher pay by 20 percent over four years. And as the Arizona Capitol Times previously reported, when Ducey took office, the state’s per student funding was already low at $4,154; it is now $4,720. During the 2011-2012 school year, before he took office, it sank as low as $3,814, according to the Capitol Times.

But GOP challenger Ken Bennett, Arizona’s former secretary of state who unsuccessfully challenged Ducey before, criticized the governor’s handling of the teacher walkouts and told the Arizona Republic he decided to run because of the “panic and flip-flopping of the governor” with his plan.

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As for the Democrats, Army veteran and Arizona State University professor David Garcia has emerged as a frontrunner. A more progressive Democrat, Garcia is an advocate for public schools and free college tuition.

Gubernatorial hopeful Steve Farley, a former state senator and artist, has raised more money in the primary than his Democratic counterparts. His campaign website touts him as a “strong advocate for public transit and other transportation improvements” in Arizona. According to the Capitol Times, Farley is a policy wonk with an abundance of knowledge about the state budget.

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A third Democratic candidate, Kelly Fryer, is the YWCA Southern Arizona CEO and a political activist who spoke at a local Women’s March event last year, the Arizona Daily Star reported. She said friends had encouraged her to seek political office for a while, but she decided to run because she was “tired of watching people struggle because of the things our legislators are doing.”

Fox News has ranked the gubernatorial race as leaning Republican.

Senate

The race to replace Sen. Jeff Flake has been contentious. Among those vying for the spot are Republicans Martha McSally (left) and Kelli Ward (center). Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, also faces a primary challenger. (Official photos)

The race to replace outgoing Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, who held the seat since 2013, has been bruising as three candidates battle it out for the GOP nomination.

Rep. Martha McSally has seemingly emerged as the frontrunner, pulling ahead of her two GOP opponents in recent local polls. In her campaign, McSally has focused on border security and immigration issues, saying she supports building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

While talking about the separation of children and families at the border, McSally told KGUN-TV law enforcement officials should not be put “in a position where they have to choose between enforcing the law and keeping families together.”

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Also running in the Republican primary is Kelli Ward, a controversial and outspoken conservative who unsuccessfully challenged Arizona Sen. John McCain for his seat in 2016. A former state senator, Ward had already planned to run for Flake’s seat even before he announced he would retire. While Flake has often been an outspoken critic of Trump, Ward has been an ardent defender of the president.

McSally and Ward traded jabs during a July debate, hitting each other over their credentials and who has more solid policy positions. The attacks also got personal at one point.

“And you know, I’m not a trained killer,” Ward said. “I am a trained problem-solver. I’m a trained healer. And I think that’s what we need in Washington.”

The Arizona Republic reported that McSally, an Air Force veteran who served 26 years in the military, seemed disturbed by the comment.

Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is also vying for the Republican nomination, although the Arizona Republic has reported his campaign is experiencing detrimental problems — including the loss of a prominent staffer — ahead of the primary. Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt for denying a judge’s order to stop traffic patrols that targeted illegal immigrants in July 2017; Trump pardoned him a month later.

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema and attorney Deedra Abboud are battling it out for the Democratic nomination for Senate.

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Sinema, who also served in the state legislature, is Democrats’ best hope to flip the seat blue in November. Fox News has ranked the Senate election as leaning Democrat. Sinema is a more moderate candidate than some progressives may have hoped. She’s been openly critical of ObamaCare and said she does not support Medicare for all.

Abboud, who focuses on immigration law, told KGUN she’s concerned about whether people coming across the border illegally are safe. She’s against the border wall because she said it could be harmful to the environment. She’s also focused her campaign on racial issues in the U.S., according to KGUN.

6th congressional district

Republican Rep. David Schweikert is under a House Ethics Committee investigation, along with his chief of staff. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

While incumbent GOP Rep. David Schweikert should hold onto his seat, Democrats have fixed their attention on this race as one that they could flip as Schweikert is under a House Ethics Committee investigation for alleged misuse of official funds and campaign contributions.

Attorney Garrick McFadden said he wants to work for Medicare for all, citing his mother’s cancer diagnosis when he was a child. In a campaign ad, McFadden said he got a job when he was 12 years old in order to help his family with the financial burdens of health care costs.

Heather Ross is an Arizona State University professor and nurse practitioner. With her background in heatlhcare, Ross is an advocate for expanding Medicare as well as access to mental health programs. She also supports greater gun control and strengthening the country’s alliance with Israel, according to her campaign website.

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Anita Malik said she quit her job as chief operating officer of a technology company to run for office. After she lost her father to cancer, she’s become a proponent for healthy and compassionate work environments, her campaign website said.

2nd congressional district

Several candidates are vying for Rep. Martha McSally's seat, including Republican Lea Marquez Peterson (left) and former Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (right). (Official photos)

Rep. Martha McSally left her seat open when she decided to run for Senate, and Fox News has it ranked as leaning Democrat.

A large number of candidates — both Democrats and Republicans —are vying for the seat. The 2nd congressional district, which encompasses much of Tucson and butts up to the U.S.-Mexico border, is one that is pretty equally divided among political parties, according to the Arizona Republic.

Ann Kirkpatrick represented Arizona’s 1st congressional district in two non-consecutive terms. She also unsuccessfully challenged Sen. John McCain in 2016. She’s backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has listed her as one of its “Red to Blue candidate.”

Physician and former state Rep. Matt Heinz has made health care and gun control some of his top issues. He raised eyebrows just ahead of the primary when he compared Kirkpatrick to a meth addict during an interview with National Journal.

“All she can think about is, ‘What do I have to do to put that damnable little pin on my lapel,’” Heinz said. “That’s all she can see, and I understand it because I’ve had to treat people with meth addiction.”

Small business owner Billy Kovacs has been compared to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic socialist who won over progressives when she defeated longtime incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley in New York’s Democratic primary earlier this year. Kovacs supports Medicare for all and raising the minimum wage while he opposes a border wall.

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Then there’s Mary Matiella, who served as a financial manager for the U.S. Army during the Obama administration; Barbara Sherry, whose campaign website calls her a “LGBT mortgage-broker-turned-rancher;” former state Rep. Bruce Wheeler, who was also a Tucson city councilman; and Yahya Yuksel, an attorney, who are gunning for the Democratic nomination.

Yuksel faces calls to drop out of the race for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl while drinking at a friend’s house in 2007. He has denied the allegations.

Republican Lea Marquez Peterson is the president and CEO of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. She supports greater border security — including a wall — and repealing ObamaCare. When it comes to Trump, she told Politico that she’s focused “on the policy and things that I can actually impact” as opposed to comments he’s made about women that she disagrees with.

“I kind of separate the man from the policy,” she said.

Army veteran Brandon Martin, too, supports a border wall and included a quote from White House chief of staff John Kelly on his campaign website to drive his point home.

Danny Morales is a Navy veteran and local politician who served as the vice mayor of Douglas and on its city council. Douglas is in southern Arizona, right on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Casey Welch served in the Peace Corps and has spent time working with the military in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo, according to his campaign website. While he was in Nicaragua, he also started a small business.