Zubia’s Good Message Undercuts Itself on TPUSA

By Alexander Lomax

Raoul Zubia is running one of the more thoughtful campaigns in the Scottsdale City Council runoff. His pitch to reject extremism “from the right or the left” and govern for the whole city instead of the loudest factions is exactly the kind of message Scottsdale voters have been asking for after a few too many years of City Hall drama. But his recent Facebook post lumping Turning Point USA in with the DSA as a fringe extremist outfit is a real stumble, and it’s worth calling out precisely because Zubia is otherwise running a smart race.

TPUSA Isn’t a Fringe Group

Whatever you think of Turning Point USA’s tactics or tone, it is not a fringe organization. It’s headquartered right here in the Valley, it draws sitting members of Congress and statewide elected officials to its events, and it has become one of the dominant institutions of the modern conservative movement. Equating an endorsement from TPUSA with backing from election deniers is a category error. Voters can see the difference between a mainstream conservative advocacy group and a genuinely extremist one, even when they disagree with TPUSA on specific issues.

Alienating the Voters He Needs in November

Zubia is trying to build a coalition broad enough to win a runoff, which almost certainly means picking up conservative voters who backed other candidates in the primary. Painting TPUSA as extremist reads, to a lot of those voters, as a candidate who doesn’t understand or respect the conservative world he’s asking for votes from. That’s a costly signal to send four months before a general election decided by turnout.

An Easy Fix

None of this means Zubia has to soften his actual critique of his opponents’ records or associations. He can make that case without branding an entire mainstream institution as extremist. It’s a small edit with a real payoff: the same anti-extremism message, minus the unforced error that hands his opponents an easy talking point about who’s really out of touch with Scottsdale.