Former County Sheriff Paul Penzone
As you know, for the last few weeks we’ve been highlighting some of the more interesting local races of note and how they may play out in the November election, and few are more interesting than the race for Maricopa County Sheriff. The role got national prominence and later a degree of shame through the bombast of long-time Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and since he was ousted in 2016 in favor of Paul Penzone, it has exited stage left with regards to the attention it used to garner.
But what was boring has gotten spicy yet again, when Penzone stepped aside and let his Deputy Russ Skinner take over…but only after he switched his party registration to Democrat, since the successor needs to be of the same party as the person who was in the role previously.
While the acronyms RINO and DINO are overused by the hyperpartisans in party politics, Russ Skinner was the definition of a DINO (Democrat In Name Only) and Democrats coalesced around longtime Phoenix PD veteran Tyler Kamp, who won the primary. On the Republican side, longtime Arpaio wingman Jerry Sheridan came out on top of a competitive three-way primary, setting the stage for a Kamp vs. Sheridan general election.
Unlike many of the races that we’ve looked at, the money race is surprisingly close; Kamp entered the primary race with with $56K Cash on Hand (CoH) and Sheridan with $50K; this last report only goes until mid-July, and we will not get an updated campaign finance report until October. However, one indicator about how the rest of the campaigns’ fundraising may go as the amount of money raised so far. Sheridan has raised $340K in cash to date, Kamp only $80K. One has to assume that Sheridan will strongly outraise Kamp for the remainder of the campaign.
Both candidates have a degree of baggage that may come out. Kamp was investigated for sexual harassment at the end of his tenure at the Phoenix PD. Sheridan was the Chief Deputy of the now very-unpopular Joe Arpaio and is considered to represent a likely continuance of his policies; even as he failed to secure Arpaio’s endorsement.
So what’s our call? This will be a close one, as most of the county races likely will be. But if Sheridan is able to refill his coffers using his strong demonstrated fundraising so far, that will likely be enough to vault him to victory in November.