They Can’t Be Serious

Fascinating was this recent article in the Phoenix Business Journal about Axon’s comments and challenges to the Scottsdale referendum challenging its hugely unpopular apartment proposal there, you can read the piece here. Basically, Axon’s beleaguered CEO said that if the new Scottsdale Mayor and City Council taking office January 14th don’t schedule a special election in 2025 rather than hold … Read More

Tearing Apart the Data of the Scottsdale Elections: Propositions 490 and 491

Scottsdale’s recent elections were interesting ones, with an incumbent mayor losing and two incumbent councilmembers losing their bids for re-election. And there was one (well, two) very clear winners in this election: Propositions 490 and 491. As a reminder, Proposition 490 served as an extension of the existing 0.2% sales tax which was expiring this year, reducing it to 0.15% … Read More

Tearing Apart the Data of the Scottsdale Elections: the Mayoral Race

It was a truly interesting election season in Scottsdale this year, as incumbent Mayor Dave Ortega was ousted by a significant margin, the city council will welcome three new members, and two propositions won by wide margins. Some of these items are related and some are indicative of wider trends within the city’s electorate. In this three-part series we get … Read More

Political Observations from the Beverly Hills and Bel Air of Arizona

What a week it was for the Valley’s toniest towns. New leadership was elected in each community, prompting numerous observations. *To the bold go the spoils.  Both Scottsdale Mayor-Elect Lisa Borowsky and Mayor-Elect Mark Stanton jumped into uphill races.  Yet, both prevailed for different reasons.  Stanton not only outhustled Anna Thomason, he outflanked her with endorsements and benefitted from his Republican credentials in … Read More

Cuatro Kudos

One of the best things that happened in Scottsdale Tuesday night was the decisive passage of Propositions 490 and 491 despite an odd conglomeration of opponents.  Both measures will meaningfully provide important funding of city parks, the spectacular Preserve, our great public safety and our significant “Central Park” that is WestWorld.   It will do so for generations. Though not as dramatic as … Read More

Early Takeaways from Yesterday’s Election: An Election of Surprises

As you read this, you may be just as surprised at the outcome at the national level as I am. While polling composites generally seemed to have Trump with a slight lead, that slight lead looks to have turned into an electoral landslide the likes of which were technically possible but not probable. But while there is already considerable pontificating … Read More

Handicapping the November Election: The County Recorder’s Race

The July primaries in Arizona had a lot of predictable outcomes, but it did hold one big shocker: incumbent Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer became a victim of not towing the party line of stolen elections, and Republican primary voters chose state legislator Justin Heap to go on to the general election in November to face off against veteran and … Read More

Early Election Results: Potential Shocks, Numerous Surprises

By Alexander Lomax The initial primary results have come in, and at the time of writing there are still a few questions but also a number of answers. There were a couple shocks, some more surprises, and increased clarity as to how the November elections will shake out. First off, Republican turnout was robust both locally and throughout the county; … Read More

Early Voting: Statewide Republican and Democratic Updates

With just five days remaining until Arizona’s 2024 primary election, let’s take a closer look at how Republicans and Democrats are performing across the state. Focusing first on the Republicans, a total of 1,156,580 GOP ballots have been requested. Of these, 1,089,498 are from registered Republicans and 67,082 from Independents. These numbers surpass the total requests from both 2020 and … Read More

Will Tammy Caputi Avoid a Run-Off and Win This Month?

Scottsdale residents who are registered on the early voter list have already received their ballots and have likely noticed an overabundance of options for Scottsdale City Council; nine, to be exact, all vying for one of three seats. We have written about these races a few times (you can check them out here), but one name stands out not just … Read More