Thomas Galvin Is the Republican Arizona Needs Right Now

By Vanessa Rogers

Arizona Republicans woke up Wednesday to a political earthquake. Democrats swept every top statewide office, Gov. Katie Hobbs crushed Andy Biggs, and the party is set to control both chambers of the Legislature for the first time in 60 years. In other words, it wasn’t a bad night for the GOP. It was a historic one.

Amid the finger-pointing, one Republican said what many were thinking. At a Maricopa County board meeting the day after the election, Supervisor Thomas Galvin called out his own party for its years of election fraud claims. Fellow Republicans, he said, need to “stop lying about allegations and conspiracy theories about election fraud.” It wasn’t just swing voters who walked away, he added. Republican voters were fed up too.

Photo Credit: KJZZ

A Steady Hand From Day One

Galvin’s sanity didn’t arrive with Tuesday’s results. Supervisors unanimously appointed him in December 2021, right in the middle of the fallout from the Cyber Ninjas audit. He was a land use attorney with a Notre Dame law degree and a former policy adviser at the Corporation Commission. Moreover, he became the first Latino Republican elected to the board, the son of an immigrant from Honduras.

From the start, he defended the county’s election system. In 2022, he won his primary over a field that included a former lawmaker who had echoed false fraud claims. Since then, he has kept his focus where he says it belongs: protecting the Maricopa County taxpayer.

Saying It When It Wasn’t Popular

Galvin has been sounding this alarm for a long time. In January, he accused Recorder Justin Heap of lying “over and over again” during a heated budget fight over election procedures. A few months later, he complained that the county was trapped in what he called a “hamster wheel” of the 2020 election.

Photo Credit: Arizona Republic

None of this won him friends inside the party machinery. In fact, the county Republican committee once passed a no-confidence resolution against his chairmanship. Yet he never wavered, and voters noticed. He won reelection in 2024 with more than 58% of the vote.

Conservative, Not Conspiratorial

Galvin isn’t a moderate in disguise. He’s a lifelong Republican who once led a Young Republicans group in the Valley. Instead of chasing grievances, though, he’s talking about the issues voters actually care about. On Wednesday, he said the party had ignored corruption, high grocery prices, tariffs and a senseless war. Additionally, he warned that election lies had led to the destruction of the party here and nationwide.

That’s not a betrayal of conservatism, but instead a reminder of what conservatism is supposed to be: fiscal discipline, respect for institutions and honest arithmetic.

A North Star for What Comes Next

Arizona Republicans now face a choice. They can double down on the Turning Point playbook that just cost them nearly everything. Or they can look to the leader who saw this coming.

Galvin has spent five years telling his party the truth. Finally, the voters agreed with him. If the GOP wants to win in Arizona again, it should start by listening to Thomas Galvin and elevate him as a north star in conservative politics instead of attempting to strip power from him.