Candidate Cards: Legislative District 27

A Democratic solo act … Get off our lawns … And he knows his audience.

The northwest Valley’s Legislative District 27 will see two new legislators next year, and Democrats are leveraging the lost Republican incumbent advantage in an attempt to single-shot a Democrat into the House.

Rep. Kevin Payne is running for the district’s Senate seat. And since he’s the only candidate running, he’s already guaranteed a spot.

The district’s other two legislators — House Speaker Ben Toma and Sen. Anthony Kern — left to run failed bids for the Congressional District 8 seat in the U.S. House.

Two Republicans, Lisa Fink and former lawmaker Tony Rivero, are running together to take both House seats.

But Democrats are hoping that, as the sole Democratic candidate, Deborah Howard can take advantage of the legislative turnover and slip into one of the seats.

Democrats are focused on this district as one of their longshot opportunities, and Howard had already raised a respectable $100,000 before the primary.¹ Meanwhile, progressive groups like the CHISPA PAC have started pouring outside money into helping her campaign.

The House Victory Fund, which wants to keep Republicans in the legislative majority, has also spent almost $14,000 bashing Howard, showing that although it’s a pretty solidly Republican district, even Republicans believe Howard has an outside shot.

Click here to see the full-size cards.

More snowbirds: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are coming to Arizona this week, piling on with a bevy of other heavy hitters, including Jill Biden, Tim Walz, Doug Emhoff and JD Vance, but not Donald Trump Jr., who bailed on his planned trip to the Grand Canyon State this week. Harris will host her rally in Phoenix Thursday evening.² Biden is campaigning in Yuma on Friday and in Phoenix on Saturday. Walz will visit both Chandler and Tucson on Wednesday. Trump will be at Prescott Valley’s Findlay Toyota Arena at 2 p.m. on Sunday for a rally, per the Republic.

Paid in Dogecoin?: Twitter tyrant Elon Musk will pay Arizonans and other swing state voters $47 to get friends to sign his pro-Trump petition supporting the First and Second amendments. Signing that petition, however, means turning over your information to Musk’s pro-Trump PAC.

We don’t sell your info to any PACs and we won’t give you $47 to sign a petition. Support independent local news, not Elon’s algorithm.

Sounds smart: Former and likely future lawmaker Mark Finchem has been bragging that he has gained access to a confidential law enforcement database that is illegal to access.³ It’s part of an “investigation” his election conspiracy nonprofit is doing, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy writes, building off of reporting from a Tennessee TV station. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations recently raided the small-town Tennessee police department that allegedly gave Finchem access.

Bring water: The Harris campaign and its allies are pounding Arizona’s still-hot pavement hoping to inspire independents and moderate Republicans to vote for her. Her ground game includes help from leftist grassroots group Indivisible, which is canvassing New River “where you’re greeted by a ‘fuck Nancy Pelosi’ sign as you wind up Circle Mountain Road, no dueling Harris-Walz sign in sight,” NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright writes after tagging along with the ground team.

“(T)he vibe on the ground is hopeful, but not optimistic,” Wright writes.

He called Rafi: The battle of the lawyers between Brandon Rafi, who is Phoenix-bus-stop-famous, and lawyer Gil Negrete, who is suspended from practicing but runs a podcast, continues to be crazy, the Phoenix New Times’ Zach Buchanan writes. If you missed the backstory, it started when an anonymous Instagram account trash-talked Rafi and someone attempted to break into his home and called in a fake bomb threat to one of his offices. Rafi sued for defamation and accused Negrete of being behind it, though Negrete denied involvement to the New Times. Now, Rafi has receipts showing Negrete’s cell phone number was was used to log into the Insta.

Those who can’t teach: Several teachers resigned from the Liberty Elementary School District in Buckeye during Monday’s governing board meeting, saying district leaders were incompetent and bullying them, 12News’ Chase Golightly reports. Police had to settle the crowd down at the meeting.

Gonna need all 60: 60 minutes spent 16 minutes on Arizona’s election conspiracy problems, speaking with Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman and self-educated election denier Shelby Busch, among others.

#BlockThemUp: If you’re tired of the relentless fundraising texts from politicians, there are a few simple steps you can take to limit them with filter features on your phone, ABC15’s Kirsten Johnson helpfully explains.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, but his campaign’s micro-targeting of voters is on point.

For days, a commercial touting Trump’s support for federal decriminalization of marijuana has been following Hank around the internet. (Trump recently came out in support of Florida’s Prop 3, which would legalize recreational weed in the Sunshine State, and he’s hoping that going all-in on pot will give him a boost nationally, as Politico explains.)

While our memory isn’t what it once was, we seem to recall that the first Trump presidency wasn’t great for the cannabis community.

Also, we’ve been trying to screengrab a video of the ad for you, but our reaction time is too slow.

Instead, watch this strange little video of Republic reporter Ron Hansen interviewing a Trump super-supporter about why they’re voting for Trump.

1. Which was the latest campaign finance reporting deadline. Isn’t that wild?

2. Not Friday, as the campaign had previously said.

3. It’s a sensitive financial database, unlike, say, a database of contact information for state university students, just for example…