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September 10, 2002
Special 9:30 PM Edition of HORIZON

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
Analysis of the Arizona Primary Election.
In-Studio Guests:
Former Congressman Sam Coppersmith;
Former Attorney General Grant Woods

>> Michael: Good evening. Welcome to a special edition of "Horizon." I'm Michael Grant. Tonight we bring you full coverage of Arizona's primary election. During this one-hour special you will get the latest election results, we certainly hope, along with expert, we certainly hope, analysis by former Attorney General Grant Woods and former Congressman Sam Coppersmith. To get the disclosures immediately out of the way, should be noted that Mr. Woods is chair, or co-chair, of the Matt Salmon for Governor campaign. Mr. Coppersmith is the campaign chair for Craig Columbus, a Democratic candidate in the race for Congressional District 5. Gentlemen, good to see you both.

>> Grant Woods: Good to see you.

>> Michael: We have been analyzing some numbers as we go along and we want to get those to the viewers as quickly as possible, so we've identified several key races, statewide congressional, some select legislative districts and let's put those returns up for you. We'll run through those and we'll talk about the results that we have. And I hope those will be appearing momentarily on both your and my television screen. There they are. In the Democratic primary for governor, Janet Napolitano at this point in time 60% of the returns, Alfredo Gutierrez 21%. This is with 66% of the precincts reporting. And then mark Osterloh and Mike Newcomb bringing up the rear. That the Republican primary for governor, Matt Salmon, 56%, Betsey Bayless, Secretary of State, 30%, Carol Springer, the incumbent state treasurer, 14%. That's with 67% of the precincts reporting. Secretary of State, Jan Brewer, 45%, former Phoenix city councilman Sal DiCiccio 35%, Sharon Collins, the governor's Southern Arizona chief of staff with 20%. Again with 67% of the precincts reporting. In the Democratic race for superintendent of public instruction, Jay Blanchard, the state senator, with about two-thirds of the vote, and Rodney Rich, 33%. The Republican superintendent of public instruction race, Tom Horne at 43% of the vote, Keith bee 30% of the vote, and now the incumbent Jaime Molera has slipped to third in that race at 27%. That's a change in the order just in the past five, ten minutes. The race for Attorney General, Andrew Thomas with 47% of the vote, former Senate president John Greene 29%, and Foster Robberson 24%. The winner of that primary will go on to face Terry Goddard in the general election. The race for the two-year Republican primary for Corporation Commission, there actually are two 2-year slots coming available, Jeff Hatch-Miller has 38% of that vote with 66% of the precincts reporting. Mike Gleason has 32% of the vote. And Jim Buster, 30% of the vote. Two of those candidates will move to the general election. Now moving up into Northern Arizona, in that highly contested race, Democrat for Congressional District 1, the new rural district, Diane Prescott with 24% of the vote, Apache County attorney Steve Udall 21% of the vote, Payson businessman George Cordova 18% of the vote and former Babbitt aide Fred Duval with 17% of the vote. Derrick Watchman, Martinez and Hartstone in the trailing stages of that race. Over on the Republican side of that race in that district that spans from roughly Williams, curling in a curlicue down to Casa Grande, Rick Renzi 27% of the vote, Sydney Hay 24% of the vote, former Sedona Mayor Alan Everett with 21% of the vote, and Louis Tenney the Navajo County supervisor with 13% of the vote. In house CD 2, the race to succeed the retiring congressman Bob Stump, Lisa Atkins, his long time chief of staff, 26%, pretty much a dead heat with former legislator Trent Franks. John Keegan, the Peoria Mayor at 21%. And state senator Scott Bundgaard at 18%. In the race for Congressional District 5, the one that we just mentioned, Craig Columbus, 49% of the vote, Larry King 30% of that vote, and, Sam, remind me --

>> Sam Coppersmith: Maynard.

>>Sam Coppersmith: 21% of the vote.

>>Michael Grant: U.S. House CD 7 is another one of the two new districts that Arizona is picking up this 10-year census cycle. Raul Grijalva had been considered by most to be the front-runner, he is a Pima County supervisor and certainly these returns with about a third of the precincts returning are indicating that. He has 50% of the vote. Then state senator Elaine Richardson with 20% of the vote. The rest of the field trailing. In CD 7, Sweeney, that's the Republican side of that Southern Arizona district, Sweeney at 38% and the rest of the numbers you can see there. Moving to some of the key legislative districts that we'll be tracking for you tonight, we'll have complete race rundowns for you in about 20 minutes or so, bill brotherton seeking to move from the house to the Senate with a 100-vote lead over Earl Wilcox, the former legislator, the husband of Maricopa County supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. Senate district 7, that's the one you have read and heard a lot about because of Wes Marsh's address problems, Jim Waring, the McCain former aide, with 39% of the vote, Smith 31%, and Wes Marsh with 30% of the vote. Bob Burns would like to return to the legislature in Senate district 9, and he currently seems to be on his way to doing that, although noted at the bought many your screen that's with 28% of the precincts reporting. Senate district 11 this, one has set new records for stuffing your mailbox, Barbara Leff --

>>Grant Woods: Just your mailbox.

>> Michael: Barbara Leff, 51% of the vote and Sue Gerard with 49% of the vote. That's the redistricting process that crashed about, I think, 14 legislative districts together in Senate district 11, the new one. In Senate district 20, Slade Mead is right now with slightly more than half the precincts reporting leading Laurie Daniels quite handily, 58% to 42% in the Republican primary for Senate district 20. In house district 5, that one has drawn some attention because of allegations that Debra Brimhall does not actually live in that district, it seems to be contagious this election cycle, Flake with 45% --

>>Sam Coppersmith: They can change the boundaries faster than the realtors can buy and sell their houses, that's the problem.

>> Michael: I am going to mess up this name again, but it's Konopnicki with 28% in a virtual dead heat with Debra Brimhall. In house district 8, this is one of those, what we referred to as, newcomer races, obviously very contested race and as you can see, Reagan 24%, Rosati 18%, McCullough 17%. It shows 100% of the precincts reporting.

>>Sam Coppersmith: The Secretary of State's website is showing zero percent reporting. This is all early voting.

>> Sam Coppersmith: That could be all early voting or it could be we don't know where the numbers are coming. That's part of our pledge to the viewers this evening, most of what we say is accurate.

>> Michael: We're just not going to tell you which part. In house district 11, we talked about Senate district 11 earlier, this is the one that goes from North Central Phoenix over into the arcadia area, certainly up into the Paradise Valley area, Steve Tully with 34% of the vote, Steve May with 33% of the vote and Deb Gullett, 33% of the vote. So that is obviously a virtual dead heat with 93% of the precincts reporting. Well, gentlemen, let's cycle back to the top. Governor, Republican, Grant, is that, at least as it currently stands, more of a runaway for Matt Salmon than you would have expected?

>> Grant Woods: I think so. I think most people all along thought that Betsey Bayless would be competitive and then you had this kind of ridiculous situation with Carol Springer where she got almost a million dollars at the very end of the campaign from the taxpayers, fiscal conservative that she is and so much money she could hardly spend it. So you didn't know what impact that would have and Salmon being the only person in that race who ran clean -- did not run clean and decided not to take the taxpayer money. You don't know how that's going to play. So to see him winning with over half the vote, I think s pretty impressive. His numbers right now are similar to Napolitano's, even though most people thought he had a more competitive race. So I think that's a good thing. >> Michael: This actually was a phenomena that I think occurred in both the Republican and the Democratic primaries, there was never any kind of flashy vent. I mean, it seemed like both races started here and just pretty much stayed.

>>Grant Woods: There's reasons for that, too. You would think there are no issues, basically, facing Arizona. I think the candidates take part of the blame for that, and the media takes part of the blame, and I think clean elections takes part of the blame in that basically you gave people, in most of these races, you gave people enough money to put up a million signs, I have never seen so many signs, but not enough to communicate their message in any other real effective way. But I agree with you, this race was a real sleeper on both sides, I think all the candidates played it very cautiously and that would be interesting if in the year 2002 there were no issues facing Arizona. So either there aren't any or nobody really wants to talk about them.

>> Michael: Sam, D side, the anticipation was when Alfredo Gutierrez announced he was going to run, very articulate, certainly very knowledgeable about state issues, that he might not beat Janet Napolitano, in fact, most people thought he would not, but that he would make it a very fascinating race, and I think that campaign delivered only in the radio ads in terms of making it a very fascinating race. Had some great radio ads, but not the --

>> Sam Copopersmith: You're just such a fan of hispanic radio, I can tell.

>> Michael: Not the sort of guns blazing thing I think a lot of people expected.

>>Sam Coppersmith: Well, maybe a couple things. Really, to pick up on what Grant was saying, the problem right now is the biggest issue facing the state is one where there's no up side for being the first person to go forward and get extraordinarily specific. There was certainly no upside for either of the frontruners in their primaries to get more specific than what they had to, because, I mean, first of all, primaries tend to energize the most committed partisan voters and so you are playing to an audience that is going to be with you in the general and if you play the music that they like, it turns off the people who are really persuadable in the middle. So there is a political dynamic that caused people to back away from that. Second s for all the talk, I mean, the the curse in politics, and maybe Alfredo Gutierrez's campaign ran against this, is when people say he's a really funny guy, tell a joke, it's hard to then live up to people's expectations when you do that. Particularly because this was an election issue where with the state budget deficit there were a lot of one-liners available but there was really no upside for anybody getting specific on either side and they haven't yet.

>> Michael: Well and one of the other problems, in some faireous, I guess, to all the -- fairness to all candidates a tight budget, number one, is not a very sexy thing to talk about, and number two, a tight budget doesn't afford you a lot of sweeping sort of policy --

>>Sam Coppersmith: I think the third thing is that people in this state don't recognize yet, because it hasn't hit home to a lot of people, exactly how bad the situation is. Because they were told there was a budget crisis last year and basically what happened is it was rolled over into the coming year. Well, those cows are coming home -- to cows come home to roost -- the crows -- the chickens or crows are --

>>Michael Grant: The cows go out to pasture. Which is what we're in the process of doing --

>>Sam Coppersmith: Well, that's -- that happened to me in '94, but I'm a Democrat.

>> Grant Woods:But, Sam, that may be a real opening for Mahoney. Mahoney is someone who -- he's very bright and if he can attract the attention and has the courage, which I think he does, to articulate on issues, it's not just the budget. The budget is not sexy, but when you are looking at a $1 billion shortfall, you might ought to talk bit. Just a crazy idea. What about immigration? What about healthcare? What about, what about, what about? What about growth? I thought this was -- to me, that was the number one issue on a lot of people's minds. I would say no discussion on growth that I saw. So I think maybe a Mahoney could catch fire there. The other problem the Democrats are going to have here, which is pretty interesting, I think the Republicans will coalesce around Salmon. The campaign was, you know -- it was mild, basically, compared to others.

>> Michael: It wasn't bitter.

>>Grant Woods: Not a big deal. That's the type of person that they will rally behind Salmon. Will Alfredo Gutierrez rally behind Janet Napolitano? I think that remains to be seen. And I would find that doubtful. I think he might sit the thing out.

>> Michael: There's even been some speculation that Alfredo might endorse Mahoney.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Well, we'll see if Alfredo wants to be a candidate of ideas and what he firmly believes in, there will be three very different options on the ballot. Dick Mahoney is somebody who -- it will really be up to the media and him whether he wants to run as a novelty act or run seriously. This is a guy two years ago whose solution to the state's problems was to get rid of the state income tax. When you go now, he is yelling at everybody to be specific. I mean, the biggest question Dick has to face is, look f people listened to you two years ago, we would really be in a mess. It would be an incredible gaping hole. So why should we take your advice now?

>> Michael: Incidentally, do you believe the DeBerge poll from six weeks ago that Mahoney draws equally from Rs and Ds?

>> Sam Coppersmith: Until he really decides what he's going to be, I mean, he's somebody who wants to talk about John F. Kennedy but then also campaign to get rid of the income tax. What is going on here? If the press traits him as, look, he's holding the shovel again, isn't that funny, he will probably draw equally because everybody can project this kind of whatever they want onto his views. If he's treated as a serious candidate and people examine his ideas, then I think he starts to fade from the view.

>> Grant Woods: I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I think he's -- I have great respect for Janet and I'm co-chairing Salmon's campaign, but Dick is their equal. I think as a candidate, if he wants to be. And certainly intellectually. And on the issues, I don't know where Napolitano stands. She's run a classic Clinton campaign, which is what you would expect and I saw say that, I guess, I don't know what I mean by it, except it worked for Clinton, he became president and it's working for her in that -- I don't know what she stands for except mom and apple pie and kids and things like that. But if we get specific and she has to debate -- if she has to debate Dick Mahoney, I think a lot of Democrats are going to say, you know what, Mahoney really actually stands for something and I'm not so sure what Janet stands for.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I think a lot of Democrats will say, what does Dick stand for after all. Two years ago this guy is taking money from enron to get rid of the state income tax. Is this the solution to education?

>> Grant Woods: I think you're going to have a debate and hopefully we do.

>> Sam Coppersmith: And as far as Matt Salmon is running in the primary by -- it's going to be hard to run the state standing in classrooms if your first thing is, you know, by God, we got to cut taxes more, you know -- I had always thought -- one of my law teachers taught me that the first law of the hole f you're in one, stop digging. But -- I think this whole kind of, if we just cut we'll do more has had --

>> Grant Woods: It's ok -- that's ok. But that's what you believe. But others of us and I think Mahoney is in this category and I know Matt Salmon s we believe that government is the problem and it's the problem really across the board, and the less we can -- we have to give the government and the more we can get away from the government, that's a Republican plus, but it's also an independent plus, it's also a Libertarian philosophy and I think it's -- it may well be an Arizona philosophy. So what I'm saying is we need to have the debate and if we have it, I wouldn't discount the impact of Mahoney. I think Salmon is very well placed here with a strong Mahoney candidacy, to answer your question.

>> Michael: All right. Let me go to superintendent of public instruction. Tom Horne is up in that race over the incumbent. Grant, certainly a lot of people are saying in some of these lower level offices clean elections funding can be a curse because Tom Horne dumb appeared lot of money into that race.

>> Grant Woods: Absolutely. It just shows one of the real flaws in that here you have someone like Jaime Molera who, I think, virtually everybody agreed was being totally mischaracterized by Horne, and yet because he ran as a clean candidate, he was incapable of responding to this barrage of unfair ads by Horne.

>> Michael: He's capped bat 130,000 --

>> Grant Woods: Yeah and what can you do with that?

>> Grant Woods: In a state this size, you can't do much. The media, I think d a good job exposing these misrepresentations, and they all weighed in. Everybody did what they could, but if one guy is on television every five minutes saying a lie, and the other guy isn't on television, or isn't anywhere because he doesn't have the money, then the guy on television wins, and I think the Republican part -- let me say this. I think the Republican party will look back on this race for many years to come as they wonder why in the world Latinos still go to the Democrats in massive numbers and this will be one of the reasons, because it will expose -- rightly or wrongly, it will be perceived as exposing the lie that we would like your vote but we really don't want you at the table.

>> Michael: Jay Blanchard run well against Tom Horne, assuming these results hold up?

>> Sam Coppersmith: You know, I'm not sure you can -- I mean, you can blame clean elections, but the problem is, if both candidates were running without clean funding, and Horne is just richer than Molera and could put more of his own money in the race, you would have the exact same problem. Maybe you can say Molera was handcuffed by clean elections, but Molera might have been handcuffed by his own fund raising, he was a young guy, had never held public office before, and he was trying to be somebody new to sit at the table that's never sat -- didn't have a chance, but you don't know that, and the problem is that's the way politics are. Guys have more money sometimes, actually what's interesting in a lot of races where in the Democratic primary you had two guy whose had just as much money as the two other candidates but really couldn't get anywhere out of it out of the single digits, so some of the stuff does matter.

>> Michael: So how does Jay Blanchard play against -- assuming Tom Horne comes out of this the Victor --

>> Sam Coppersmith: Horne ran basically a classic kind of 1990s campaign, which is he just picked on somebody who couldn't fight back and just beat him up. Whether that's Molera because of funding, or whether it's students who can't vote who -- people like nothing more than getting tough on somebody else, or maybe there was this undertone, you're worried about people sitting at the table, it's not bad enough that Molera, who is an incumbent office holder, that nobody sort of followed this 11th commandment you guys talk about all the time, but that also here's -- here's -- there was this, shall we say, ethnic undertone, perhaps, to some of what was going on in that election.

>> Grant Woods: Whether there was or wasn't, it's going to be perceived by that in the Latino community --

>> Sam Coppersmith: Blanchard has an --

>> Michael: Have you ever cycled to answer my question yet?

>> Sam Coppersmith: I'm dealing with a co-chair here. I need to get my points in.

>> Grant Woods: I'll answer for you. Blanchard needs to run his campaign now, he will win the race.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Blanchard's advantage is anybody who beat Jeff Groscost is a get out of primary free card he can use.

>> Grant Woods: It will be difficult to get the Republicans to rally around Tom Horne given what happened there. Keith bee seems to be running surprisingly well and he ran a pretty classy campaign, he's a sharp guy. I think he should be commended for his race.

>> Michael: That's been moving back and forth as you can see on the screen. 71% of the precincts reporting. Jaime Molera now number two. Keith bee in third in that race. But still Tom Horne with 18,000 or so --

>> Grant Woods: That doesn't do much for you at the end of the day whether you nosed out Keith bee or not.

>> Michael: That's right. Let's see if we can pull up the latest returns on the Secretary of State. The last time we looked Jan Brewer, the Maricopa County supervisor, was leading that race over Sal DiCiccio. That remains the figure right now. Grant, my suspicion is there that Jan Brewer's fairly solid Maricopa County base is paying off.

>> Grant Woods: I would think so. She represented Sun City and that area for a long time. She's very flexible in her views. Let's put it that way. I mean, she was elected to the board of supervisors by defeating Ed King because he supported the Bank One Ball Park.

>> Sam Coppersmith: And now her name is on it.

>> Grant Woods: She was out there opening night waving, hey, this is the greatest thing ever.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I didn't want to have to vote for the tax, but it's great to go to the games, isn't it?

>> Grant Woods: Oh, sure.

>> Sam Coppersmith: She's winning in Maricopa County on the Secretary of State website, but it's not a runaway. I mean -- but --

>> Michael: DiCiccio has his own basis --

>> Sam Coppersmith: Collins is -- she's just not competitive in Maricopa County.

>> Grant Woods: Once again, Collins, I think, we don't know whether she could have raised money or not, but being close to the governor, many people viewed her as the most competent of the candidates. The other two were kind of classic PALLS and here is Chris Comiskey sitting in waiting for the Democrats, a very capable candidate, I think the Republicans are going to have their hands full and would be the underdog.

>> Sam Coppersmith: It's hard to tell where we are. The Secretary of State's website is showing about 84% of the precincts counted in Maricopa County, but I don't know how they are tabulating early votes. I think early votes and vote by mails were counted separately and not tallied to a precinct. So I think if they're showing 84% of the precinct, that means really only about 8% of the vote is still out, because of that 16% half already voted early.

>> Michael: In fact, I think as of yesterday they had about 115,000 early ballots in. I know they are counted separately, Sam, I'm just not certain --

>> Sam Coppersmith: They are showing 144,000 votes in Maricopa County counted. So...

>> Michael: Boy, that would mean only about 30,000 today. Of course, a 20% turnout, there are, what, about a million-two, million-three registered voters in Maricopa County. That's only going to indicate about 250,000 total showing up if that turnout prediction held true. You are watching election 2002 coverage on Channel 8. I'm Michael Grant joined by former Attorney General Grant Woods and former congressman Sam Coppersmith. Everyone is a former around here. Why don't we move up to --

>> Grant Woods: What about the Attorney General, the most important race, the one everybody is hering --

>> Michael: The Attorney General's race for Grant's benefit, let's check in on the Attorney General race. The last time we saw Andrew Thomas was leading that one, and maybe we can get the most recent result on, or, Sam, Grant, do either of you --

>> Sam Coppersmith: Three quarters of the precinct, it's still -- Thomas has dropped under 50% but still has a pretty hefty lead on Greene and Robberson.

>> Michael: I realize all the things that happened in the campaign, but it seems to me that that's a race that you look at four or five months ago and you think John Greene, a former Senate president, the name I.D., that kind of thing, may not run away with a race, but he should be a clear favorite, and that race simply has never developed that way.

>> Grant Woods: No and I would point a few things out there. One is that legislative leaders are legends mainly in their own mind and in the mind of insiders. But the idea that virtually anyone in the public knew who John Greene was I think is just false. Statewide people don't know who he is.

>> Michael: And it had been a number of years.

>> Grant Woods: And it has been while. I would argue if they do know who he was, then his numbers would be lower than they are now. But what happened there is with Greene running, Greene and Roberson running not clean, and Andy Thomas running clean, it's pretty interesting situation. Greene raise add lot of money. Besides being Senate president, he's always carried the water for the insurance companies in this state, in their pocket as far as I'm concerned, then he became insurance commissioner, which was curious, and if you look at his campaign finance reports, I mean, I didn't know there were that many State Farm agents in Arizona. The good hands were all in his pocket, apparently. So consequently, Andy Thomas received an awful lot of money to spend in this race because he was the clean candidate. Interesting, because he is the big conservative. He is very, very conservative. And Thomas ran, I think, a very effective campaign. He identified himself for what he thinks he is, and that is he's going to fight crime, he ran against a homosexual agenda, he ran against -- he's a pro-life and a right to life agenda, and these are the issues that are important to him. Greene, who knows what he was running for. Robberson was I'm the most competent person and in a primary, as Sam saide earlier, I think Andy was able to identify what he was all about, energize those people, and he had the money to make it count.

>> Sam Coppersmith: The one point I would like to pick up on that, John Greene was a legislative lead ear lot more recently than Alfredo Gutierrez, and for all the talk of well, Alfredo had this heritage or people will call this, the chance -- he was Senate president a number of Senate presidents ago and what, is it, like -- what is it John updike's book, memoirs of the Ford administration? It doesn't work.

>> Michael: Sam, one thing that it does seem to me the Democrats have done very well this election cycle, Terry Goddard sitting and waiting, unopposed. Chris Comiskey waiting and unopposed. Jay Blanchard with opposition, but at a reasonably calm primary race. The Democrats, seems to me, did an excellent job marshalling their resources and getting their troops in order, leaving them fairly fresh for the general election cycle. Now, I realize sometimes that can be a downside. You don't pick up the primary publicity, but it seems to me that the Ds did a pretty good job in that area.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Well, I -- maybe you fight the last war, but having been around in '94 and having been on the ballot when you had a tough year and ultimately the terrain turned very hostile towards Democrats, but there were all sorts of primaries in '94 because when people got in the race you couldn't really tell. End of '93 looked like it might be -- '92 was a good year for Ds in the state. Looked like '94 might be able to build on that and a lot of people jumped into the race in what turned out to be a cataclysmic year. I think some of those memories are people -- are still fresh in people's minds and they don't want to make those kinds of mistakes, so there were a lot of people sort of saying maybe I run, maybe I don't. It was an opportunity for them to sort of step back.

>> Grant Woods: You had with Jim Peterson someone who has chairman of the Democratic party who is willing to step in and put some pressure on and say we really strongly encourage you to do this and not to do this. Republicans are all free agents.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Keep in mind, though, it didn't really work in the governor's race.

>> Grant Woods: That's the only one, though. In other races, part of it may also be that there seems to be a party breakdown on clean elections. But Democrats will generally run clean. Why? Because we don't have all those State Farm agents who are willing to line up and write those checks. And in that kind of situation --

>> Sam Coppersmith: There's people that believe in it also. Democrats traditionally don't have a problem with going to the government for whatever, and Republicans traditionally, suppose supposedly --

>> Grant Woods: Traditionally Republicans don't have problems with elections being bought by private interests. Actually, you know n2000, we just wanted to see every vote counted.

>> Grant Woods: Still bet bitter about that. '94, 2000 -- I wonder if they'll win if they keep bringing up these things or is it only when they lose that we have to hear about this.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I'm a history buff.

>> Michael: Final question. We wanted to do a full race wrap in a couple minutes, but Terry Goddard looking forward to a run against Andrew Thomas if this result holds up?

>> Sam Coppersmith: Well, the result holds up, I think in many ways you have the better race for Terry Goddard to run against. Here you have somebody who just preached to one choir in one congregation, and that choir in that congregation is not reflective of the state as a whole. This is a pro-choice state. How does he walk that cat back after having pledged his soul and his troth without basically driving his base to distraction?

>> Grant Woods: You don't have to worry about that. He won't do that. He's a true believer, for bet or or worse.

>> Michael: Stand by. We want to keep you updated on the latest numbers from the Secretary of State's office so let's look at the latest full set of election results right now. .

>> Michael: 10 minutes after 10:00, election 2002 coverage on KAET Phoenix. I'm Michael Grant joined by former Attorney General Grant Woods and former congressman Sam Coppersmith, bringing you the latest numbers on election 2002. We are glad you are here. Let me update you on the key races we are following and then we will talk about the Congressional District results. So let's go to the latest returns. The Democratic primary for governor, as you can see, 72% of the precincts reporting. Janet Napolitano, the Attorney General, with a healthy lead over the rest of the field, including former senator Alfredo Gutierrez. In the Republican primary for governor, Matt Salmon, 73% of the precincts reporting, 56% of the vote. Secretary of the state Betsey Bayless 30% and state treasurer Carol springer with 14%. In the Republican primary for Secretary of State, Maricopa County supervisor Jan Brewer 46%, Sal DiCiccio, the former Phoenix city council man 34%, and Sharon Collins from Tucson, 20%. Jay Blanchard, the state senator in the Democratic primary for superintendent of public instruction winning handily at this point in time with 72% of the precincts reporting over rod rich. Tom Horne is fairly handy about 24,000 votes winning over the incumbent Jaime mow Lear you a, 10 percentage points with 72% of those precincts reporting. In the race for Attorney General, Andrew Thomas almost half the vote. John Greene and foster Robberson dividing the ballots. Only 35% of the precincts reporting there. Moving now up to Northern Arizona, we'll be talking about these Congressional District races when we complete the latest rundown. This is that rural Arizona northern district. Diane Prescott, late indications were that she was surging on the Democratic side and certainly those results are indicating as much, 24% of the vote, Apache County attorney Steve Udall with 20% of the vote, Payson businessman George Cordova 18%, and Fred do value, the former Babbitt aidee -- Duval, the former Babbitt aidee, Washington aidee, has now pulled even, in fact dead even, with Cordova, 18%. Derrick Watchman was generally thought to do bet inner that race. Mr. Watchman, an advisor to the Navajo tribal council. On the Republican side of that, Rick RENZ.

>> EUFPLT: -- Renzi, 26% of the vote, Sydney Hay 23%, Alan Everett, the former Sedona Mayor, 20%, and Lloyd Tenney, former Navajo County supervisor 15%. Most people thought he would do much better in that -- or Lewis tenny.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I can't tell because these numbers aren't the same as what we're seeing in the Secretary of State's website. Secretary of State's website has fewer lower vote totals in all these races but no votes from Navajo County, so that may explain.

>> Michael: That certainly would Lewis Tenney showing at least at this point in time. This now moves down to the new CD 2, but it is the seat that long-time 26-year congressman Bob Stump is vacating. Trent Franks --

>> Sam Coppersmith: He vacated the district long before. He's giving up the seat now.

>> Michael: Trent Franks has now taken the lead by about 500 votes over Stump chief of staff Lisa Atkins, 27%, 25%. And it drops, as you can see to John Keegan, the Peoria Mayor, at 21% of the vote, state senator Scott Bundgaard at 18% of the vote. Trent Franks had dropped a lot of his own money into that campaign in the final couple of weeks of the campaign, and at least based on these results seems to be paying off. U.S. house CD 5, this is for the right to face incumbent congressman J.D. Hayworth, Craig Columbus, 49% of that vote. Larry King with 30% of the vote. Down in Congressional District 7, this is also a new district that runs from Tucson out to the Yuma area, Raul Grijalva, the Pima County supervisor, 50% of the vote, Elaine Richardson, the state senator, with 20% of that vote. 35% of those precincts reporting in the primary for CD 7 on the Republican side of that race Sweeney with 38% and the rest of the numbers, as you can see there. That district, if memory serves, Sam, is a very safe Democrat district. Who wins the primary --

>> Grant Woods: And he's run about 20 times.

>> Michael: That's right. Taking a look at some of the local legislative districts, Senate district 14, this is sort of in the south and West Phoenix area, incumbent house member bill brotherton 50% of the vote, Earl WILCOX, former legislator, 49% and more than half of those precincts reporting in that Senate district 7 this indicating 100% of the precincts reporting, which I still tend to suspect a little bit. Jim Waring 39% of the vote. Wes Marsh, who has been having all the difficulties --

>> Sam Coppersmith: Those numbers are awfully low for 100%. Turnout is hire --

>> Michael: Yeah, that's a total of only about, what, 85 -- 9,000 votes, which would be low for 100% of the precincts reporting. We hope at least the percentages are somewhat representative of what may be going on in Senate district 7, Republican. Senate district 9, Bob Burns seeking to return to the Senate and currently seems to be doing so with 54% of that vote. Senate district 11, that a hotly contested race between Barbara Leff and Susan Gerard, and, indeed, those numbers indicate how hotly contested it is. 51%-49% with just a little bit more than 100-vote spread. Slade Mead at this point in time handling Laurie Daniels quite handily with 53% of the precincts reporting in the Republican primary in Senate district 20. In house district 5, Jake Flake with 40% of the vote. Debra Brimhall is trailing very badly in third place. You may recall a couple weeks ago Debra Brimhall, at least a portion of Debra Brimhall's family came out and saide, no, we haven't seen her in this district for a long time.

>> Grant Woods: Debra Brimhall also home schools her kids at the legislature, which some people think is a little cruel. You know --

>> Sam Coppersmith: To whom?

>> Grant Woods: To the kids.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Just checking.

>> Grant Woods: If you are your environment means anything in child raising.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I thought you expect good teachers to overcome all sorts of environmental problems.

>> Grant Woods: Not that.

>> Michael: House district 8, Republican, this is one of those wide-open really no incumbent races, and as you can see, right now two of these people will move on from this primary.

>> Sam Coppersmith: It's nice to have the name leg none a Republican primary in Arizona. It's hard to lose.

>> Michael Grant: Absolutely right. Reagan and ROZSATI.

>> Grant Woods: Maybe that's all the people who voted up there?

>> Michael: Interesting. House district 11, this is something of a surprise. Generally it was thought that Steve May and Deb Gullett were going to be one-two in that race, and as you can see from those returns there, Steve Tully is doing very well. He has a couple hundred votes on Steve -- on May, but obviously there's room for movement in that race.

>> Grant Woods: That's an interesting race, though, just because you have three people, who I think, many people think have done a very good job and really three of the best people and they happened to get put in the same -- it's a shame one of them's got to go and I think you're right a lot of people thought Tully would be the odd person out, but who knows, he may come out on top.

>> Michael: In fact, Sam, a lot of people think that this was sort of a micro-- district 11 was a microcosmic example of how an independent redistricting commission would do redistricting a lot differently than the legislature because the commission just crashed a lot of incumbents together.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Which would never happen in the legislature.

>> Michael: That's right. As promised, we want to go around to the Congressional Districts. Let's start, Sam, up in Northern Arizona in that CD 1 race. Diane Prescott started getting word a come, three weeks ago that she was surging in that race. That's an interesting figure, because Steve Udall very popular Apache County attorney, obviously carrying the very well-known "udall" name.

>> Sam Coppersmith: In one of the few districts in Arizona where a name means something because of population stability. Hard to tell, though, because this is a district where where the votes are coming from really makes a difference and these numbers aren't consistent with what we're seeing on the Secretary of State website, and I don't know how accurate theirs are in the percentage of polls --

>> Michael: What in general are you seeing on the Secretary of State website?

>> Sam Coppersmith: You're seeing that Yavapai County went strongly for Diane Prescott, which is where she's from, and that seemed to go well for her. Steve Udall, as you might expect, did well in Apache County, but still ran behind Derrick Watchman. So even though we were' only seeing about 60% of the Apache County precincts in, we must be seeing a number of tribal precincts coming in from the reservation. It's hard to say where this shakes out and why those numbers are so different than what we're seeing. This is one where geography is going to mat ear lot.

>> Michael: On the Republican side of that race, Grant, it was thought in the past three, four weeks that the carpet bagging charge had caught up to Rick Renzi who came in with a clearly funded campaign up there, but -- although he's clearly not running away with the race, he is still in first position at this point in time.

>> Grant Woods: You know, Arizona is a changing place, and that district, albeit rural, just look at Prescott and Prescott Valley, how much it's changed, and you would think, as you saide, that a Tenney or a whiting from years past would win easily, or on the Democratic side a Udall would win easily, but things change, and no more evidence than that that this guy moves into the district and dumps a lot of money and he appears to be winning. It's still up for grabs there. I think also what that shows is that people ought to take the guy seriously, because despite all the handicaps of moving into a district it looks like he may have pulled it offer. He'll probably run a strong race.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Don't forget 10 years ago last time there was redistricting, there was about 45% of the district was Maricopa County. So the numbers aren't strictly comparable, but Doug weed moves into the district, move three times during the course of the campaign to make sure he winds up in the district as redistricting goes forward and then wins that primary. So carpet bagging may not work as well as we would suspect it would.

>> Michael: And, Sam, let's flag a point you made a couple of minutes ago, at least you were saying that they were -- we were showing no returns reporting from Navajo County.

>> Sam Coppersmith: On the Secretary of State website. But it could be AP --

>> Grant Woods: Returns from Gila County either.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Gila County would mat ear lot, Navajo County would matter in the Republican primary because that would be Tenney's base.

>> Michael: They're doing a special Chad flaking process up there.

>> Sam Coppersmith: You have to train people to do.

>> Michael: And it slows down the whole process.

>> Grant Woods: I would say on the Democratic side, though, I'm a little biassed for Mr. Duval, but I think Fred Duval is still, according to these numbers, in the hunt, as if Cordova and as if Udall and Prescott -- any of those four could still win this.

>> Sam Coppersmith: We're seeing extraordinarily low numbers.

>> Grant Woods: I can't believe you're going to win a congressional seat with 5,000 votes.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I mean, it's possible because there were that people people running and the top four were so evenly split. But it would be a strange thing --

>> Grant Woods: I figured there were 5,000 relatives of Udall up there --

>> Sam Coppersmith: If you just got 5,000 friends, everybody you went to high school and college with --

>> Grant Woods: This would be like my family, if I had 5,000, I think I could pull 4,000 of them. 'would lose a thousand.

>> Michael: Like Debra Brimhall's family.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I hear she is pulling strongly among relatives, but it's still only like 53, 54%.

>> Michael: CD 2, you surprised by the Trent Franks result at the current time?

>> Grant Woods: I am. Trent Franks, I think this is a good example of, again, a couple of things. There may be a trend here tonight when you see a big field, unknown candidates, or maybe lessor known candidates Lisa Atkins, for example, once again being the aidee to somebody is great for the insiders but doesn't mean anybody knows who she is other than the iners. Bundgaard, a legislator, Keegan a Mayor, former legislator, but it's a small circle really except for people involved in government. So here comes Franks, dumps a lot of money in and Trent Franks much like Andrew Tom Thomas in the AG's race, he knows what he is about. I think these guys are sincere, very conservative. They appeal from a religious perspective. It's not only a part of their life, but part of their politics, and if they can energize that base and turn them out, they can win a race. It looks like Trent Franks has a heck of a race and whoever wins will be the congressman. So you could be looking at congressman Trent Franks.

>> Michael: Congressional district 7 down in Arizona, Hispanics really wanted to make that a hispanic district. The concern was that maybe there were too many of them running down there. Raul GRIJALV --

>> Sam Coppersmith: At least what we're saying -- seeing he is running strong in that kind of field. He is close to 50% in an eight-way field and while you can discount a number of people in that race, at least the top three are all people who are worthy of consideration. He's almost getting the majority in an eight-way race. It's an extraordinary --

>> Grant Woods: That would be the sort of race, I would say if you look at somebody winning that handily, it's someone you would have to say to keep your eye on for bigger and better things in the future.

>> Michael: Emily's List had come in with quite a bit of money for Elaine Richardson.

>> Sam Coppersmith: She's an excellent candidate, strong candidate, would run a good race. Jaime Gutierrez, a very impressive people. Newspaper endorsements were split all over the place. This is -- I think an election that was won on the ground and I think --

>> Grant Woods: And you were a mark Fleischer guy and he's apparent will you not winning.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I was a keep mark Fleischer under 5% guy.

>> Michael: Speaking of impressive people, Sam Coppersmith, thank you very much for joining us. Almost impressive people, Grant Woods, thank you.

>> Grant Woods: Was appear last-minute shot there?

>> Sam Coppersmith: He's just making up for all the air time you stole.

>> Grant Woods: He's sulking because some of his are getting smoked.

>> Michael: To see a transcript of tonight's show for reasons unbeknownst to me, please check out our website at www.kaet.asu.edu when you get there, click on "Horizon." Follow the links. Join us tomorrow for more election analysis as well as some professional advice on how to deal with emotional effects of 9-11. Thanks for being here this evening. Have a great one. Good night.