Is Sylvia Allen Planning to Run Again for Her State Senate Seat?

PHOENIX — In a costly, bare-knuckle ball, Wendy Rogers this calendar week unseated longtime country Sen. Sylvia Allen in the Commune 6 Republican primary.

Wendy Rogers, candidate in the District half dozen State Senate Race, compared how Democrats attack her to the prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed 2 people in Wisconsin.

Rogers received 59% of the vote in the district that stretches from Flagstaff, through Sedona and Rim Country and into the White Mountains.

Sylvia Allen

File photograph

She raised and mostly spent at least $551,000, dwarfing Allen's $126,000. Independent expenditures added hundreds of thousands more to the a entrada that spent more than money on a primary than had been spent on both sides for that seat in the past decade.

Rogers is a retired Air Force fighter pilot colonel, frequent candidate and Phoenix baron. She ran a slashing campaign against Allen, the descendant of a pioneering White Mountains ranching family and caput of the senate educational activity committee.

Rogers will face retired Regular army colonel, nurse and helicopter pilot Felicia French, who raised $214,000, merely spent only $26,000, co-ordinate to the well-nigh recent campaign spending and fundraising reports. Nonetheless, outside "night money" groups spent more than $45,000 attacking French.

The district sprawls across 4 counties. Rogers received xiv,985 votes to Allen'south 10,231. Rogers piled up a nigh ii,000 vote margin in Flagstaff-dominated Coconino Canton and some other 1,400 vote margin in Yavapai County. However, Rogers too eked out the most votes in Navajo County and Gila Counties, adding to a sweep across the lath, co-ordinate to the votes posted on the Secretary of State website on Wednesday morning time.

The senate race got about of the attention in the main, since the iv country House representatives for the district were unopposed.

Incumbent Walt Blackman, a retired career Regular army sergeant from Show Low, pulled in the most votes in the Business firm race, where voters tin can option two. He raised $68,000 and spent almost all of it. Old Rep. Brenda Barton won the 2nd Republican spot, after sitting out a term due to term limits. She raised $16,000 and spent most $5,000, according to pre-ballot filings.

Flagstaff Mayor Coral Evans was the just one Democrat sought the nomination for the Commune 6 House seat . She raised $219,000 and spent only $26,000, leaving her with a sizeable state of war chest for the full general election. She has made education and healthcare the centerpiece of her entrada, but fabricated no appearances in the eastern half of the sprawling commune during the chief.

The Business firm race for Commune 6 had an unusual wrinkle in the form of the campaign of Coconino Canton Supervisor Art Babbott as an independent. He goes straight to the full general election ballot, having gathered nigh twice as many signatures to become on the ballot as the Democratic and Republican candidates. The Flagstaff businessman has played a leading office in wood restoration efforts and has campaigned as a pragmatic problem solver. He raised $55,000 and spent just $15,000.

Republicans have a comfortable registration reward over Democrats in the district, however, Independents account for nearly a 3rd of the voters and generally determine the result of the race.

Spending in the District 6 races set records and the Senate boxing between Allen and Rogers was past far the most expensive legislative primary race in the state.

The full general election battle could put those numbers to shame, since the Republicans are contesting to hold onto their narrow margin in the state House and a more comfortable margin in the state Senate.

This twelvemonth Arizona's a swing land. The almost contempo polls show President Donald Trump trailing presumptive Autonomous nominee Joe Biden in Arizona by roughly iv per centum points. Various polls show Republican Sen. Martha McSally trailing Democrat Mark Kelly by anywhere from 4 to 12 percentage points.

So for the first time in decades, Arizona voters could play a decisive role in the presidential race and decide which party controls the senate.

Moreover, the two House seats in Commune 6 could determine which party controls the country House and the senate seat could play a role in a much less likely Democratic effort to flip the country senate.

The slash and burn Republican master in the Commune 6 Senate race offered a dispiriting preview of the general election — with Rogers railing against "socialist democrats" who hate the country and are determined to destroy it. Rogers, and the independent groups supporting her, sent out mailers and ran a barrage of ads suggesting Allen isn't conservative enough to take on the socialists.

Sen. Allen has long ranked every bit one of the most conservative members of the Arizona legislature. She got her get-go in politics in the "Sagebrush Rebellion." She proved skilful at both disposed to local needs and working for other regional and national political causes. She sometimes provoked national headlines with assorted statements, similar saying the Earth is 6,000 years old, clearing threatened the "browning" of the country and rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would make crops grow faster. She also proved a staunch abet for school choice, pushing state programs that provided vouchers for private and religious schools and advocating for lease schools. She at one point owned and taught in a charter schoolhouse. She was ever-present in customs gatherings and proficient genial, former-manner, intensely local politics. She talked often well-nigh her sprawling family and many grandchildren and rose to leadership roles in the Senate. During her menstruation out of the senate, she was a Navajo County supervisor.

The senate primary entrada opened with an unsuccessful attempt to challenge the signatures on Allen's nominating petitions.

Rogers ran an ubiquitous serial of ads and fliers claiming that Allen failed to back up police and crime victims. The ads focused on Sen. Allen's votes — or missed votes — on several obscure bills dealing with counseling and back up for police officers and crime victims and moves to substantially eliminate the balloter college. The Allen campaign was slow to react to the allegations, which elevated procedural votes on pocket-size bills to the center indicate of the campaign.

The Allen campaign hit back with sharp criticism of Rogers as a carpetbagger who lived in Phoenix instead of in a travel trailer in Flagstaff. State law requires country representatives — but non members of congress — to live in the district they represent. Rogers has run repeatedly for Congress and in 2018 won the Republican nomination in District one, only to lose to Democrat Tom O'Halleran in the general ballot. At least one of her Republican opponents in that race has claimed she slandered him in campaign literature and statements. The Allen campaign maintained Rogers has no involvement in the state legislature, much less District 6. Instead, Allen depicted Roger's campaign equally a stepping stone for another race for Congress.

Allan's supporters too attacked Rogers for falsely claiming endorsements from business organisation people in the commune and prominent elected officials. Some of those endorsements dated back to Rogers' 2018 congressional race.

Peter Aleshire covers county government and other topics for the Independent. He is the old editor of the Payson Roundup. Reach him at paleshire@payson.com

tetreaultchising.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.wmicentral.com/news/latest_news/rogers-unseats-allen-in-bitter-expensive-state-senate-primary-brawl/article_cfedbae4-556d-519f-8ac3-7a07e5d82f26.html

Share this post