The Daily Agenda: Making their pitches

The District 3 supervisor race is taking shape … And we’ve got you covered with more flashcards … Santa Cruz County says state auditor screwed up.

The race to replace longtime Supervisor Sharon Bronson in District 3 was one of the most-watched primaries in Pima County this summer.

Bronson left a big hole on the Board of Supervisors when she resigned last winter after serving for more than two decades. Four Democrats stepped up to replace her and the eventual winner was Jen Allen. 

While Allen was the favorite candidate of 53% of Democratic voters in the primary, she didn’t get the support of one key Democrat: Bronson. She endorsed Edgar Soto, who got 19% of the vote in the primary. In the general election, the candidate touting Bronson’s endorsement is even further from the Democratic mainstream. It’s Janet Wittenbraker, a Republican.

Now that the Nov. 5 general election is on the horizon, voters are about to see how Allen’s views stack up to those of Wittenbraker, who ran unopposed in the primary, and independent Iman-Utopia Layjou Bah.

All three candidates are relatively new to politics. For Allen, this is her first run for public office. Wittenbraker popped up on the scene last year when she ran to be mayor of Tucson. Bah ran for Congress in 2020.

Democrats have a slight voter registration advantage in District 3, which covers western Pima County, Tucson’s southwest side, and parts of northern Tucson and Marana.

But that advantage is not nearly as overwhelming as it is elsewhere in the county, like District 5, so the seat is within range for both Democratic and Republican candidates.

Allen maintains her fundraising advantage in the general election. She still has $39,000 of the $158,000 she raised this election cycle, far more than the $1,000 Wittenbraker has left of the $20,000 she raised or Bayjou-Bah’s $500.

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The contrast in how Allen and Wittenbraker view the role of government is clear, as they showed at a forum last weekend hosted by the League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson.

Allen says she brings a “strong belief in the role of government” to the table. She pointed to the social safety net during the Covid pandemic, saying it was “barely a thread at best,” particularly for people of color and the working class.

She wants the county to play a bigger role in combating climate change and dealing with gun violence, like banning assault rifles or enforcing red-flag laws.  

Wittenbraker, on the other hand, said citizens should play a bigger role than government officials. She called for county residents to voluntarily use less water to deal with the effects of climate change, instead of relying on broad regulations. And she doesn’t support any government controls on firearms.

Wittenbraker did say that she believes Pima County’s elections are free and fair (as did Allen and Bah). She encouraged people who questioned election integrity to volunteer as poll observers on Election Day or check signatures. 

Bah took a more philosophical approach to many of the questions posed to him at the forum. He called for bringing people together to solve problems and urged them to see the “bigger picture.”

Bah’s main issue was how the county deals with hard drugs, calling it a “hole in the boat” that needs to be patched.

Like we said with the District 4 race, we’ll keep digging into this race. In the meantime, you can learn more about the candidates by watching the League of Women Voters forum and interviews with Allen and Wittenbraker from the Tucson Metro evaluations or visiting the campaign websites of Bah, Allen, and Wittenbraker.

Lax oversight: As the $39 million fraud debacle unfolds in Santa Cruz County, officials there say they are going to sue state auditors and the attorney general for failing to uncover the alleged fraud by former County Treasurer Liz Gutfahr, the Nogales International’s Daisy Zavala Magaña reports. County officials say state auditors stopped driving down to the county in 2020 and only audited June financial statements, which allowed the fraud scheme to succeed for years.

Jail looms large: The spike in deaths and crumbling infrastructure at the Pima County jail were key points of contention Tuesday evening in a debate between incumbent Sheriff Chris Nanos, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Heather Lappin, the Arizona Luminaria reports.

Long waits: Asylum seekers in Nogales, Sonora who are trying to follow the Biden administration’s rules now have to wait up to eight months for an appointment with U.S. officials, KJZZ’s Alisa Reznick reports. Researchers at the University of Texas found wait-times reached up to nine months elsewhere on the border, where U.S. officials offer 1,450 appointments for asylum seekers every day.

Champing at the bit: New home loans in Southern Arizona are growing at the third-highest rate in the country, Arizona Public Media’s Zachary Ziegler reports. Those loans are up 16.5% over the past year, likely in anticipation of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates. About half are for new home purchases, while the others are refinanced mortgages or home equity lines of credit.

Getting the word out: Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly got some national attention with a profile in The 19th as reporter Jessica Kutz followed Cázares-Kelly on the campaign trail in remote areas near Three Points, where she talked about the challenges Indigenous people face with regard to voter registration and rights.

Veto power for a few: Arizona voters are going to decide whether to give up some of their rights to make laws when they vote on Proposition 134 in November, Capitol Media Service’s Howard Fischer reports. The measure would require signatures be gathered from every legislative district in the state, which Tucson Democratic state Sen. Priya Sundareshan says would give any single district, many of which were drawn to give one party an overwhelming majority, veto power over the state as a whole.

237,000: The number of registered Democratic voters in Pima County. Republicans come in at 179,000 and “other” voters account for 219,000, according to the County Recorder’s Office.