The Skinny

A CITY DIVIDED

We’ve been poring over the ward-by-ward breakdown of the Tucson City
Council election and have a few takeaways to share.

• The most obvious: We live in a divided city.

As we suspected as the results came in, Republican Steve
Kozachik pulled off his upset of Democratic incumbent Nina
Trasoff by driving up turnout on the eastside, while Democrats
failed to get their voters out on the westside and southside.

That’s been the formula for GOP success in overcoming the Democratic
voter-registration advantage for more than a decade.

This year, Republicans clobbered Democrats in eastside Ward 2 and
Ward 4, while Democrats whipped Republicans in the other four
wards.

Kozachik, who beat Trasoff by 1,756 votes citywide, lost in his own
ward: Kozachik picked up just 40 percent of the vote in midtown Ward
6.

He also lost his own neighborhood, capturing just 33 percent of the
vote at his local polling place, which combined three precincts near
Campbell Avenue and Grant Road.

In addition to losing Ward 6, Kozachik didn’t fare well in Ward 1
(40 percent), Ward 3 (42 percent) or Ward 5 (38 percent). But in Ward
2, Kozachik captured 61 percent of the vote. In Ward 4, he got 65
percent.

• Those two eastside wards are home to nearly half of the
voters who turned out for the city election. More than 35,700 eastside
voters cast ballots, accounting for about 48 percent of the roughly
74,000 votes that were cast in the election.

Citywide, turnout was 33 percent (which is high for a city
election), but it was even higher in the eastside wards: 35 percent in
Ward 4 and a whopping 43 percent in Ward 2. Four years ago, when
Trasoff and Karin Uhlich knocked out two GOP incumbents, only 24
percent of voters turned out in Ward 4, and 31 percent turned out in
Ward 2.

The difference between those years in the raw number of eastside
voters: 9,457—a hefty jump, especially when you consider that
this year, turnout across the entire city was up by about 12,700 voters
over 2005.

That’s a testament to a well-done get-out-the-vote effort, which was
coordinated by Maricopa-based political consultant Nathan
Sproul, the Arizona Republican Party and the Pima County Republican
Party.

On the southside and westside, turnout was typically low. In Ward 5,
it was a dismal 21 percent. In Ward 1, it was 26 percent.

The news was better for Democrats in the other city wards. In
north-central Ward 3, 30 percent of voters cast a ballot, while in
midtown Ward 6, 39 percent of voters turned out.

• The Ward 3 race followed a similar dynamic as the Ward 6
contest. Uhlich won Ward 1 (58 percent), Ward 3 (55 percent), Ward 5
(59 percent) and Ward 6 (56 percent). It’s interesting to note that
among the four wards she won, Uhlich performed the worst within her own
ward, which suggests weakness on the constituent-service front.

Republican Ben Buehler-Garcia won Ward 2 (57 percent) and
Ward 4 (60 percent). But he didn’t find much support among his
neighbors, getting only 28 percent of the vote at his local polling
place, which included three precincts north of the UA.

• Democrat Richard Fimbres, who will replace the
retiring Steve Leal in Ward 5, outperformed the other Democrats
in every ward, which isn’t surprising, given that he didn’t carry any
of the baggage of an incumbent.

Fimbres’ support ranged from a high of 67 percent in Ward 5 to a low
of 39 percent in Ward 4.

However, his GOP opponent, Shaun McClusky, did better than
the other Republican candidates in his own neighborhood. He got 40
percent of the vote at his local polling place, which combined seven
precincts.

BIG SPENDER!

Here’s one more surprise from the city election: Democrat Richard
Fimbres, who won the race to replace Steve Leal in Ward 5,
was outspent by Republican opponent Shaun McClusky.

Post-election campaign-finance reports show that McClusky spent
$90,211, compared to Fimbres’ $78,526, through Nov. 9.

McClusky, a political rookie, also managed to outraise Fimbres,
despite Fimbres’ deep community ties. McClusky raised a total of
$49,649, which was matched by $45,822 in city funds.

Fimbres raised just $44,837, which was matched by $38,442 in city
funds.

McClusky had trailed Fimbres in fundraising until the final weeks of
the campaign. Between Oct. 15 and Nov. 9, McClusky raised $15,420,
while Fimbres raised just $5,936. A review of the contributions shows
that auto dealer Jim Click apparently put some pressure on
associates to kick in to McClusky’s campaign.

McClusky spent a staggering $82,330 after Oct. 15, according to his
campaign-finance report. The spending included roughly $22,000 on phone
calls and $54,500 on a mailer accusing Fimbres of mishandling money
when he headed up the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety.

Those campaign expenditures were paid to Lincoln Strategy Group,
which is run by Nathan Sproul, the aforementioned political
consultant.

CONGRESSIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

The chattering class is still abuzz about the possibility that
Republican state Sen. Jonathan Paton will take on Democratic
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2010.

After the mess of a special session over the last week, we wouldn’t
be surprised to see Paton decide that running for Congress sounds like
a better plan than trying to figure out how to balance the state
budget.

We suspect that if Paton does run, he’ll resign from his seat to
concentrate on the race. After all, it will take a lot of time and
energy just to raise the necessary amount of money.

By getting out while the getting’s good, Paton would also avoid
having to vote for all those politically unpopular cuts that lawmakers
will have to make next year.

That raises the question of who would replace Paton. We would
imagine that both District 30 House members, Frank Antenori and
David Gowan, would have some interest in moving up, but neither
one seems like the kind of Republican who would find much support from
the Democrat-dominated Pima County Board of Supervisors, which gets to
make the appointment. Could former House member Marian McClure win over enough precinct committeemen to ensure that her name was one
of the three that the supes would get to choose from?

Republican Jesse Kelly—who had raised about $150,000 at
the end of the last reporting period for his campaign in Congressional
District 8—said when he launched his effort that he didn’t want
to be a politician, and he was only in the race because no other
qualified Republicans were stepping up to run.

Nonetheless, Kelly says he’ll fight Paton for the nomination if the
senator decides to get into the race.

“We’ve come too far and worked too hard,” Kelly says. “Now we are
the most qualified candidate, period. … If the senator wants to get
in this race, by all means, the water’s warm. Jump right in. I hope
he’s ready for battle. All that means is that I’ll beat him before I
beat Gabrielle Giffords.”

Kelly argues that tapping someone with legislative experience would
be a GOP mistake.

“We’ve done that before,” Kelly says. “We’ve run the safe politician
that made sense from the state Legislature before. The American people
are tired of that now. They want somebody new. The biggest benefit I
have is that I’m not a politician. That’s what qualifies me more.”

Find early and late-breaking Skinny at our daily dispatch, The Range.

This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2009.