Election update!
David Lujan conceded to Felecia Rotellini in the Democratic primary for AG.
Rotellini will face either Andrew Thomas or Tom Horne in November, after the votes are counted on the GOP side, which was even closer than the Dems'.
From the Republic:
Lujan, leader of the Democratic minority in the state House, conceded to Rotellini on Twitter.
“It was a good fight,” Lujan wrote on his Twitter account. “Now, I am going to work as hard as I can to elect Felecia Rotellini as our next attorney general! Congrats Felecia!”
On the GOP side, the news is relatively promising. As Stephen Lemons puts it:
It’s not looking good for former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. As of the end of today’s count of the remaining ballots, state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne had expanded his lead of about 400 votes from yesterday to 1,073.
The margin needs to be much narrower—only 200 votes—to warrant a recount.
There are conflicting accounts of how many ballots are outstanding—one paper said 40,000, another more than 50,000—but there are more than enough to swing the election ether way.
7:24 AM
Andrew Thomas Agonistes
From the Republic, reporting that Tom Horne how has a 373-vote lead over Andrew Thomas, enough to avoid a recount:
First, Thomas delivered an all-but-victory speech at Republican Party headquarters, while a dejected Horne told TV crews that low turnout had likely cost him the election.
Then Horne roared back, erasing a deficit of some 9,000 votes as ballots were counted in Pima County and elsewhere. Thomas' spokesman, Jason Rose, appeared to concede the race to Horne in a series of tweets, urging Republicans to come together behind their new standard bearer.
Wednesday morning, in a statement released through Rose, Thomas appeared to pedal back from those words.
“The time for debating and tough words in the Republican primary is over,” Thomas said. “The time for vote counting is upon us. I appreciated Tom Horne’s words earlier in the campaign and just last night when things were not looking his way that he would support me were I to be the nominee. Likewise, if Tom prevails I don’t want there to be any doubt that I will support him against the Democrat. Let’s see where the vote counting takes us.”
Read more here.
10:46 AM
Tom Horne: "I'll stick to my own facts!"
Heat City has a hilarious post about outgoing state superintendant Tom Horne, now a candidate for attorney general.
He’s been going around saying a fence would work along the U.S.-Mexico border because Israel’s fence in the West Bank has “totally put a stop to terrorism.”
There are of course about 19 differences between the two situations that render the comparison risible.
Nick Martin takes a look at just the issue of stopping terrorism, and finds that Israel is still chronicling scores of acts each month. Martin called Horne for a response and relates this exchange:
“I think that was pretty common knowledge,” Horne said. “It’s been all over the newspapers.”
Asked which newspapers had reported it, Horne could not name one.
[…]
But instead of changing his mind after hearing the facts, Horne stuck to his story. He said he remained certain of his claim’s accuracy despite what the Israeli government reported.
“I’ll stand by it,” he said. “I’m talking about something that there is pretty common knowledge about.”
Full post here.
7:55 AM