In-person voting lifts GOP incumbents in District 11

While the big federal races garnered most of the attention on Election Day, Republicans in the Arizona Legislature were quietly hanging onto their majority in the House and Senate for the moment.

District 11 was part of that, despite a great showing by Democratic challengers in the early ballots.

Republican Rep. Bret Roberts of Maricopa said he expected that turn of events, noting the suspicion of mail-in ballots stirred up at the national level had caused Republicans to go to the polls in person. That is a switch from the historical turnout that has usually seen Democrats voting at the polls while Republicans vote early.

“This had to do with the Trump campaign’s issue with early ballots,” Roberts said. “It really had an effect on people. A lot of people held them and turned them in at the polling place. So, we anticipated that Election Day was going to be heavily Republican.”

A steady stream of voters showed up at Maricopa precincts to participate in Election 2020.

Vehicles lined up along Powers Parkway in front of Global Water Resources for Precinct 80 voting while Precinct 74 voters were lined up out the door at Pima Butte Elementary.

“I think how I conducted myself and things of that nature made it possible to get more independents and possibly some Democrats,” Roberts said. “I know a lot people early on from the primary felt I was at risk, but I wasn’t.”

With unprecedented early ballots counted first on Tuesday, Democrat Felipe Perez, M.D., held a lead over Roberts and his fellow Republican incumbent Mark Finchem for much of the night in the contest for two seats. Then as precincts began reporting in-person ballots, especially in Maricopa, Roberts and then Finchem moved ahead of Perez.

According to the unofficial tally, Roberts was the top vote-getter with 57,887 votes (34.23%) while Finchem wrangled 57,217 (33.83%). Perez trails with 54,028 votes (32%).

According to Pinal County Elections Department, there are 41,000 early ballots and 1,800 provisional ballots left to be counted. An update is not expected until Thursday.

Just over 91% of the votes for Perez came from early ballots. Eighty percent of Roberts’ support came on early ballots.

It was a similar phenomenon in the race for the District 11 Senate seat. Incumbent Sen. Vince Leach trailed Democratic challenger JoAnne Mendoza early and then passed her in the very-late vote counts.

He currently leads Mendoza 53%-47%.

“Every year, it’s a little bit different,” Leach said. “But when you overlay COVID on it and you don’t have that face-to-face meeting with constituents, it just wasn’t the same.”

Though he was able to do a little door-knocking all masked up, Leach credits his “land force” of volunteers with keeping his name in front of voters throughout District 11.

“Quite honestly, the volunteers got me across the finish line,” he said. “I’ve never seen volunteers like I’ve seen this year.”

He said voters also had a clear choice as he and Mendoza laid out their platforms clearly and the differences were stark.

“It wasn’t like we were both right at the center point and agreed on topics. We didn’t agree on topics,” Leach said. “And that campaign had a different idea on how the state should be run, and the voters said no.”

Roberts said he believes he was elected because of his stand on divisive issues, but he pushed several bills in the second session that were bipartisan. He said those range from a bill to fund State Route 347 improvements to a bill that would give adoptees access to their birth certificates.

Other issues can be highly partisan – his platform is anti-abortion and pro-gun rights – and Roberts said voters know where he stands, whether they agree with him or not. And they should not be surprised when that shows up in legislation.

In the next session of the Legislature, lawmakers will be having to play catch-up. The advent of COVID-19 killed bills that had been run through the House last session and most will have to be re-introduced.

“Not only are we going to have to work on the issues that didn’t go anywhere last year, but we’re going to have to work on issues that have come up in this whole process,” Roberts said.