A political action committee, Our Arizona Values, has seemingly appeared out of nowhere this election cycle to support the most liberal Republicans in key primary battles. Our Arizona Values, funded by the Colorado-based group, Unite America, has no connection to Arizona or Arizona’s values voters.
Unite America/Our Arizona Values is largely bankrolled by Democrats and avowed Never-Trumpers like Kathryn Murdoch, daughter-in-law of the late Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch has pledged $100 Million to “fix” the political system so that it will address liberal causes like gun control, climate change, in-home voting, etc., as previously reported in the ADI. Murdoch also worked for the Clinton Climate Initiative for years.
While their early targets were conservatives Nancy Barto and Kathy Pearce, the group has begun to spend massive sums of money targeting conservative Steve Montenegro in Arizona’s 13th Legislative District. Given Montenegro’s extraordinarily solid conservative record, their attacks are based almost entirely on rumors that were spread during Montenegro’s 2018 Congressional run. Montenegro’s challenge is that attacks don’t have to be truthful to be effective, they just have to be repeated enough times, and Our Arizona Values is blitzing the district with massive sums of money.
“As a nine year observer of legislative activity and voting patterns, I can attest to Mr. Montenegro’s impeccable conservative record when he previously served in the AZ legislature. That of course is sufficient reason to make him a target,” said Jose Borrajero, director of the Arizona People’s Lobbyist. “Heavily funded out of state liberals want to not only elect Democrats, but also left leaning Republicans that will join Democrats on key votes, a la Heather Carter. But there may be two other reasons for wanting Montenegro out of the way. One is that he is likely to be the only conservative Republican Latino in the AZ legislature. The other may be payback because he was a very forceful critic of the way Heather Carter handled the Medicaid Expansion debate a few years back. In fact, the main problem is that she allowed no debate at all.”
Republican voters in LD13 have no idea that the “Arizona Values” group encouraging them to vote against “bad” Montenegro and for “conservative” Joanne Osborne is really a Democratic-funded front group, trying to elect Democrat-lite candidates like Osborne while kneecapping real conservatives like Montenegro.
With ballots already in voters’ hands, voters in several districts around Arizona need to spread the word, and quickly. Or they’ll be fooled into electing the Republican candidates that were hand-picked for them by Clinton loyalists.