If you are on the email list for the Arizona Republican Party then you have received them: solicitations exhorting you to dig deeply and give as much money as you can so that the AZGOP can support the audit taking place in Maricopa County of the 2020 election results.
Arizona’s Audit” they call it, when they’re not calling it “America’s Audit!” And according to media reports, the audit is creating a financial “windfall” for the State GOP organization, which is actually outraising the Arizona Democratic Party.
This is welcome news for a state party that continues to lag behind other state party committees and behind its own historical averages. As Chairman, Kelli Ward’s committee became very dependent in 2020 on transfers from national committees that flowed due to Arizona’s battleground status and the very expensive McSally-Kelly U.S. Senate race.
The only problem is, as many audit supporters are now noticing, none of the money raised to help with the audit is actually going to help with the audit.
“It’s a grift,” said one Arizona consultant, who blasted the AZGOP’s messaging as downright deceitful. “The hottest issue for Republicans these days is election integrity and the Party could have raised money on that issue without having to make donors think that they were actually supporting the audit itself, but they deliberately fooled people into thinking they were giving to the audit when they knew they were going to keep all of the money for themselves.”
In fairness to the AZGOP’s fundraising efforts, their solicitations usually contained boilerplate language that indicated the AZGOP would be receiving the money, not the audit itself, but while that may satisfy lawyers and prosecutors, it is doing nothing to make angry donors feel better.
“If you ask me for money to help see the audit through to the finish then I damn well have a right to expect my money will be used for the audit, I don’t care what the little print some prick lawyer puts at the bottom of the page says.” said one angry Republican donor contacted for this story.
“Ultimately this is a Kelli Ward thing because she can’t raise money any other way, so she’s fooling people into giving money, trying to sell the Party’s headquarters, and doing things that may put coin in her pocket in the short term, but that will drive away donors and leave the party is a really bad position after she’s gone.” said a Northern Arizona activist, who noted that the Party’s county committee in Yavapai County was doing very well compared to years past, without resorting to deceptive techniques. “Good leaders inspiring donors to give to a worthwhile cause. Like it should be.”