Earlier this week, Arizona Republican Party Chairman Kelli Ward removed longtime conservative activist Sergio Arellano from his position as State Committeeman, without giving any reason to Arellano or party leaders in Southern Arizona.
Arellano, a national Latinos for Trump board member, was Ward’s primary competition for Party Chairman and, according to Ward, narrowly lost the race in January of 2021. That election was challenged by dozens of state committeemen after numerous errors and violations were revealed, and the ensuing battle over election integrity and audits did a great deal of damage to Ward’s already battered reputation.
While Party bylaws required an audit of the election as requested, Ward overruled both her own Executive Director and the National Committeeman in deciding that there would be no audit of her election. This led to both legal action and a historic call for a fresh election that Ward also killed, in apparent violation of party rules. That matter also made it into the courts where a judge ruled that it was up to the Party to police itself, giving Ward defacto control over all aspects of the Party.
Earlier this week Arellano received an email “thanking him” for his service as an appointed State Committeeman and informing him that Ward was removing him from that position. Arellano appears to be the only State Committeeman removed in Arizona, and the lack of any reason in the email has led to speculation from grassroots activists.
Some believe it is nothing more than Ward settling grudges, and the impetus for the sudden removal has been the heat Ward has been taking on the pages of the MCRC Briefs, that has been skirmishing with Ward over her claims that her election was audited, when in fact she knows no such audit ever took place because she refused to allow it. “She’s mad, and when she’s mad she lashes out.” said one activist, “She can’t do anything to Frosty (Taylor, the editor of the popular MCRC Briefs) so she targets Sergio because she still blames him for running against her and the blow ups that followed that.”
Others believe Ward is still unlikely to finish her term as Chairman of the Party and that she will leave her position for more lucrative work, either on the Kari Lake for Governor campaign, or for some outside group that will allow her to cash out on her current MAGA personality. “Other than election audit emails she can’t raise money, and most party candidates won’t work with the state party anymore, so I’m sure she’d like to go make some money while she still has a brand, but she won’t leave her Chairmanship unless she’s sure it will be taken over by a close ally who will keep her interests front and center, so she can’t have Arellano running again,” stated another longtime party activist.
Should Ward resign early, a special election would be called and any State Committeeman would be eligible to run. By removing Arellano from his State Committeeman position, Ward makes it impossible for him to run in an election where many believe he would be favored to win.
“I’m not sure it matters why she did it, we need to be making the party bigger and Ward wants to make it smaller. If Kelli Ward’s Republican Party has no room for a Latino for Trump national board member, then she’s not really MAGA, she’s not interested in attracting Hispanics to the party, and everyone needs to quit being surprised that all she does is lose races,” said one southern Arizona activist, who was upset that no one was consulted before Arellano was purged.
For his part, Arellano told the Arizona Daily Independent that he had no real comment to make and that the State GOP would be better served by fewer stories about these types of actions instead of more. “The Chairwoman gets to do whatever she wants and I’d rather not stir things up. We all have a lot more important things to focus on, so I’ll pass on commenting at this time. Thank you though,” was all he said before hanging up.