The special election for disgraced Arizona Rep. Trent Franks’ seat is taking place today in CD-8, which is the western part of Maricopa County. Unfortunately, most of the people who live in Phoenix, which leans blue, can’t vote in this election, which explains why Trent Franks, one of the most terrible human beings ever to sit in Congress, kept getting elected. It’s Joe Arpaio country—Sun City and other rural retirement havens. That’s the only reason Arpaio kept getting elected: the district is full of retirees who only want low taxes and no brown people.
Today’s election pits former GOP legislator Debbie Lesko against a new political face: Dr. Hiral Tipirneni. Polls show a very tight race, which is a happy surprise given that district’s history. An emergency room doctor, Tipirneni knows a thing or two about healthcare, one of her major campaign issues. Lesko of course wants Americans to have the “freedom” to choose their own unmandated insurance, which for many people means no choice at all.
Naturally, the Republicans are stoking immigrant fear among the lily white retirement communities. Lesko, a Trump-loving border hawk, wants that big wall, while Tipirneni correctly points out that most undocumented immigrants did not walk across the desert to enter Arizona. No, they came through checkpoints and airports; billion-dollar walls will do nothing to stop that. What they will do is destabilize our sensitive ecology.
So last night Lesko had Arizona Rep. Dave Schweikert speak at her election night rally (video here). Among other whoppers, Schweikert claimed that Dr. Tipirneni, the candidate who collected thousands of small donations, represents the “parasite class” that must be “crush[ed],” while Debbie Lesko, who has collected more than $1.5 million from out-of-state PACs, is on your side! Most of that cash came from the Republican National Committee, the Republican Congressional Committee, and similar conservative groups, while the DNC mostly stayed out of the race. But Schweikert sees it differently:
"In many ways it’s not actually about this community, this district. It’s a group from the other side of the country trying to get a bunch of people to give them $25 dollars so they build a bigger list for the next election. They basically are the parasite class using our community for their radical politics. We need to crush them.”
That’s right, the small $25 donors work for the parasite class. Debbie Lesko, on the other hand, who didn’t raise nearly as many individual donations as Tipirneni, spent her legislative career copying and pasting bills from ALEC, while working to undermine education, healthcare, child services, the environment, gun safety, and other issues important to us parasites.
UPDATE: It appears Lesko will pull out a victory, leading 53%-47% with 75% of the vote in. Chalk it up as a good story, though, since Trump won that district by 21 points and Dr. Tipirneni cut it to 6, which is great news here for November.