Will Arizona Primary Voters Boot GOP Maricopa Elections Chief Linked To Dem Megadonor?
Election integrity advocates helped elect Recorder Stephen Richer following Maricopa County’s disastrous administration of the 2020 election. But since taking office, Richer — who faces a primary challenge today — has become such a leftist darling that he’s reportedly getting financial backing from Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman.
As first reported by AZ Free News, Hoffman — the founder of LinkedIn and a major financial supporter of Democrat-aligned causes — is among the backers disclosed on pro-Richer mailers that have been distributed by the left-wing group Women for Justice. A photo of the mailer obtained by The Federalist lists Hoffman as one of the top three donors backing Women for Justice’s efforts. The disclosure also notes 47 percent of the funds used by the group for the mailers came from “out-of-state contributors.”
According to InfluenceWatch, Hoffman “was relatively apolitical prior [to] 2016, when he became an outspoken critic of then-Republican candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election.” The following year, he “launched a number of left-of-center organizations, investments, and fundraising efforts to oppose President Trump and the Republican Party.”
As my colleague Logan Washburn previously noted, Hoffman reportedly said days before the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump that he wished he “had made [Trump] an actual martyr.” The LinkedIn founder later condemned the attempt on Trump’s life and attempted to clarify his comments in a post published July 14.
Neither Hoffman nor Women for Justice responded to The Federalist’s request for comment.
Richer is facing a primary challenge from two candidates: IT business consultant Don Hiatt and Rep. Justin Heap, a member of the Arizona Freedom Caucus. When an unpopular incumbent faces a strong primary challenge, the presence of a second challenger can benefit the incumbent by splitting the opposition vote. Constantin Querard, founder and president of the Arizona political consultant group Grassroots Partners, LLC, told The Federalist while that issue “was definitely a concern early” in the primary cycle, he thinks Hiatt “hasn’t had the money to be a competitive third candidate.”
The winner of Tuesday’s Republican primary will go on to face Democrat Timothy Stringham in the November general election. Both Querard and Merissa Hamilton, co-founder of the Arizona-based civic advocacy group EZAZ.org, predicted Heap will win Tuesday’s primary.
Speaking with The Federalist, Hamilton noted that Maricopa County voters are “very frustrated with the way [Richer] has decided to treat them and their concerns.”
“We know that the recorder also hasn’t been truthful with the people with the people with issues that have occurred, including issues under his watch and before his watch,” Hamilton said. Voters “just want elections that work. They want a recorder that’s going to be honest with them.”
Despite campaigning on upholding the integrity of the vote, Richer has regularly denigrated those he once claimed to represent and has defended Maricopa County’s history of disorderly elections. As The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway previously reported, Richer has written “op-eds at CNN against the type of election audits he conducted to gain power,” and attacked “Republican leaders and voters for their election integrity concerns.”
In 2022, Richer launched a political action committee aimed at electing candidates who share his disinterest in election integrity concerns and lobbied against a ballot measure seeking to strengthen Arizona’s voter ID laws, a move his critics claimed is illegal. He also dismissed voter concerns about Maricopa County’s 2022 Election Day maladministration — which disenfranchised voters — as “conspiracy theories.”
[RELATED: Poll Worker Gives An Inside Look At ‘Complete Chaos’ In Maricopa County On Election Day]
Richer has also reportedly conspired to censor those who raise questions about the conduct of Maricopa County elections and worked with the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency — which critics refer to as the “nerve center” of the federal government’s censorship operations — to combat what it considers to be “misinformation,” according to Just the News. He also previously disclosed plans to vote for Joe Biden during the November election prior to the president’s exit from the race.
Will left-leaning independents — whom Arizona law allows to vote in a party primary — vote in the GOP primary to push Richer to victory? “I don’t know what quantities they might, they might turn out for him,” Querard said, adding “I would assume he’s trying to motivate them to turn out.”
Richer’s office directed The Federalist to his campaign email, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Richer campaign has not appeared to dispute the AZ Free News report in the weeks since it was published.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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