Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers loses state Senate bid

By BOB CHRISTIE
Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers lost his bid for a state Senate seat after refusing then-President Donald Trump’s pleas to help overturn the 2020 election results and testifying before Congress about the efforts.

Bowers tried to move to the state Senate because of term limits. He lost to former state Sen. David Farnsworth, who criticized him for refusing to help Trump or go along with a contentious 2021 “audit” that Republican leaders in the Senate commissioned.

Farnsworth automatically will win the Senate seat because no Democrat is running in the heavily Republican district.

Bowers faced an uphill battle in the eastern Phoenix suburb of Mesa, especially after the state Republican Party censured him following his June testimony before the panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress and Trump endorsed Farnsworth.

“I’m well aware that I’m highly distrusted,” Bowers told The Associated Press before the election. “My district is a very Trump district, and who knows how this is all going to work out.

“And if it doesn’t work out, great, I’d do it all again the same way,” Bowers said.

Trump pressured Bowers to help with a plan to replace electors committed to now-President Joe Biden during a phone call weeks after Trump lost the 2020 election. Bowers refused.

Bowers insisted on seeing Trump’s evidence of voter fraud, which he said Trump’s team never produced beyond vague allegations. He recalled Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani later told him, “We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.”

Bowers is a conservative Republican, but Farnsworth said he’s not conservative enough and has become less so since becoming speaker following the 2018 elections.

“Of course, the big issue, I think, for everybody is the fact that I strongly believe that there was fraud in the 2020 election,” Farnsworth said in an interview last week. “And I feel like Rusty failed … to take responsibility as speaker of the House and look into that election.”

The Farnsworth-Bowers battle was one of several brewing that involved current or former Arizona lawmakers.

In another eastern suburban district, GOP Sen. Tyler Pace was trailing his challenger after an outside group targeted him and Bowers.

Redistricting put two Trump-supporting state senators, Kelly Townsend and Wendy Rogers, into the same district. Rogers was leading in early returns, but the race was too early to call.

It featured bitter recriminations as Rogers has faced repeated ethics charges for her inflammatory rhetoric, support for white supremacists and conspiracy-theory laden tweets.

Townsend said she felt compelled to run against Rogers when she refused to refute white nationalism after speaking at a conference in Florida in February.

“If I don’t run against her and make that statement, win, lose or drawn then her actions become our own,” Townsend said Monday. “It sort of spoils the whole (Republican) party.”

Rogers has earned a national following, raising a whopping $3 million from donors across the country since taking office in early 2021. Townsend had raised about $15,000, much more typical for a state legislative race.

In the west Phoenix suburbs, former Rep. Anthony Kern, who attended Trump’s Jan. 6 rally that led to the attack on Congress and unsuccessfully sued Democrats who asked the Department of Justice to investigate him, was leading in his effort to return to the Legislature. He was defeated in his 2020 House primary and is now aiming for a Senate seat. If his solid lead holds, he’ll get it, since no Democrat is running.

Also trying for a political comeback is former Rep. Steve Montenegro, whose 2018 run for Congress was upended by a sexting scandal. He was leading among four Republicans running in a west Phoenix House district for two open House seats.

Democratic Reps. Diego Espinoza and Richard Andrade are facing off after being drawn into the same district in the western Phoenix suburbs, with Andrade holding a slight lead in a race too close to call. And Sen. Lela Alston, considered the most experienced lawmaker in the Legislature, was well ahead of two challengers in her central Phoenix district. One of them, political unknown Al Jones, has sought attention by buying billboards across the city.