Tempe voters distrusted the Arizona Coyotes more than supporters on the council. Why?

Tempe's contentious March election proved that voters disliked the Arizona Coyotes more than the officials who backed the team's plans for an arena, suggesting they are mostly happy with how the city develops.

Voters overwhelmingly chose pro-development and status quo candidates and approved a city proposal called General Plan 2050 that could increase urban growth.

The campaign itself was defined by two prominent factions:

• The first, a fiery opposition that misread the mood of Tempe voters, mistaking the Coyotes' defeat with a general distaste for development and a public desire to change the current approach to growth.

• The other was an established block of candidates who were anxious that the opposition might be right, which swept the ticket when voters rejected major changes to the status quo.

The victors hope that the outcome marks a shift away from what contestants agreed was unusually vitriolic campaign rhetoric. Caustic politics has dominated Tempe races since late 2022 and, city councilmembers say, threatened to become the norm.

Tempe's March 2024 election bore close similarities to the one that preceded in May 2023. Both centered around development-related issues, ended with decisive vote margins, and involved an outspoken opposition headed up by a group called Tempe 1st.

How the May election ended: Coyotes concede defeat after Tempe voters reject hockey arena deal

Tempe 1st leveled allegations of corruption to successfully defeat the Coyotes' $2.1 billion proposal for an NHL arena and entertainment district on the May ticket. The group found a core base among Tempe's older, more established and civically active residents who worried about the urbanization of their historically more suburban city.

The group's rhetoric contributed to making the past two races some of the nastiest in Tempe's recent history. But Tempe 1st leaders like Ron Tapscott view the group's gloves-off approach to campaigning as a legitimate way to hold city hall accountable, especially in the wake of revelations about mismanagement.

In March, Tempe 1st recycled their tactic in hopes of riding the wave of development skepticism to another big victory.

City Councilmember Randy Keating, who was a prime target of the group because of his outspoken support for the Coyotes deal, worried that would become "the new normal" in Tempe.

"There was a concern over what the tone of future city elections would be like (if Tempe 1st was successful). Are we going to be a city where we have these nasty, vitriolic elections, which traditionally Tempe does not have," said Keating, who won reelection in March by a 3,900-vote margin or 6 percentage points.

Keating's backing for the NHL franchise's project pitch was rivaled only by Councilmember Joel Navarro's support on the dais. The latter, a 16-year veteran of the City Council, chose not to run so he could seek a county supervisor seat.

That ensured Keating would take the brunt of Tempe 1st's jabs on the campaign trail. The group consistently blasted him for his stance on development-related issues, sending newsletters urging voters to reject his reelection bid.

“I'm typically a nervous campaigner and nervous candidate to begin with. But yes, during this cycle certainly that was more pronounced than I anticipated ... not necessarily because of the Coyotes, but just the tone and the nature of the race in general was certainly quite negative,” Keating said.

He added that "when you have a group willing to engage in wholesale character assassination and misinformation as their principal tactic, it creates an unbelievably hostile environment. It was incredibly hurtful to me as individuals employing these means I've known or had friendships with for 15 years. Now they were trying to destroy me, not only as an elected official, but as a person. I lost over 20 pounds due to the anxiety it caused."

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Tempe 1st may have overplayed its hand this time around because voters gave a clear answer to Keating's question about whether the "hostile" campaigning would become the "new normal."

They picked Keating, incumbent Councilmember Doreen Garlid and pro-development newcomer Nikki Amberg over Tempe 1st-backed candidates Hugo Tapia and David Lucier. The victors each secured roughly 13,000 votes or more, while neither Lucier nor Tapia broke 10,000.

Voters also approved General Plan 2050 by a massive margin, which Tempe 1st had campaigned against. More than 60% of the 22,100 votes cast were in favor of the plan.

About 30% of Tempe's registered voters turned out, which is on par with the turnout in the 2020 City Council election. But it's nearly seven percentage points less than the May Coyotes election, signaling that voters cared more about that particular issue rather than the city's general approach to development.

“We assumed there would be linkage between the Coyote proposal being voted down and people's understanding of the general plan. That linkage could not be established," said Tempe 1st leader Ron Tapscott, who agreed the campaign was "nasty" but blamed the other side, claiming they called Tempe 1st liars.

He defended his aggressive campaign style by saying, "we stuck by accountability. We didn't use inflammatory language."

Tapscott was among the roughly 15 local activists who started the group that would become Tempe 1st in May 2021. Their original purpose was to explore the idea of switching Tempe's local election system to one that's district-based, like Phoenix's, rather than the citywide election model that's currently in place.

Tempe 1st shifted its focus to the Coyotes after the team submitted its original project pitch that September. Five months later, the Tempe 1st political action committee was formed to oppose the deal for a range of reasons, including skepticism about its fiscal prospects and concerns about the ownership group.

They describe themselves as a group of "volunteer residents" and operate as a PAC under the name Democracy for Tempe. The group also engages in activism on a variety of other local issues, such as homelessness.

It's not entirely clear why Tempe voters were overwhelmingly pro-development in March after rejecting what Tempe Mayor Corey Woods called "arguably the largest project that would ever have been built in the city of Tempe's history" in May.

Tapscott blames an imbalance in campaign cash between the victors and his preferred candidates. Lucier and Tapia raised $41,000 and $27,000, respectively. The latter challenger took $500 in donations from those in development-related industries, while Lucier took $525 mostly from Architects. Tempe 1st raised only about $5,100.

More Tempe controversy around Coyotes: Tempe paid $32K to track Coyotes opponents. Now the city is under state investigation

On the other side, Amberg raised the most cash at roughly $76,000. Keating took in about $68,000, while Garlid raised $54,000. Developers or those in industries related to development, like real estate, contributed about $5,000, $20,000 and $12,000 to the status quo candidates, respectively. That's less than a third of each campaign's income.

In regard to the discrepant outcome between the last two elections, Keating pointed to what he called the Coyotes' "terribly inept" campaign. He contends that the Coyotes' ownership group simply "rubbed voters the wrong way," even if they liked hockey or were OK with large developments.

“A lot of the folks I talked to about the Coyotes weren't necessarily opposed to the deal or development to large, they just didn't trust the owners," Keating said. "They thought the ownership was a bad group of people, and unfortunately the ownership didn't do anything to dissuade them of that opinion throughout the whole election.”

Meanwhile, Garlid believes Tempe 1st shot themselves in the foot with their campaign style in March, describing it as "all negative, mean-spirited name-calling. That's just not who we are."

“I think it did (cost Tapia and Lucier votes) just because their names were attached to (Tempe 1st). That organization would send out their newsletter or their emails that would say hateful, mean things about staff, our city manager, the council members and then at the end say, 'by the way, we're supporting these two people,'" Garlid said.

But everyone involved agrees that the March outcome shows that the Coyotes deal was uniquely unappealing to otherwise pro-development Tempe residents.

“I think the residents looked at ... the Coyotes deal as specifically Coyotes. That's one issue and that's one development that they didn't want," Garlid said. "That did not feed over into the general plan because that's a vision of the whole entire community. And I think our residents were able to see the difference.”

Garlid and Keating believe the election loss will prove that what they call Tempe 1st's mean-spirited rhetoric is a losing tactic in the city and hope it will nip it in the bud, rather than allowing it to fester to the point the city's political climate begins to look more like Fountain Hills' than it does pre-Coyotes Tempe.

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Tapscott doesn't regret Tempe 1st's approach to the election, saying "we were just outspent by a huge amount of money.” He said Tempe 1st isn't going away, but that "the mainstay of our effort is going to really revolve around being a local news source."

The group hasn't decided whether it will run candidates in 2026.

"We remain concerned about the role of developers, particularly their more predatory style developers in the city in terms of really impacting the quality of life and having undue influence on the city council," Tapscott told The Arizona Republic. "That continues.”

Reporter Sam Kmack covers Tempe, Scottsdale and Chandler. Follow him on X @KmackSam or reach him at sam.kmack@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tempe voters were anti-Coyotes, not anti-development. Why?