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Arizona Democrat Bets That Tough Talk on ‘Big Lie’ Will Woo Voters

Katrina Manson
·5 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Adrian Fontes doesn’t like terms like “election denier” and “disinformation.” He prefers “‘Stop the Steal’ crowd” and “liars.”

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That’s how the 52-year-old former US Marine, Arizona’s Democratic candidate for secretary of state, refers to people who spread conspiracies claiming former President Donald Trump really won the 2020 vote.

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Fontes’s tough-talking strategy is now being put to the test. He is locked in a tight race with Mark Finchem, who is endorsed by Trump and has sought to undercut the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory.

“We got to stop talking like Democrats,” Fontes said, in an interview with Bloomberg News. Too often people sugarcoat their words and dance around ideas because they don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings or seem unfair, he said, adding, “The truth is not unfair. Jan. 6 was an act of terror.”

The contest in Arizona for secretary of state—a job “ dedicated to ensuring the integrity of our elections”—reflects a broader schism ahead of the midterm elections next week, when voters will decide whether hundreds of politicians who embrace what is often called Trump’s “Big Lie” should hold public office.

The issue is a tricky one for Democrats. While it energizes the Democratic base, it doesn’t necessarily motivate independents to vote for them and has the potential to invigorate Republicans, polling has found.

Fontes, who was Maricopa County Recorder until he lost the job to a Republican in 2020, argues there is no ignoring what is at stake. The county seat of Maricopa County is Phoenix.

“We used to have one denialist who lost an election. Now we’ve got hundreds of them running countrywide, many of them running to run our elections,” he said, later adding, “If you don’t call it fascism because you’re afraid to offend somebody, you’re not doing your job.”Finchem’s campaign team declined interview requests, saying he was only talking to conservative media or too busy. On a recent October weekend, he appeared via video at an “election integrity forum,” alleged electoral fraud and suggested the audience had a divine right to rule.

“God’s people need to take control of the government that God ordained from the start,” he said. He talked about existential threats to the survival of the US and directed the audience to document suspected election irregularities.

QuicktakeElection Deniers on Ballot: 14 for GOP Who Fought 2020 Results

Arizona, a traditionally red state turning purple, represents a particularly acute example of the disinformation quagmire. While the electorate voted for a Democratic president in 2020, some Trump-supporting conservatives fought vigorously to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in the state. Now, it’s the only state where the Republican candidates for Senate, governor, attorney general and secretary of state deny the 2020 election results were legitimate.Arizona election officials say they continue to be besieged by threats, insults and unfounded claims the 2020 election was stolen, despite publishing a 93-page report in January that debunked the allegations.

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office has expanded its communications team and established a new “command center” to combat disinformation.

Stephen Richer, who beat Fontes to become Maricopa County recorder, said his team monitors Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, and far-right discussion threads on platforms such as Rumble and Telegram. But he said they decided not to open accounts on these platforms.

“We think that our message there would be completely drowned out and would maybe just stir the pot and further animate people who likely aren’t ready, or not even willing, to hear the factual side of the story,” said Richer, a Republican.

Finchem, a former Michigan firefighter, is a member of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, whose 14 secretary of state candidates want to eliminate mail-in ballots and switch to single-day voting, arguing it will help eliminate fraud. At the moment, nearly 90% of Arizonans mail in their ballot in the weeks before polling day, a system Fontes wants to expand.

Finchem’s campaign has accused Fontes of disinformation too. For instance, Fontes’s campaign ads have exaggerated Finchem’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, Finchem’s team has said. Finchem has said he was outside but didn’t go in the building. Finchem has also cited occasions where the courts ruled against Fontes as a local election official for overstepping his authority.

Both candidates suffer a lack of name recognition, as many voters said they had never heard of either. Complicating Fontes’s task is that Democrats rank third in overall number of registered voters in Arizona, after Republicans and independents. “If we get every Democrat, we’re still losing,” said Lucy Marshall, a local district chairman for the Democratic Party.

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Fontes has brought in more money than Finchem, at $3.3 million to $2 million, and is benefiting from an effort from Democratic-aligned groups to defeat Finchem, at $4 million so far. (Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, contributed $1 million to the Arizona Democratic Party in October, and Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund, a PAC associated with his gun control group, has spent at least $465,000 to defeat Finchem. )

Fontes said reaching conservatives holds the key for him to win. And he described the decision by some Democratic organizations to help boost the chance of election deniers in Republican primaries—aiming for decisive defeat—as “the stupidest thing anybody could have done.”

At a small weekend fundraising event in Chandler, Fontes counseled supporters on how to best to debunk right-wing conspiracy theories. Fontes suggests starting with questions: “Where did you hear that from, and how do you know that? And have you heard anybody say anything different about that?”

Even better, he said, is being kind and listening. “If you’re just fighting them, it’s whack-a-mole,” he said, requesting people take 10 minutes to decide their own approach. “A little bit of humanity, a little bit of grace and plenty of that American spirit.”

--With assistance from Ryan Teague Beckwith.

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