Elijah Norton has a new ad running in the Phoenix media market featuring Karen Garrett, Rep. David Schweikert’s former campaign treasurer accusing him of “committing financial crimes,” almost a million dollars worth. Schweikert’s ethical problems are hardly new to the district— he was fined $50,000 by the House Ethics Committee and $125,000 by the FEC— but the ad is certain to put it back in everyone’s minds in front of Arizona’s August 2 primary. The redistricting has left Schweikert slightly more vulnerable to a Democrat, the district having gone from an R+13 partisan lean, down to an R+7. Jevin Hodge, Adam Metzendorf and Ginger Torres are the 3 Democratic Party contenders. But Schweikert’s big worry now is Norton, who has already spent well over a million dollars and as of March 31 had “raised” more than double what Schweikert had— $3,504,559 to $1,040,344. Just over 84% of Norton’s “contributions” ($2,959,097) was self-funded.
Norton is a sleazy Missouri multimillionaire— a scam artist according to Scheikert’s SuperPAC— who moved to Scottsdale specifically to challenge Schweikert, a corrupt mainstream conservative.
Norton, whose company is one of those illegal phone spammers everyone passionately hates, may be just as corrupt as Schweikert but he is anything but mainstream— more a Trumpist than a standard Republican. Just over a week ago though, cognizant of polls showing Schweikert ahead of Norton, Trump unexpectedly endorsed Schweikert, who is not just less Trumpy than Norton, but way, way, way less Trumpy that a random QAnon psychopath and fascist in the race, Josh Barnett, who has been endorsed by two local Trump puppets, extremist gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Mark Finchem, the extremist candidate for Secretary of State. Trump's endorsement will boost Schweikert in the primary... but could sink him in November.