Sydney Hay

The campaign of Democratic congressional candidate Ann Kirkpatrick claimed Friday that Kirkpatrick was far better positioned to win the open 1st Congressional District seat than Republican Sydney Hay. 

"Last Tuesday's results made it clear, people in CD-1 are looking for real change, not more of the same," said Kirkpatrick communications director Zac Petkanas in an e-mail to PolitickerAZ.com.

"Not only did our campaign win by 15 points compared to Sydney Hay's four," continued Petkanas, "our campaign garnered 8,000 more actual votes as well as a greater percentage of the total vote than did the Phoenix corporate lobbyist."

"At the end of the day," he said, "ten thousand  more Democrats voted than did Republicans in CD-1."

An study conducted on behalf of the Sydney Hay congressional campaign shows a "close and winnable race" for the Republican contender in the 1st Congressional District, according to a memo from Washington, D.C.-based polling firm Wilson Research Strategies.

Though the Hay campaign hasn't divulged the figures associated with the poll, they did release a copy of the memo summarizing the findings to PolitickerAZ.com.  

"Sydney Hay has made strong gains since our initial study one month ago," the memo read. "[Democratic nominee Ann] Kirkpatrick’s current advantage is primarily due to a name ID advantage acquired as a result of a more active Democratic primary campaign. Once the general election campaign begins we expect both the name ID gap and the ballot gap to close quickly."

The general election race in the 1st Congressional District is already getting rancorous, mere hours after the contestants were finalized.

Wednesday, Ann Kirkpatrick, the Democratic nominee in the 1st district, said she anticipated a "tough" and "heated" fight between she and GOP nominee Sydney Hay.

"We're not taking anything for granted," Kirkpatrick told PolitickerAZ.com.She also said that her campaign was not going to quail in the face of harsh criticism already coming from the Hay camp. Tuesday night, as it became clear that Hay, a mining industry lobbyist, would defeat her closest GOP rival in the primary, Sandra Livingstone, Hay sent out her inaugural statement as her party's congressional nominee, slamming Kirkpatrick, who easily won the Democratic primary earlier in the evening.

The Arizona conservatives declared all out war on moderate Republicans they deemed not conservative enough and they won; big.

Conservative activists and blogs got behind both Sydney Hay in AZ-1 and David Schweikert in AZ-5 as their congressional candidates of choice and both ended up winning close primary races.

In the legislature they had even more success.  In the Senate they were able win every seat they targeted.  The were able to fend off a challenge of conservative favorite Jack Harper in LD4.  In LD1 newcomer Steve Pierce was able to knock off incumbent Senator Tom O'Halleran.  Conservatives put an all out effort in LD18 where Russell Pearce was able to easily hold off Kevin Gibbons.  The other senate race they concentrated on was in LD26 where their pick Al Melvin defeated Pete Hershberger.  

Sydney Hay, who eked out a narrow victory against Sandra Livingstone and others in the 1st Congressional District Republican primary Tuesday, immediately went on the attack against the new Democratic nominee, Ann Kirkpatrick.

"The voters of the First District of Arizona want someone who will shake up Washington," said Hay. "My track record of accomplishment bringing meaningful conservative change cannot be matched by Ann Kirkpatrick, whose legislative accomplishments are next to nil.”

Hay went on to say Kirkpatrick was "wrong on all" of the issues important to voters in the 1st distrtict, and said she had a "shockingly liberal voting record."   

Arizona Mining Association President Sydney Hay looks likely to clinch the Republican nomination to the 1st Congressional District House seat.

As of latest count, Hay leads fellow competitor Sandra Livingstone 38.6 percent to 34.6 percent, with nearly 96 percent of precincts reporting. Livingstone would need to garner the vast majority of remaining votes to in order to upset Hay, whose more than 1,500 vote lead should be enough to win her the nomination.   

It may come down to the wire in the 1st and 5th Congressional District Republican primaries.

In the 1st district, lobbyist Sydney Hay and former State Department official Sandra Livingstone are close, with Hay currently taking 38 percent of the vote to Livingstone's 34. Twenty-seven percent of precincts have yet to report.

In the 5th district, the race is even tighter. Former Maricopa County treasurer David Schweikert holds a three-point advantage over lobbyist Susan Bitter Smith, leading the six-person field at 31 percent of the vote. Susan Bitter Smith has so far attracted 28 percent.

All other competitors are running well behind the front runners in the 1st and 5th districts, and will likely not be a factor.   

While Republican candidate Sandra Livingstone anxiously awaits the results of the 1st Congressional District GOP primary, her top adviser, John Echols, will be 1,500 miles away hobnobbing with the party elite in St. Paul, Minn. at the Republican National Convention.

Echols, a delegate to the RNC from the 1st district, has been running the campaign of former State Department official Sandra Livingstone, who is facing off against Sydney Hay for the Republican slot on the congressional ballot. The conflict means that he's been out of town for the last few days, while the campaign enters its final hours.

When asked if that was a sign that Echols knew which way the race was going to go, he emphatically said it was not.

Five things to watch this week

1)      Will there be Clean Elections matching funds for the general?

2)      Did Thayer Verschoor spend his money to early or did Eddie Farnsworth overestimate his name value

3)      Will Tony Bouie’s endorsements place him in the top 2 or are the negative attacks to much to overcome

4)      AZ-5, Schweikert?  Bitter Smith? Or will Ogsbury walk his way into an upset?

5)      AZ-1 Sandra Livingstone came on strong with what seemed like an endorsement a day over the final few weeks, but was it to late to overtake Sydney Hay who was campaigning for months before anyone ever heard of Livingstone.

Pioneer Newspaper, the most widely read paper in northeastern Arizona, has endorsed 1st Congressional District candidate Dr. Sandra Livingstone (R).

LeAnn Arganbright, the paper's publisher, heaped praise upon Livingstone.