Takeaways from the AZ Special Election Dem Primary
Jk, it basically doesn't mean sh*t...just another sign of how mainstream media continues to miss the mark :)
Why Oh Why Must We Go for the Low-Hanging Fruit?
In typical pundit fashion, left-leaning news orgs sunk their teeth into last night’s AZ primary election, chomping at the bit to render it an anti-establishment failure (looking at you, Washington Post, and New York Times).
WaPo called it, “the [NY Dem mayoral nominee Zohran] Mamdani sequel that wasn’t.”
While the NYT likened the race’s outcome to the withering of “the Mamdani momentum.”
And they wonder why voters/readers/humans have difficulty with nuance. Or why we retrofit people into ideological boxes and refuse to let them out.
You could see their takes as either journalistic lethargy, or as an intentional effort to “wither” the growing crop of progressives challenging incumbent, more centrist Democrats, or maybe somewhere in between. Up to you. We appreciate nuance and diversity of opinion.
On that note, let’s briefly talk about the race and what it actually means.
Spoiler alert: not sh*t.
The Arizona Special Election Breakdown
BLUF: The winning AZ special election candidate, 54-year-old, progressive Adelita Grijalva, beat out two opponents, 25-year-old Deja Foxx, and 35-year-old Daniel Hernandez, clinching over 60% of the vote.
Background: The election was to replace Grijalva’s father, Raul, who passed away suddenly from health complications this year. The district is heavily Democratic, so the primary candidate is almost guaranteed a general election win.
The race gained national attention after 25 year old Deja Foxx, a content creator started to gain momentum in the race. Foxx who has assisted in Democratic political campaigns, including Kamala Harris presidential campaign, was effective in deploying social media as a campaign tool, and resonating with voters who were looking to shake up the old guard, and bring in anti-establishment.
There’s only one problem, it wasn’t an establishment vs anti-establishment race. It was progressive vs progressive.
It’s Not a Mamdani Sequel After All
Adelita may have been running to replace her father, but could easily stand on her own merit, having been a community leader for decades. Her father was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus whose voting patterns aligned heavily with the likes of progressive stalwarts, Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY). Both of whom endorsed Adelita over Foxx and her other opponents (and also endorsed Mamdani). Notably, the Working Families Party (who also endorsed Mamdani, endorsed Adelita).
This race wasn’t a rebuke of progressivism, it was an embrace of it from a mainstream audience. It was a realization of pragmatic progressivism: that people with bold ideas aren’t just grandstanders, they can have experience in implementation and bring that to the forefront.
That’s the race Mamdani, a NY state legislator, won. That’s the race Grijalva, an elected official of the County Board of Supervisors, won.
Electoral Assessment: Deja Vu
I’m not going to make a national statement about the race, because it’s a special election race, in a heavily left-leaning district, in an off year in the middle of summer, with likely low low low voter turnout (still waiting on the numbers).
But I will tell you where I think Deja Foxx went wrong. She assumed that voters would be sympathetic to her argument that Adelita should be penalized for holding the Grijalva name. Almost deeming her a nepo baby for carrying a “legacy last name.” She assumed that the shared name, and probably Adelita’s Gen X status, would paint her as part of the old guard.
This is the problem with relying on identity politics to win elections. Just because you are not them doesn’t mean people will vote for you. Just ask Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton, among many others.
And it’s not as though the Grijalva name was tarnished. (Like the Cuomo name). Raul was a beloved politician who was re-elected in November 2024 with 63% of the vote. He died in March 2025. Voters aren’t going to turn around and punish his daughter for running a campaign to continue the legacy of her late father.
Foxx would have been better off relying on her lived experience to craft a compelling narrative to sway voters. At the outset, she spoke of her experience on Medicaid, using food stamps, etcetera, highlighting the federal infighting over these issues. She could have really driven the message home that her lived experience trumps any career experience. That age isn’t an issue.
Ironically, however, her legacy/anti-establishment/old guard campaign only drew focus onto her inexperience, youth, thin arguments, and “influencer” position — a role that several Americans have polarized opinions on, and many would never define as a job, much less a career.
Make Nuance Sexy Again
So to all the pundits trying to spin a broad-based narrative and make something out of nothing: you, my dear, are part of the problem and not the solution. Part of the reason why we view voters as monolithic— it drives me craaaaazy to hear people pick one identity of a person and then put them in a box (e.g., the Black vote, the Hispanic vote). Like, come on, we need to be able to have a more nuanced outlook, approach in 2025.
Alas, we continue to miss the mark, and put out lazy journalism that ties a perfect, black-and-white bow on a gray situation. (And thus leading to Smartt Takes to respond in kind.)
And then we wonder how we got here, and how we lost the art of nuance. But in a world where everyone plays a role in the outcome, I believe we have to be willing to embrace nuance. We can’t retrofit situations or people into boxes, even if it’s a cleaner, more digestible approach.
We’ve gotta be okay with the extraneous, less superficial answer, and the messier one that requires more critical thinking.
Alright, that’s it from me! I’ll be back later with news updates and some fun political astrology later this week.
Alsooooo, setting up a live Substack link for paid subscribers, just an open forum to discuss/analyze politics, astrology, the world, and anything else. First one will be next week, so be sure to subscribe! Thanks ya! :)