Holy Christ. Tonight, my phone has been blowing up with angry messages from Arizona’s primary results. This is because the Democrats in Arizona’s 1st District nominated the
one person who will kill progressive turnout and hurt Ruben Gallego in Arizona's U.S. Senate race: Amish Shah. All of my contacts in the district and myself are furious to see this, as his right-wing history is far too disgusting for any of us to accept.
In recent memory, Amish Shah has:
- Voted for the orange convict in 2016. I don’t think I need to explain how dreadful his judgment is when it comes to critical and no-brainer decisions like that. Completely inexcusable.
- Voted for a religious exception for a bill banning LGBTQ+ conversion. The area's transgender activists hate his ass for that and for his dismissive attitude towards them.
- Voted against access to over-the-counter birth control pills. Given that Dobbs was a huge reason for the Democrats overperforming 2022 in general, this is giving the middle finger to women, and Amish Shah has provided no remorse for that vote.
- Gotten banned from Democratic strategy meetings after leaking the content from several such meetings to Arizona House Republicans. So, he definitely will kick Congressional Democrats in the nuts by blabbing to the Republicans whenever it suits him.
In short, he is basically the sum of the worst parts of Kyrsten Sinema, and I would not be surprised to see him change parties in the near future if he gets elected to Congress. Nobody I know will volunteer for his general election campaign, and all of my contacts in the area are swearing off the race and looking elsewhere, if they are even interested in volunteering for other causes. I spent the past several hours asking them to either redirect their funds and volunteer time to Curtis Hertel and Kirsten McDonald Rivet’s U.S. House campaigns; Stephanie Simacek, Karen Gresham, and Kelli Butler’s State House campaigns; or Judy Schweibert and Christine Marsh’s State Senate campaigns to try to stem this exodus.
Letting Amish Shah win the nomination is yet another example this cycle of how the Democrats are transforming into the Party Who Cannot Win by nominating horrid candidates in key areas that affect critical races up and down the ballot.
Marlene Galan Woods and Conor O'Callaghan would have been far better choices for this race, as progressives would have no problem donating to their general election campaigns and voting for them in November. But no, too many tone-deaf Democrats thought it would be okay to nominate this backstabber and throw out a House race critical to passing decent legislation. The seat is going to remain on the Republican side of the board for at least several more years to come, either when David Schweikert gets re-elected due to progressives leaving this race blank or when Amish Shah becomes a Republican after he faces the inevitable primary challenge due to the bullshit that he will pull in Congress by betraying the Democrats at exactly the wrong time.
Going up the ballot to the Senate race, Ruben Gallego is still leading Kari Lake in the polls by a slight margin. Kari Lake’s unimpressive showing in tonight’s Republican primary should help Ruben Gallego lock down this race and replace Kyrsten Sinema in the Senate, but I am seriously concerned that the self-inflicted wounds such as the one that Democrats committed in Arizona’s 1st District will decimate progressive turnout in November to a low enough level that will give Kari Lake the win. I am also not sure how much of a boost that Kamala Harris will give Ruben Gallego in Arizona, as she might turn most of her sights towards holding Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
Due to the shortage of funds that I can spare for donations, the idiotic mistake that happened tonight, and the growing problems taking place in Michigan, I am writing off Arizona’s 1st District and am instead turning my full attention to Michigan’s 7th and 8th districts. In particular, the newest poll in Michigan’s 7th district has Curtis Hertel down to Tom Barrett by seven points, and I am trying to reserve some more time for his volunteer activities to reverse the bleeding.
