PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona’s most populous county certified its primary election results Monday, setting in motion a recount for the Democratic nomination in an open congressional district where 42 votes separate the top contenders.
The certification by the five-member Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is formally known as a canvass. The largely ministerial step was required before Secretary of State Adrian Fontes' office can conduct a recount in the 3rd Congressional District.
Former Phoenix City Council member Yassamin Ansari is leading over former state lawmaker Raquel Terán by less than .5 percentage points — the margin that triggers a recount under Arizona law.
Fontes confirmed the need for a recount and petitioned the Maricopa County Superior Court to authorize it, court records show. The secretary estimated the recount process will be completed by Aug. 19 if everything begins as planned Tuesday.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Ryan-Touhill officially ordered the recount, records show. The judge scheduled a hearing to announce the results on Aug. 20.
Whoever wins the Democratic bid will face Republican Jeff Zink in the November general election. The district leans Democrat and encompasses parts of Phoenix. The seat was left vacant when U.S. Rep Ruben Gallego decided to seek a U.S. Senate seat. He'll face Republican Kari Lake in November.
The canvass of election results had long been a dull, unceremonious act of government business in the Grand Canyon State. But since Joe Biden’s defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election in Arizona, election conspiracies have flourished and — at times — hindered the process.
This year, the certification of primary election results largely has gone smoothly across Arizona, with the majority of the state's 15 counties approving the results without issue. The state's canvass is scheduled later this week.
Some residents, though, continue to cast doubt over elections.
During the public comment session in Maricopa County, several people questioned the integrity of the primary election and opposed certification. One speaker accused the county of perpetuating fraud and asked why it doesn't conduct elections with paper ballots like Russia.
Vice Chairman Thomas Galvin responded with his own question about whether the woman has more confidence in Russian elections than elections in the U.S. She said she did.
Galvin then pushed back, his voice rising.
“Are you kidding me? That is Putin propaganda," he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In neighboring Pinal County, the all-Republican board of supervisors certified the primary election results after Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh alleged inconsistent voting patterns in his failed run for sheriff and in a handful of other countywide races.
Pinal County recorder Dana Lewis said every time that Cavanaugh professed an anomaly, his own statistics didn’t back it up.
Some of Cavanaugh's colleagues dismissed his claims of cheating as a “clown show." Chairman Mike Goodman banged his gavel nearly 30 times in a heated exchange with Cavanaugh, who ultimately voted to approve the results “under duress."
Cavanaugh earlier submitted a complaint to the attorney general's office, which confirmed receipt Monday but declined to say if it would investigate.
Elsewhere in Arizona, rural eastern Cochise County certified the primary results without drama Friday. The GOP stronghold on the U.S.-Mexico border was roiled after the midterm contests two years ago amid rampant election denialism and unsuccessful calls for a hand count of all ballots.
The board is made up of the two Republicans who demanded the hand count in 2020 and a Democrat who was not at Friday's meeting.
Officials and government websites in the rest of Arizona's counties confirmed canvasses there were successful, with a scattering of automatic recounts triggered. Those included county supervisor races separated by just three votes in La Paz and Yuma counties.
Govindarao reported from Florence, Arizona. Associated Press reporters Anita Snow and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed to this report. Gabriel Sandoval is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Voters walk to a voting station to cast their votes Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in Guadalupe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a government shutdown deadline, the Senate rushed through final passage early Saturday of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, dropping President-elect Donald Trump's demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had insisted Congress would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to shutter ahead of the Christmas holiday season. But the day's outcome was uncertain after Trump doubled down on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, let the closures “start now.”
The House approved Johnson's new bill overwhelmingly, 366-34. The Senate worked into the night to pass it, 85-11, just after the deadline. At midnight, the White House said it had ceased shutdown preparations.
“This is a good outcome for the country, ” Johnson said after the House vote, adding he had spoken with Trump and the president-elect “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well.”
President Joe Biden, who has played a less public role in the process throughout a turbulent week, was expected to sign the measure into law Saturday.
“There will be no government shutdown," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
The final product was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered House speaker, to achieve one of the basic requirements of the federal government — keeping it open. And it raised stark questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job, in the face of angry GOP colleagues, and work alongside Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who called the legislative plays from afar.
Trump's last-minute demand was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had almost no choice but to work around his pressure for a debt ceiling increase. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the GOP majority to pass any funding package, since many Republican deficit hawks prefer to slash the federal government and certainly wouldn’t allow more debt.
Instead, the Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, House and Senate next year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing they must routinely rely on Democrats for the votes needed to keep up with the routine operations of governing.
“So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” scoffed Musk on social media ahead of the vote.
The drastically slimmed-down 118-page package would fund the government at current levels through March 14 and add $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.
Gone is Trump’s demand to lift the debt ceiling, which GOP leaders told lawmakers would be debated as part of their tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.
It’s essentially the same deal that flopped the night before in a spectacular setback — opposed by most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans — minus Trump’s debt ceiling demand.
But it's far smaller than the original bipartisan accord Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was stuffed with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a tougher path to becoming law.
House Democrats were cool to the latest effort after Johnson reneged on the hard-fought bipartisan compromise.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said it looked like Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, was calling the shots for Trump and Republicans.
“Who is in charge?” she asked during the debate.
Still, the House Democrats put up more votes than Republicans for the bill's passage. Almost three dozen conservative House Republicans voted against it.
“The House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting working-class Americans all across the nation,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, referring to Trump's “Make America Great Again” slogan.
In the Senate, almost all the opposition came from the Republicans — except independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said Musk's interference was “not democracy, that's oligarchy.”
Trump, who has not yet been sworn into office, is showing the power but also the limits of his sway with Congress, as he intervenes and orchestrates affairs from Mar-a-Lago alongside Musk, who is heading up the new Department of Government Efficiency.
The incoming Trump administration vows to slash the federal budget and fire thousands of employees and is counting on Republicans for a big tax package. And Trump's not fearful of shutdowns the way lawmakers are, having sparked the longest government shutdown in history in his first term at the White House.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now,” Trump posted early in the morning on social media.
More important for the president-elect was his demand for pushing the thorny debt ceiling debate off the table before he returns to the White House. The federal debt limit expires Jan. 1, and Trump doesn't want the first months of his new administration saddled with tough negotiations in Congress to lift the nation's borrowing capacity. Now Johnson will be on the hook to deliver.
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump posted — increasing his demand for a new five-year debt limit increase. "Without this, we should never make a deal."
Government workers had already been told to prepare for a federal shutdown that would send millions of employees — and members of the military — into the holiday season without paychecks.
Biden has been in discussions with Jeffries and Schumer, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Republicans blew up this deal. They did, and they need to fix this.”
As the day dragged on, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in to remind colleagues “how harmful it is to shut the government down, and how foolish it is to bet your own side won’t take the blame for it.”
At one point, Johnson asked House Republicans at a lunchtime meeting for a show of hands as they tried to choose the path forward.
It wasn’t just the shutdown, but the speaker’s job on the line. The speaker’s election is the first vote of the new Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, and some Trump allies have floated Musk for speaker.
Johnson said he spoke to Musk ahead of the vote Friday and they talked about the “extraordinary challenges of this job.”
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Mary Clare Jalonick, Darlene Superville and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrates as the Senate begins voting on the government funding bill just in time to meet the midnight deadline, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrates as the Senate begins voting on the government funding bill just in time to meet the midnight deadline, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after passing the funding bill to avert the government shutdown at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after passing the funding bill to avert the government shutdown at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Capitol is pictured in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., emerges from a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., emerges from a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., talks with reporters after attending a meeting with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., as the House works on a spending bill to avert a shutdown of the Federal Government, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
FILE - President-elect Donald Trump poses for a photo with Dana White, Kid Rock and Elon Musk at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden, Nov. 16, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks briefly to reporters just before a vote on an interim spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. The vote failed to pass. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
