How will voters turn out for Arizona's primary elections

[00:00:00]Yeah, and it is a real problem and it always raises the concern that the candidates picked by the primary voters may not have that wider appeal that general election voters are looking for.

[00:00:11]>> It's a great opportunity in our country to go out and and and put in your vote.

[00:00:15]>> Meet Lona Bertollt, an Arizona rarity.

[00:00:18]She's one of the few, the 35% of registered voters who cast their ballots in the primary. We caught up with her outside an early voting location this afternoon. She explained to us why she might be the type of voter who finds herself in the minority.

[00:00:33]>> Not so much a political nerd and and I mean not, you know, somebody who who's obsessed with it, but I do pay attention.

[00:00:41]>> That tracks with what political experts are telling us. Primary voters like Bertollt are more likely to read about politics, watch it on the news, or get updates on their phones. They also tend to be more partisan. That means general election voters will see more extreme or polarizing candidates on their ballot in the fall.

[00:01:00]>> They're the ones that are loyal Republicans or loyal Democrats who are paying attention to who has been endorsed by whom. So these on the Republican ticket, these are folks are paying very close attention to who the president of the United States wants them to vote for.

[00:01:14]>> That was political consultant Stacy Pearson. There's a reason she only mentioned Democrats and Republicans because the state's second largest block of voters have to jump through more hoops to vote in the primary. That keeps participation low among the 1.4 million independent voters in Arizona. They can vote in the primary, but they have to request a partisan ballot. Most don't.

[00:01:38]That leaves a smaller number of more partisan voters to set the table for the fall elections.

[00:01:43]>> It's important in our family world, we've always been voters. Not all of us are in the same political party, but we do respect that right and we honor that right to go out and do so.

[00:01:53]>> And tomorrow night we should start seeing some of those results in these primaries around 8:00 at in at night and most of those primary ballots have already been cast in Arizona about 85% of voters vote through the mail, guys.

[00:02:06]>> Some very important races though to watch tomorrow. The congressional race right here in Phoenix, the one in the Southeast Valley to replace Congressman Biggs too, right? Big races.

[00:02:13]>> Yeah, yeah, and I think on the federal on the federal level too, we have a really couple of really important congressional races. The most important here in the valley, congressional district one that's Fountain Hills, North Phoenix. You have two kind of competitive primaries there.

[00:02:28]We kind of suspect that Jay Feely on the Republican side up there, he's got the Trump endorsement so he's got kind of the odds on favorite heading into this.

[00:02:36]Now, on the Democrat side, you have a Me Shaw and you have a Woods in that district, Marlene Woods in that district. It's going to be interesting to see what happens there.

[00:02:47]Marlene Woods got the DCCC endorsement, but Shaw has been doing pretty well in some of the polling we've seen and that DCCC endorsement even though it's in the primary hasn't worked in other races back east. So, can Shaw, you know, deal the DCCC another black eye tomorrow?

[00:03:03]>> He won last time.

[00:03:04]>> Yeah.

[00:03:04]>> Yeah, as well.

[00:03:05]>> This is a note to self for any moderates who say, I can't stand the extremes that we get come general election, then get involved in the primaries, okay? Vote tomorrow. Thank you, Dennis.