Arizona GOP picks new leader after scandal creates vacancy

Arizona Republicans elected a new party chairman on Saturday, a move that tightened the hold on the state party hierarchy by far-right supporters of former President Donald J. Trump and came days after a scandal that forced the last chairman to resign.

Gina Swoboda, who led Election Day integrity operations in Arizona for Mr. Trump in 2020 and leads a non-profit organization which has falsely claimed to have found huge discrepancies in voting results in a number of states, was chosen to replace Jeff DeWit, who resigned as chairman on Wednesday.

Ms. Swoboda, whom Mr. Trump endorsed on Friday, won an overwhelming majority of votes in an election of state party officials held at the party's required annual meeting in Phoenix. The vote was postponed due to a lengthy debate a motion to ban its use of electronic tabulators – distrusted by many election deniers in the party – to count the ballots.

Kari Lake, a far-right candidate for the U.S. Senate and close ally of Mr. Trump who played a central role in Mr. DeWit's downfall, took the stage on Saturday to nominate Ms. Swoboda. But she was met with a roar of boos and bickering from the crowd, an apparent rejection of her involvement in the scandal.

Mr. DeWit resigned after a leaked voice recording surfaced on Tuesday in which he told Ms. Lake that “very powerful people” would give her money or a cushy job if she sat out the Senate race. In the recording, Ms. Lake, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022 and embraced Trump's false claims about the 2020 election, was heard telling DeWit, “That's immoral — I couldn't look at myself in the mirror.”

Mr. DeWit alleged Wednesday that Ms. Lake had released the recording of the conversation, which he said took place at Ms. Lake's home more than 10 months ago, and that it had been selectively edited. He added that he resigned because Ms Lake had threatened to release a second damaging recording if he did not resign.

In response, Garrett Ventry and Caroline Wren, senior advisers to Ms. Lake, said in a statement that no one from Ms. Lake's campaign had threatened or blackmailed Mr. DeWit.

Ms. Lake has neither denied nor confirmed that she was behind the leaked recording, but she strongly called on Mr. DeWit to leave the party post after it became public, calling him “corrupt and compromised.”

Ms. Swoboda joins a contingent of far-right Trump supporters who have steadily increased their control over the party's finances and policies, pushing aside less extreme Trump supporters in the Republican Party's old guard.

An investigation by independent journalism website ProPublica concluded that the nonprofit where she is executive director, the Voter Reference Foundation, is closely linked to a super PAC largely funded by billionaire Dick Uihlein, a major Trump supporter.

Republican strategists said the move leaves an already divided party organization in disarray just as the campaign season gets underway. State party organizations play a key role in recruiting candidates, crafting party policy positions, raising money, and funneling money from national party organizations to state and local candidates.

Some major Republican donors in Arizona have chosen to spend their money elsewhere as the state party has moved sharply to the right and its favored statewide candidates — including Ms. Lake — were uniformly defeated in 2022.

“Republicans are trying to get Donald Trump elected, trying to win a seat in the U.S. Senate, and Republicans have a one-seat margin in both houses of the Legislature,” said Barrett Marson, a public relations executive and former Republican administration official. “If you have a non-functioning party, that will not help us in the vote.”

Ms. Lake is seen as the Republican primary's almost certain choice to challenge a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Ruben Gallego, for a Senate seat currently held by Kyrsten Sinema, who represents the Democratic Party. has pushed aside to become a seat in 2022. independent. It is unclear whether Ms. Sinema will seek re-election in November, but she has yet to lay the groundwork for such a bid.

In any case, Mr. DeWit's forced resignation — one strategist called it a “political assassination” — revealed the depths of the party's yawning ideological divide.

Mr Dewit, 52, was chosen to lead the state party a year ago, ending a tumultuous period when the party was led by an election denier. He was seen as one of the few Republicans able to bridge the gap between the state party organization's far-right majority and a minority that recognizes Trump's dominance but argues that emphasizing more extreme positions is a losing cause in elections.

Mr. DeWit has impeccable credentials in Trump's political world. As Arizona State Treasurer, he was the first elected state official in the country to endorse Trump's presidential candidacy in 2015 and led his campaign in Arizona. He became chief operating officer of Trump's 2020 re-election bid after serving a stint as chief financial officer at NASA.

“He was one of the untouchables in the Trump fold,” said Mike Noble, a Phoenix pollster. market research expert and former Republican congressional aide.

Ms. Lake, 54, supported Mr. DeWit's choice at the time. She is a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump and has jumped from a job as a television news anchor to become the Republican candidate for governor in 2022. She has consistently refused to acknowledge Mr. Trump's 2020 loss to Joseph R. Biden or her own. defeat in 2022 against Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs.

Mr. DeWit said this week that Ms. Lake was an employee of a technology company he owns — Ms. Lake said she worked “with” Mr. DeWit — and that the two had many private conversations as friends. It was during one of those conversations that Mr. DeWit relayed the offer from unknown people “back east” to reward her if she would sit out the race for a Senate seat in 2024.

Kellen Browning reporting contributed.