As votes continue to be tallied, the Arizona House legislative district 17 race is close between the two Democrat and Republican candidates as of Wednesday morning. Voters will select two nominees.
In the unofficial votes, Democrats Dana Allmond had 25.22% of the vote and Brian Radford received 23.88%. Republicans Rachel Jones received 25.66% and Cory McGarr came in with 25.24%.
Arizona House Legislative District 17 includes much of the northwest side, the far east side and the Rita Ranch area.
Democrat nominee Allmond of Marana is a retired lieutenant colonel and graduate of West Point academy. She received a bachelor’s at West Point, a master’s in counseling and leader development from Long Island University in New York and a master’s in business administration from Arizona State University.
In her campaign, Allmond said the “motto of the military academy is ‘duty, honor, country.’ We have never needed these virtues more in Arizona. The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy and we must make certain that all Arizonans who want to vote can vote. Attempts to suppress the vote must stop. Those who are this afraid of democracy, know in their hearts that they will lose a fair election.”
Her platform includes improving the state’s public education system by moving it “from the bottom five to the top five” and ensuring “a safe and abundant water supply for our children and our farmers.” She also has been vocal about her disgust for West Point graduates and politicians, including Republican state Rep. Mark Finchem who is a candidate for secretary of state, for their involvement in the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in which five people were killed at the rally.
Democrat candidate Radford of Tucson is a retired state corrections officer and case manager who worked with mental health offenders. He also is a former special education teacher’s assistant and is a foster parent. He was born in California and raised in Ohio and graduated from Kent State University with a bachelor’s in Spanish. He moved to Arizona 19 years ago. In campaign literature, he said he is running “to cut through partisan rancor and get back to the issues that impact our community the most” including tackling water scarcity issues, education, women’s rights and health care.
“Guaranteeing our water supply for generations to come means reducing use where we can and finding ways to rebuild our supply. We can do so by using grants and tax rebates to enable our farmers to invest in water-use reduction technologies and replace high-use crops with low-use crops,” Radford said. He also supports “banning the sale of rural water rights to the highest bidder” and rewarding individuals who are recapturing water through tax rebates.
He said the state needs “to invest in our schools at a rate that is in line with the national average” including guaranteed funding for increasing teacher salaries, providing adequate resources for students with disabilities, and for every school to have onsite career and mental health counselors.” Radford supports women’s right to choose, reproductive health and medical privacy. He advocates for lowering the cost of health care by enacting laws requiring price transparency for fee-for-service providers and creating a buy-in option for Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System for families to have coverage at a price they can afford.
Republican candidate Jones of Tucson is a former teacher and business executive who campaigned on supporting “low taxes, the right to bear arms and small government” saying that is what has made Arizona great. She said Arizona values are under attack, and she is against vaccine mandates, critical race theory and believes “the Socialist Democrats in Phoenix are threatening our rights, families and very way of life.”
She is a champion for pro-life, medical freedom and securing the border. She said she and fellow Republican candidate McGarr are “authentic conservative fighters” for state house. “We need someone in the state house who has and will continue to support President Donald J. Trump’s America First agenda,” said Jones.
McGarr of Marana is district manager of a Tucson pest control business. He is involved with anti-abortion organizations and his platform includes “running for the state House to fix the broken election system, to eliminate fraud and to ensure that something like the 2020 election never happens again.” McGarr says, “I’m a rock-solid defender of the Second Amendment.”
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He describes Arizona as a “vibrant state” with protected gun rights, low taxes and low regulations. He calls himself a “constitutional conservative” who will never backdown “to take back our country.”
