Laura Conover wins second term as Pima County's top prosecutor

Incumbent Laura Conover won the Democratic primary Tuesday night to retain her position as Pima County Attorney

Conover declared victory shortly after challenger Mike Jette conceded the race earlier Tuesday at a gathering of supporters.

The election results showed voters chose the county's top prosecutor "on the policies, and not on the massive amounts of money spent in misleading articles and advertisements," Conover said Tuesday night.

"I'm impressed by the voters, and I'm certainly impressed with (my) team, who led a county-wide, grassroots effort," Conover said. "Four years ago it was a really clear mandate, that Pima County was done with spending the most-possible money on the most-expensive system, with a tough-on-crime regime that wasn't producing results and costing taxpayers a fortune, and destroying neighborhoods, and families."

After three-and-a-half years of "sweeping reforms," Conover said, her office is producing results.

"Not only did we get the reforms, but every marker of violent crime is down, and so we're seeing public safety results . . . we are safer and healthier," she said. "I think that's what the voters asked for four years ago and I think we really delivering, particularly in the third year, after COVID started to wain, and I think it's another clear mandate to drive these policies forward."

Conover was first elected in 2020. She was previously a criminal defense attorney who worked in superior and federal courts for over a decade. Conover founded her own law firm in 2016 and in 2018 she was appointed by federal judges to manage nearly 400 federal contract lawyers across Arizona.

Through Conover’s first term in office, she focused on a “responsible reform” of the office and steering away from prosecuting “people for being mentally ill while not prosecuting those who actually harm us,” she told the Star heading into the August 2020 primary.

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Ahead of her re-election, the incumbent said they would commit to fight for reproductive rights, continuing her office’s environmental unit to protect groundwater here, pushing preventative measures against violent crime and confronting the fentanyl crisis.

On Tuesday night, she wished her challenger "and the former administration" well, and said she hopes "they go forward and find joy."

"I am so incredibly proud of my team, that despite a brutal, negative campaign, we held our heads high and we stayed on the high road, and the high road took us home. We kept our very souls, our core values and our moral compass, despite a shockingly-negative personal campaign."

"The former administration couldn't win on the issues . . .  working reforms and public safety outcomes, so they went personally after me," Conover said. "I withstood it, and I kept my promise to go high, when they went low."

There is no challenger in the November general election. Conover's primary victory Tuesday night means she will serve four more years as Pima County Attorney.

Her primary challenger Jette is a career criminal prosecutor with nearly two decades of experience at the county, state and federal levels. He resigned as a federal prosecutor to run for county attorney, after returning to Tucson last year after being in an over-two-year U.S. Department of Justice program that trained prosecutors in Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

"I’d like to see something different but (Conover) is the presumptive Democratic nominee," Jette told a gathering at Union Public House, the Tucson Sentinel reported late Tuesday. "I have a heartfelt appreciation for my team and wish (Conover) the best of luck."