Arizona Republicans voted in a new leader of the party over the weekend, ensuring the battleground state will be represented by devoted supporters of former President Donald Trump through the critical November presidential election, days after the last chairman was forced to resign.
Gina Swoboda, an election activist endorsed by the former president, was chosen as the next chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party during the first round of voting on Saturday at an annual GOP meeting. Swoboda was chosen to replace predecessor Jeff DeWit, who was elected to a two-year term last January but stepped down last week after the release of a March 2023 audio recording in which he offered Kari Lake what she viewed as a bribe in an effort to keep her out of the state’s U.S. Senate race.
The new chairwoman is a former employee of the Arizona secretary of state’s office and was the Election Day director of operations for Trump during the 2020 election. She also has been working as a senior adviser on election for the Arizona Senate.
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Swoboda runs the nonprofit group Voter Reference Foundation, which promotes the idea that the current election system isn’t secure and has claimed to have found huge discrepancies in voting records in some states. The company has been accused in articles by OpenSecret.org of disseminating false claims about voting discrepancies. However, the company says on its website its goals are to increase voter participation and ensure elections are “transparent, accurate and fair.”
Trump endorsed Swoboda on Friday as his preferred candidate even after canceling his appearance at the state GOP’s planned FreedomFest rally.
MASSIVE Victory for The Trump & Lake-Endorsed Election Integrity Warrior Gina Swoboda!
Arizona Republicans voted overwhelmingly to make Gina Swoboda our new Chairwoman going into the most important election in Arizona history.
Gina is a National Leader in election law. She is… pic.twitter.com/8EgNwm6J6s
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 28, 2024
“Gina is a strong fighter for election integrity and will be relentless in her work to deliver Arizona for President Trump and Kari Lake in 2024,” Trump’s campaign team said in a statement.
Lake took the stage on Saturday to nominate Swoboda and has given her a glowing endorsement, even after she was met with some heckling from the crowd on Saturday due to her involvement in DeWit’s resignation.
“[DeWit] was replaced by an incredible woman who is an election integrity hero and will make prioritizing securing our elections here in Arizona a top priority going into ‘24,” Lake said during an appearance on Fox News on Sunday. “So, everyone in Arizona is breathing a sigh of relief.”
DeWit’s ouster exposed the deep divisions within the Arizona GOP that have been going on behind the scenes for years. Insurgent Republicans severed ties with more centrist members of their party, who were once led by the late Sen. John McCain. Those candidates won nominations for governor, U.S. Senate, secretary of state, and attorney general last cycle but went on to lose to Democrats last November. The party continues to be split between a pro-Trump wing and an establishment wing that believes throwing its support behind the former president and his candidates in 2024 could cause the party to experience similar losses to those it experienced in 2020 and 2022.
In addition, Arizona Republicans have been struggling with money problems. In March 2023, the party had $50,000 in cash reserves, which isn’t much to fund expenses such as payroll, rent, and campaign operations. According to the state Republican Party’s Federal Election Commission filing covering the last fiscal year, its cash on hand had dropped to less than $15,000. In comparison, Arizona Republicans had $77,000 in cash reserves in 2018.
The Arizona GOP spent more than $300,000 on “legal consulting” fees last year, according to its federal filings, although it’s not clear what kind of legal work was paid for. During that time, those fees were paid to a law firm that had filed lawsuits looking to overturn then-President Trump’s defeat in Arizona, according to separate campaign and legal disclosures.
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Many Arizona Republicans contacted by the Washington Examiner said they were not familiar with Swoboda’s fundraising ability, but that will be crucial for the party moving forward. The position is primarily responsible for raising money for GOP elections up and down the ballot.
“I think the Arizona Republican Party is going to struggle pretty significantly to raise money, and no one beyond DeWit has proven to be a capable fundraiser,” said Paul Bentz, a Republican strategist based in Arizona.