Mark Finchem as Yavapai County's senator? Hope he's got GPS so he can find the place

Eat your heart out, Maricopa County.

Mark Finchem has decided not to run for Maricopa County recorder next year after all, apparently believing the fine citizens of Yavapai County are in dire need of his services as their state senator.

Never mind that he just moved to Phoenix in January, apparently believing the fine citizens of Maricopa County were in dire need of his services as their county recorder.

Or that he’s a longtime resident of Pima County with absolutely no connection to Yavapai County.

Yavapai County is as red as they get

Finchem now is that most desperate of characters — a politician with no constituents.

Where better to find some than in Yavapai County, one of the strongest Republican enclaves in the state?

Finchem is one of Arizona’s most energetic election deniers, and that is saying something.

He’s the guy who rallied the right to Stop the Steal and vowed to produce evidence of ballot fraud.

But, of course, he never did.

Mark Finchem is an avid election denier

He’s the one who supported the fake elector scheme and rushed to Washington on Jan. 5, 2021, to deliver a letter to Vice President Mike Pence, asking him not to certify Arizona’s presidential election results.

Having failed in his quest, he then raced around the country calling for the election to be decertified based upon a Maricopa County election audit that turned up no evidence of widespread fraud.

Then he raced around the state trying to get elected secretary of state, only to lose in a landslide.

Naturally, he sued, filing an election challenge so profoundly detached from facts that he was ordered to pay $48,000 to cover Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ legal tab.

That's a tough sell in Maricopa County

So, now Finchem’s shopping for a new opportunity, incredibly available should anyone want to elect him to something. Or even anything.

After his loss last year, he moved to the Valley, registering to vote in Phoenix in January.

On June 30, he picked up a packet indicating his interest in challenging Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.

But Finchem stood about as good a chance of winning a countywide election as he did of winning a statewide race.

No chance, that would be.

So, it was on to Republican-rich Yavapai County, where 27 days later he now claims to live in a double-wide trailer on Shiloh Road in Prescott.

On Wednesday, he filed a statement of interest and began circulating nominating petitions to run for the state Senate.

So, Finchem moved to a Prescott trailer

Color Republican Sen. Ken Bennett surprised.

“Maybe he thinks I’m a bigger monster than Stephen Richer and that he needs to move to Prescott,” Bennett told The Arizona Republic’s Ray Stern, when asked about Finchem’s filing.

Both men are Republicans but they couldn’t be much different.

Mark Finchem wants to run: But which office does he want?

Bennett grew up in Prescott and ran the family business there. He served on the Prescott City Council and is in his fifth term as Yavapai County’s senator.

He has served as Senate president and was elected secretary of state.

Finchem moved to Tucson in 1999, having retired after 21 years as a police officer and firefighter paramedic in Kalamazoo, Mich., where his personnel file lists his date of retirement along with this notation: “Retired, poor rating, would not rehire.”

It's a page from the Wendy Rogers playbook

Bennett is a traditional conservative Republican — the sort who used to run this state until the Once-Grand Old Party lost its mind and started nominating whack jobs.

Finchem is a member of the Oath Keepers anti-government militia group, and sees conspiracies everywhere and enemies all around him.

He promotes the theories of the QAnon kooks who believe the world is run by a global cabal of Satan worshipping pedophiles. He has said the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation's Capitol “was a setup.”

Finchem reminds me of Sen. Wendy Rogers, the oddball Tempe resident who spent 10 years trying to get to elected to something and couldn’t, until finally she moved into a trailer along Route 66 in Flagstaff.

Now she’s in the state Senate and a rock star of the hard right, representing rural Arizona from a $750,000 home she just bought in Chandler.

Surely, the good people of Yavapai won’t be so easily fooled.

Reach Roberts at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mark Finchem aims to carpetbag his way back into the Legislature