Rep. Eli Crane vs. Jack Smith: Inside the GOP 'civil war' in Arizona's 2nd Congressional District
In Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, the rural area that spirals clockwise across northeastern Arizona, the GOP is at war with itself.
On one side is incumbent Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., the dark-haired, tattooed freshman member of Congress who sent waves through D.C. when he voted to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from the House’s top leadership post.
On the other side is Jack Smith, a former Yavapai County supervisor and appointee of former President Donald Trump. Smith is challenging Crane in the July 30 primary in an effort that McCarthy’s allies are supporting financially.
At issue are two visions of Republican governance. Smith says he would take a more “traditional” approach to the job and argues Crane and his hardline peers are undermining their own party. Crane, part of the increasingly aggressive flank that dismisses moderate Republicans as members of a “Uniparty,” has cast Smith as an opportunist bankrolled by D.C. money.
Still, under different political circumstances, both of the candidates have shifted their postures towards the Republican establishment in D.C., an Arizona Republic review found.
"Political loyalties are like high school romances," said John J. "Jack" Pitney Jr., a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College. "They tend not to last very long."
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The search for someone to challenge Crane
Crane voted to dethrone McCarthy on Oct. 3, 2023. The revenge effort began promptly.
Several Arizona politicians were approached about running for the seat.
On Nov. 3, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb was asked about the possibility by someone he described as a D.C. politico with Arizona ties.
It was a short conversation, Lamb said in an interview.
“I said, ‘let me just stop you there,’” he recalled. “‘Unlike those folks in D.C., I’m loyal. And Eli Crane is my friend. So no: I won’t run against Eli Crane.”’
Lamb added he isn’t interested in serving in the U.S. House and didn’t want to suspend his ongoing campaign for U.S. Senate.
State Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, also was approached, according to text messages obtained by The Arizona Republic. Shope wrote via text that people associated with McCarthy had asked him to run for the seat, but he declined their offer.
In an interview, Shope downplayed the text and said the prospect had only come up in a "casual conversation."
Former Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, whose former legislative district overlaps Crane's congressional one, said she would not confirm or deny whether she had been contacted.
But she said with a laugh it was a “real possibility.” If someone had asked her to run against Crane, Fann said, she would have turned it down, saying she’s “had enough” of politics.
Smith for his part brushed off the fact that his campaign coincided with reports of a McCarthy-backed vengeance campaign.
He told The Republic he had long planned to run for Republican Rep. Paul Gosar’s seat when Gosar leaves office. Smith was approached about running for Crane’s seat in 2022, when redistricting opened up an opportunity for a Republican to replace incumbent Rep. Tom O'Halleran, D-Ariz. But he decided against it that year based on personal conversations with his family.
Smith traces his current campaign back to last year, when he texted Crane asking to sit down for coffee, in messages reviewed by The Republic. Crane agreed but never followed up, he said, suggesting he wasn’t serious about consulting with his constituents. “Eli will happily grab him a cup of coffee at the upcoming candidate forum,” wrote Gregory Smith, an aide to Crane, in a comment.
With his family’s blessing, and support from others in the district, Smith said he then decided to run.
He said he has never talked to McCarthy and only knows him through the news.
“Because I’ve wanted to do this for so many years, honestly, this was my choice,” Smith said.
Former Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin, who has known Smith over the years and once hired him to work on outreach to rural schools, said he wasn’t expecting Smith to announce a bid for Congress, in part because it was a big jump for someone who had taken time off from politics. But he confirmed Smith has long expressed ambitions of seeking higher office, including Congress.
“Like many of us he thinks Washington’s broken, and he wants a shot at fixing it," Tobin said. "So whatever he can do, whatever position that gets him the best chance at fixing it, I think is what he’s interested in.”
McCarthy allies have already begun running negative television ads against Crane.
The race “shows that some politicians have a taste for vengeance,” Pitney said. “The outcome isn’t necessarily going to change the composition of Congress. But if Kevin McCarthy succeeds, he will at least have some grim satisfaction.”
“Arizona’s in the middle of a civil war in the party,” Tobin said. “That may be every reason why you have outside resources coming this way.”
Crane has alleged that Smith is in McCarthy’s pocket. He’s raising money off the idea.
“Kevin McCarthy recently recruited an ambitious guy named Jack Smith to primary me,” Crane wrote in a recent fundraising email. “Nobody in the district asked him to run — just a corrupt swamp creature who’s bitter that he lost his grip on power.”
Smith ended up filing paperwork for his candidacy in early March, leaving him less than a month to gather the 1,800 voter signatures needed to get on the ballot. He gathered twice that amount in time for the early April deadline, aided in part by signature-gatherers who live out of state, according to copies of the petitions obtained from the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.
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The candidates' shifting posture toward McCarthy
Smith and Crane are trading blows over their level of allegiance to the GOP leadership in D.C., but both have taken different postures toward McCarthy in the past.
While he blasts Smith for taking money from the “swamp,” Crane accepted close to $1 million from political groups aligned with the former speaker during his 2022 campaign, Politico has reported.
Crane’s campaign responded saying there’s a difference between the past election cycle, when he was working to oust a Democrat, and the 2024 fight between Republicans.
“McCarthy’s current efforts are explicitly driven by petty revenge, siphoning critical resources from electing Donald Trump and growing the House majority. Jack Smith knowingly going along with that makes him complicit,” Crane’s campaign said.
Crane traveled to New York in mid-May to display support for Trump during his "hush money" trial.
McCarthy’s 2022 support for Crane made it all the more dramatic when Crane stood in the way of McCarthy’s election as House speaker. Crane was among about 20 Republicans who held out on supporting McCarthy, finally voting “present” to allow him to assume office.
To some, it proved Crane’s loyalties could not be bought and sold. Smith saw a rebel without a cause.
"I can tell you that it was very frustrating for me, and a lot of folks up here in the rural side,” he said. “The whole holdout for speaker really put a bad taste in our mouth.
“We just took the House and here we are trying to attack each other over something that's really not that meaningful.”
Smith signaled the opposite view on social media at the time. In January 2023, while the speakership election was underway, he liked a post by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., tallying McCarthy’s flagging vote count and calling for “a Speaker that will unify the GOP.” He liked another one of her posts saying “the swamp doesn’t like being disrupted."
“Americans are sick of RINO’s like Kevin McCarthy and what they stand for,” read another post that Smith liked.
“They have forgotten the reason people run for office in the first place,” Smith replied in a comment.
His political consultant, Chris Baker, said the posts undermine the idea that Smith is on McCarthy’s team.
Smith said he didn’t immediately remember that social media activity and reiterated he believes Crane's speakership votes were misguided.
"This has very little to do with just McCarthy,” Smith said. “It has more to do with betraying the Republican Party."
Instead, Smith’s campaign has focused on the fact that Crane lives in Oro Valley, a well-to-do suburb outside Tucson and far beyond the limits of the district, and his votes against bills that included border funding.
The McCarthy-linked TV ads noted that Crane voted against government funding packages that included funding for border security personnel and a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Whether that line of attack will work against Crane, who has made hawkish immigration rhetoric the centerpiece of his political brand, remains to be seen. Crane voted against many of the government funding proposals because he said he wanted more focused spending packages and the border security provisions didn’t go far enough.
The race will be one hint as to the future direction of the GOP, Pitney said.
"We’ll see in a year or two: Has the confrontational style of the House GOP peaked, or will it continue to grow? That’s an open question right now," he said.
Laura Gersony covers national politics for The Arizona Republic. Contact her at [email protected] or 480-372-0389.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Inside the GOP civil war between Rep. Eli Crane and rival Jack Smith