'That's not how it works': GOP congressional candidates clash on elections, immigration

Two long-shot Republican candidates running to represent Arizona's 3rd Congressional District presented dueling visions of conservatism in a televised debate on Wednesday afternoon.

Jesús David Mendoza, a software engineer and political newcomer, professed that some of his policy positions are still up in the air and named “partisanship” as the country’s number one issue.

Jeff Zink, who worked on the Arizona Senate’s discredited review of Maricopa County ballots in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, more closely took after the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump, declaring “emphatically, without equivocation” that the election was stolen.

The district where they are running, which covers much of western, southern and downtown Phoenix, leans heavily Democratic. The seat is held by Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is running for U.S. Senate.

The candidates first clashed in a discussion of immigration policy.

Mendoza called to double the government’s spending on border security and said he supports a path to citizenship for migrants. Pressed for more specifics on immigration reform he admitted he couldn’t provide them.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been in Congress,” he said.

Zink argued Mendoza’s vague policy platform shows he is not qualified for office.

“My opponent just said he didn't know. And he didn't have an understanding as to what was going on, and he’s going to go to Washington, D.C. That’s too late,” Zink said.

Mendoza put his opponent’s credentials under the microscope when the conversation turned to U.S. election security. Zink had spread the unfounded claims that previous elections were “stolen,” including the 2022 election he lost to Gallego by a 3-to-1 margin.

In fact, dozens of Republican-led legal challenges have failed to surface evidence of widespread fraud in U.S. elections.

Mendoza called for “blockchain-based ballot systems.” Zink suggested those technologies could be insecure and that "source code" had been "altered" in recent elections.

Mendoza mumbled a reply before the moderators could interject: “I'm a software engineer. That's not how it works.”

Asked what measures he supports to curb inflation, Mendoza referenced the banker and businessman Jamie Dimon’s recent prediction that the U.S. economy may fall into a moderate recession and that economic “stagflation” may be on the horizon. Mendoza said the answer starts with balancing the U.S. federal budget.

Zink said bringing back American manufacturing and increasing oil drilling will decrease inflation.

On housing affordability, Mendoza said he had been trying to buy a house for several years but that housing in the region has shifted out of his price range. He called for down-payment assistance, which he said helped his family buy a home. He argued those programs can be an economic stimulus.

“My family has provided millions of dollars to the state because of them being able to own that home. They've started businesses. They've helped the community,” Mendoza said. “They would have done none of that if they weren't the owners of their own home.”

Zink by contrast argued a root cause of the problem is wealthy investors who buy up large numbers of homes, which politicians on both the left and right have said takes units out of the housing supply and drives up prices for ordinary people.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona's 3rd Congressional-district: Republicans square off in debate