Democrat Marlene Galán-Woods defends past support for Republicans in congressional debate

Democratic congressional candidate Marlene Galán-Woods on Wednesday defended her past support for Republicans as her other political rivals assailed the GOP that she once backed during a televised debate.

For most of the hourlong event, the Democrats hoping to challenge U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., touted their own credentials and hit the seven-term incumbent for what they viewed as an overly conservative record.

Near the end, however, Galán-Woods, a former journalist and widow of Grant Woods, the former Republican attorney general, came under the microscope for her long past as a Republican herself.

“My values have never changed,” Galán-Woods said. “I have always been pro-choice, pro-democracy, pro-climate. My values have never changed. What changed was the Republican Party.”

That drew challenges from Kurt Kroemer, a former nonprofit executive, and Conor O’Callaghan, who works in finance.

“The Republican Party has never been for comprehensive immigration reform. The Republican Party has never been for a woman’s right to choose. The Republican Party has never wanted to protect Social Security, Medicare,” Kroemer said.

“They’ve always, for decades, tried to eviscerate it. The Republican Party has always tried to minimize the ability of people to vote. That hasn’t changed for decades.”

O’Callaghan said the GOP’s “stated mission” for years was to overturn abortion rights.

“Ms. Woods has been on the political scene here in Arizona for decades. When Planned Parenthood was under attack in the court system here in the '90s, where was Ms. Woods speaking out against that?” O’Callaghan said.

“She supported (former Republican Gov.) Jan Brewer this millennium. … She was a huge, loud champion for (2012 Republican presidential nominee) Mitt Romney … and she retweeted a pro-life tweet from (former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.) in 2017.”

An indignant Galán-Woods took special umbrage at the reference to the Sasse tweet.

“This is why people, voters, Americans, are sick and tired of politicians,” she said. “This is why people are cynical about the process, because people like Mr. O’Callaghan are willing to lie, are willing to misrepresent the truth of someone else’s record and positions for their own political gain.”

The Sasse tweet dealt with an adoption credit, she said.

“I am an adoptive mother. My husband and I adopted a little girl from Guatemala, so I supported a tax break for adoptive parents," she said. "He knows that that’s what that was about.”

Others were more nuanced in making the case for their candidacy.

Andrei Cherny, the former Arizona Democratic Party chair, repeatedly cited his previous policy work for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He began his remarks by saying there were “six good people” onstage with similar positions on important issues.

“There’s only one person on this stage with a 25-year track record that Democrats can trust, of actually fighting for our values, of actually making progress on the critical challenges that we face,” he said.

Former state Rep. Amish Shah, D-Phoenix, cited his work during three terms in the Arizona Legislature in casting himself as able to pass bills in a Republican-controlled chamber.

“Over the last six cycles, we have run a candidate, good Democrats, who had never won an election before, and then we lost," Shah said. "I think we cannot make that mistake again. We need a candidate who has won tough elections, and I’m the only one on the stage who has done that.”

Andrew Horne, an orthodontist, emphasized that he isn’t related to Arizona schools chief Tom Horne and focused on the need for protection from gun violence.

He assailed Schweikert for voting against a bipartisan border security bill that U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., helped shape earlier this year.

“We do have a crisis at the border and David Schweikert didn’t want to fix it,” Horne said.

Schweikert has won seven terms in the House, and is facing yet another race where he is considered vulnerable at the outset. For one, it is one of 16 House seats held by Republicans in districts that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.

Beyond that, Schweikert’s 2018 and 2020 contests drew Democratic challengers looking to capitalize on an ethics probe in which he eventually admitted to 11 violations and paid a $50,000 fine.

In 2022, Republican Elijah Norton tried to use the misspending case against him with GOP voters. Schweikert beat Norton, then narrowly defeated Democrat Jevin Hodge by less than 3,200 votes, or about 1 percentage point.

Inside Elections rates the race for Schweikert’s seat as “tilt Republican.” Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report call it a toss-up.

The 1st Congressional District spans northeastern Maricopa County, including north-central Phoenix, Scottsdale and Paradise Valley.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 6 Democrats hoping to oust Arizona Rep. David Schweikert debate