Five Days Until Election Day: Five Creepiest Moments from the Campaign Trail
ARIZONA – Halloween came early this election season – not only have a number of Republican candidates in tight-races costumed as moderates, a handful have made out-right creepy remarks on the campaign trail. Here are the top five weirdest moments from Arizona’s most competitive races:
#5) “You better listen” LD9 state House candidate Mary Ann Mendoza eerily threatens voters on Primary Day.
On Primary Day this year, Republican state house candidate in Mesa’s LD9, Mary Ann Mendoza, appeared on a Rumble show with a disturbing warning for Arizonans:
"If you live in Arizona, you better listen, you better make sure I get elected because your world's gonna be turned upside down if I don't." [1:26:30]
Unsettling behavior like this is not new to Mendoza, who has been widely reported to have worn black and brown face on multiple occasions including Halloween.
#4) “Pumba’s dead!” LD16 state House candidate Chris Lopez once posed with dead, near-threatened animals.
Chris Lopez, a carnival operator turned candidate, has taken voters for a ride this year. While failing to pay thousands in taxes, Lopez has gone on expensive overseas vacations. One trip took him to the African bush, where he killed near-threatened, famous animal species.
Pictures posted to his Instagram account show him posed with over a dozen decapitated heads, a dead zebra, and a dead warthog with the caption "Pumba's dead!"
#3) LD17 state Senate candidate Vince Leach jokes about feeding dogs “to the Haitians.”
Weird views of animals bled into LD17 this election, as state Senate candidate Vince Leach joked at a September campaign stop about feeding dogs “to the Haitians.”
The racist rumors Leach amplified, initially spread by neo-Nazis, are completely unfounded and have been widely disproven.
Regardless, Leach later doubled down on the claims in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star.
On top of Chris Lopez’s disturbing safari photos and the AZ GOP’s racist billboards, Leach’s comments confirm that it’s best for Republican candidates to just leave animals out of this.
#2) LD17 state House candidate Cory McGarr snaps at woman in public park.
Right before he voted four times to invade women’s personal decisions and keep the 1864 abortion ban, LD17’s incumbent state Rep. Cory McGarr invaded the personal space of a petitioner at an Oro Valley park.
In February 2024, McGarr approached a woman gathering signatures for the abortion access ballot initiative and harangued her repeatedly as a “baby killer.”
McGarr’s extreme anti-abortion position is long documented, but this incident crossed a new line.
#1) LD17 state House candidate Rachel Jones threatens political enemies, press, and “cheating traitors.”
An election conspiracist through and through, LD17 state House candidate Rachel Jones has taken to social media late in the campaign to rage against her political opponents, election officials, and the press.
In the last two months, she’s made disturbing comments calling the media “the enemy of the people”, saying that “it's about time that the people fight back”, and pledging “when,” not if, former President Trump wins the election, the “cheating traitors are finally going down.”
