in maricopa: Why Maricopa is the county’s most civically disengaged city
October 11, 2024
In Maricopa, like anywhere else, candidates pine after voters. Does the electorate reciprocate that courtship?
Nope. It’s a more one-sided love story than 500 Days of Summer. And, gosh, that was a depressing flick.
If every Maricopa city voter who blew off the primary election packed into the Footprint Center for a Suns game, they’d fill the arena twice — with 900 fans left standing outside.
Those folks would miss watching Ryan Dunn go boom or bust, but that’s just what you get in a city where, in 2024, it feels like more people participated in NBA All-Star voting than in the election that decisively set up the next four years of leadership in Maricopa.
Sena Mohammed, executive director of OVOV, said her goal is “to support progressive Black leaders running for elected office in local, state and national races.”
Calling support of O’Jon a “natural choice,” Mohammed said the candidate from Senita “first got our attention when she founded the Black Maricopa Chamber of Commerce and has consistently demonstrated that she has what it takes to be a local leader and to fight for our shared goals.”
Mohammed said O’Jon would have “truly made a difference” for Black people in Maricopa. InMaricopa contacted O’Jon July 24 for comment about the endorsement. She never responded.
O’Jon paid two of her own nonprofits with money from her campaign coffers — $972 to the Black Maricopa Chamber of Commerce and the Maricopa Debutante Organization, a teen mentorship outfit.
Diversity, equity and delusion
OVOV liked O’Jon because she represented diversity, in the traditional sense. Experts like Coughlin say a lack of diversity could be a factor in hampering voter turnout, but not the kind you’d think.
In the Scottsdale City Council election, it was a crowded field of nine aged 21 to 79 representing starkly opposing factions.
Among them, a former Arizona House rep, a former Arizona Republican Party state treasurer, a Fox News personality, two high-ranking corporate executives and two former city commissioners.
Diversity of age? Check. Diversity of thought? Check. Leadership experience? Check.
Together, the candidates raised $1,004,307. Some touted their governing experience motivated people to vote — and to spend.
Even in tiny Fountain Hills the incumbent Mayor Ginny Dickey is a former assistant director of the U.S. Department of Environmental Quality with a 40-year government tenure to boot. She faces Gerry Friedel, another experienced politician, in a November runoff. In the primary election, she bested Joe Arpaio, the longtime Maricopa County Sheriff and former U.S. Senate candidate.
