Republican Bill Gates told the Washington Post on Thursday that he won't run for a third term on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors next year, a decision that comes after years of extreme harassment from far-right conspiracy theorists. However, it could also open the door to the first Democratic majority in more than half a century on the five-member body that governs Arizona's largest county.
The atmosphere that pervaded Gates' tenure is part of a disturbing trend that has prompted many other election officials to leave office. After certifying the results of the 2020 elections, Gates faced death threats and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The assault continued into the next cycle, growing so dangerous that Gates spent Election Day last year at an undisclosed location due to fears for his safety. In the days that followed, Gates countered lies about the election leveled by Republicans at the highest levels, saying, “The suggestion by the Republican National Committee that there is something untoward going on here in Maricopa County is absolutely false and again, is offensive to these good elections workers.”
Given the widespread embrace of these sorts of conspiracy theories by Republicans the best chance for Gates to be replaced by someone who will likewise stand up for fair elections is if he's succeeded by a Democrat—a strong possibility despite the GOP's long domination of local politics. Maricopa County, which contains the state capital of Phoenix, was an early source of Republican strength in the burgeoning Sun Belt in the years following World War II, and Dwight Eisenhower’s 1952 victory began a GOP winning streak in presidential elections that went unbroken until 2020.
But the county, which is now home to about 60% of Arizona's population, has moved to the left along with the state as a whole in recent years, a shift most vividly highlighted by Biden's narrow victories in 2020 in both jurisdictions. That same year, Democrats had high hopes that they might also take over the board of supervisors for the first time since 1968 and even appeared poised to do so after the first batches of votes were tallied on election night.
Later-counted ballots, however, eventually pushed two close races back to Republicans, with Gates prevailing by just 1.5 points and Jack Sellers winning a first term by a bare one-tenth of one percent of the vote. But while that left the GOP's 4-1 majority intact, Republicans have grown increasingly fretful about their grasp on this one-time conservative bastion, so much so that state lawmakers introduced a plan earlier this year that would gerrymander Maricopa into four new counties—three of which would be solidly red.
That proposal ultimately failed to advance, leaving Maricopa whole for now and putting Democrats in a position to finish the task that just barely eluded them three years ago. Gates' district, numbered the 3rd, will be their top target: According to Dave's Redistricting App, it voted for Biden by a 54-45 margin, making it ripe for a pickup. Sellers, meanwhile, has said he'll seek reelection, but Democrats will also work to oust him, as his 1st District supported Biden 51-48.
MAGA-type Republicans may try as well, and they might go after not only Sellers but also his two remaining GOP colleagues, Thomas Galvin and Clint Hickman—all of whom were censured earlier this year by the county Republican Party, which said it "encourages all registered Republicans to expel them permanently from office."
Galvin's recent experience at the ballot box is instructive: He won a special election for the board in 2022 after saying he believed the county had conducted the presidential election fairly, but he only managed to win the Republican primary with a 37% plurality against a split field of three election deniers. In a one-on-one race, a Republican incumbent who acknowledges that Joe Biden is the rightful president of the United States may very well be doomed.
Galvin, however, says he'll run for a full term, though Hickman says he's a "maybe." Most bullish of all, though, is the board's lone Democrat, Steve Gallardo, a former state senator who represents a safely blue seat and has been a supervisor since first winning a special election in 2014. Gallardo said last month that he's "looking forward to becoming the Chairman" of the board following the 2024 elections.
That role is chosen by the supervisors themselves, so if Gallardo expects to become the board's leader, that means he's counting on two more Democrats to join him. According to state elections expert Quinn Yeargain, if Democrats take a majority next year, it would be their first time doing so since 1964.
