Arizona’s newest political faction wanted to call itself the Independent Party. Its many opponents preferred other descriptors — “confusing,” “deceptive,” “a recipe for disaster” and, above all, “spoiler.”
Democrats and Republicans alike have waged legal and rhetorical war over the name of the would-be Arizona Independent Party, underscoring the tension in the state as it enters a midterm election season with a lot on the line, including the governorship, the attorney general’s post and at least two U.S. House seats.
The fight centers on the use of the I-word, independent, the most common way to refer to the state’s many politically unaffiliated residents, who make up more than a third of its electorate.
Arizona’s Democratic and Republican parties sued to stop the group, originally a chapter of the centrist No Labels organization, from using the word, arguing it was meant to mislead sought-after voters into a camp they had no intention of joining. In a blistering ruling last month, a judge in Phoenix sided with the major parties, ruling the rechristening amounted to “a political bait and switch.”
To understand the acrimony, Arizonans would have to go back to 2024, when the Washington-based national arm of No Labels, which had been critical of both parties, announced it would try to run a “unity” presidential ticket to compete with Donald J. Trump and then-President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Democrats worked aggressively — and successfully — to derail the effort, arguing it was an underhanded scheme to throw the race to Mr. Trump.
Last year, the group’s Arizona offshoot separated from the national organization, changed leadership and lobbied the Arizona Secretary of State for a new name. In so doing, the party achieved an increasingly rare feat in this deeply divided time, uniting Democrats and Republicans, who all feared that an “Independent” candidate for governor could tilt a tight midterm race in their opponent’s favor.
Now, after the court ruling, the party finds itself with an unsettled name, plenty of enemies on the right and the left, and a fraught decision on whether to appeal.
“The two parties see us as an existential threat,” said Paul Johnson, the party’s chairman, who is a former Democrat and a onetime mayor of Phoenix.
Before taking charge, Mr. Johnson had championed a failed ballot measure that would have replaced the state’s partisan primary elections with a top-two open primary, a system similar to California’s, where candidates of all parties compete in the same primary and the top two face off in the general election. In No Labels Arizona, and the 41,000 voters registered under the group’s name, he saw a way to continue what he says is a fight for more moderation in the state’s politics.
In Mr. Johnson’s mind, if he could build a political movement strong enough to threaten the two major parties, they would have to embrace election changes, like a so-called jungle primary, which he believes would in turn lead to less extreme candidates.
But first, No Labels needed a new label.
“We needed to be relevant, we needed to be known, and we needed to find a way to break through to the public,” Mr. Johnson said — hence the Arizona Independent Party.
If Mr. Johnson’s idea of victory is a new Arizona primary system, the party’s preferred candidate for governor, Hugh Lytle, sees his campaign as more than a platform to push electoral changes; he actually wants to lead the state.
“My candidacy is viable no matter what the party name is,” said Mr. Lytle, a health care executive who described himself as center-right but more liberal on social issues. He has belonged to both parties in the past, he said, and grudgingly cast a ballot for Katie Hobbs, the incumbent Democratic governor now running for re-election, in 2022. He believes there are others like him, who would opt for another option if given the chance.
Mr. Lytle’s campaign is a long shot, but strategists say he may be able to pull in tens of thousands of votes, especially if he is able to run under the Arizona Independent Party banner instead of No Labels.
Less clear is which major candidate might lose more support. Ms. Hobbs won by just over 17,000 votes, and with or without a legitimate third-party challenger, she is expected to face a tough fight from her to-be-determined Republican opponent, likely one of two congressmen, David Schweikert or Andy Biggs.
Chuck Coughlin, a veteran Republican-turned-independent political consultant, said a higher share of Arizona’s Republican voters will stick with their party’s nominee, no matter who it is. That would make Ms. Hobbs more vulnerable to Mr. Lytle’s candidacy.
Chris Baker, a Schweikert adviser, disagreed. Because Republicans outnumber Democrats, he said, his party has more to lose, especially if it nominates Mr. Biggs, a hard-right Trump loyalist who may alienate moderates who then would have a new party to turn to.
A spokesman for Ms. Hobbs declined to comment and a representative for Mr. Biggs did not respond to a request.
Mr. Johnson denied that the change was meant to cause voter confusion, but state parties with the word “independent” in their names have a track record of doing just that.
California has something called the American Independent Party — best known for nominating segregationist George Wallace to its presidential ticket in 1968 — and three in four state residents who signed up for it did so by mistake, a Los Angeles Times investigation concluded a decade ago. Accidental registrants included actress Emma Stone and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
Anything that leaves voters doubting the process “is a serious problem,” said Tom Collins, the executive director of the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, a nonpartisan organization in charge of voter education that also sued over the name change.
In his ruling, Judge Gregory S. Como of the Maricopa County Superior Court said parties could not switch names on a whim without again undergoing the signature gathering process.
“Would the same 41,000 people who signed petitions to recognize the No Labels Party have signed to support the ‘Arizona Nazi Party’ or the ‘Arizona Anarchists’?” Judge Como wrote.
If the party doesn’t challenge the decision by April 24, Mr. Lytle and its other candidates will be identified as members of No Labels Arizona on this year’s ballots. For Mr. Johnson, that would be disappointing, but, he said, the fight over the party’s name has already raised its profile.
“I didn’t do that; the two parties did that,” Mr. Johnson said. “If we do go back to No Labels now, people will know why.”
Reis Thebault is a Phoenix-based reporter for The Times, covering the American Southwest.
The post There’s a Third Political Party in Arizona. Just Don’t Call It ‘Independent.’ appeared first on New York Times.
