Jack O'Donnell, who wrote a book on Trump, running for Congress in Rep. Juan Ciscomani's district

Tucson businessman Jack O’Donnell, who wrote a book about his time working for Donald Trump’s casinos and has been a go-to commentator on the former president, is seeking a southern Arizona congressional seat.

He’s announced he will challenge Democrat Kirsten Engel in the 2024 primary for Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, with the winner likely facing incumbent Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani.

O’Donnell wrote a 1991 book, “Trumped! The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump — His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall,” written shortly after he left the Trump organization.

With Engel losing by only about 5,000 votes to Ciscomani last year, the district is viewed as highly competitive, which is among the reasons Engel is running again.

O’Donnell said he’s running because the district needs a stronger candidate to defeat Ciscomani.

“I fundamentally believe we need to elect better people. I think if we continue — and the Democrats can be just as guilty as the Republicans — if you continue to elect people who are far right and far left, it will continue to be more polarized than what it is today,” O’Donnell said in an interview with The Arizona Republic. “I really do feel like I am somebody that is in the middle.”

O’Donnell’s book made him a popular guest on news programs during Trump’s 2016 campaign and the following presidential term. O’Donnell frequently discussed what he describes as Trump’s poor business acumen.

“I really did feel an obligation to warn the world, so to speak, about what kind of man this really was and what kind of damage I felt that he could do to the country,” he said.

O’Donnell worked in Atlantic City in the late 1980s and became president of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino. He left that job when Trump began to blame the failing finances of his three casinos in the city on friends and colleagues of O’Donnell who died in a helicopter crash.

Executives Steve Hyde, Mark Etess and Jonathan Benanav died in the October 1989 crash, along with the pilot and co-pilot.

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O'Donnell says his life was shaped by early tragedies, hard work

O’Donnell was born in Wilmette, Illinois, in 1954.

He lost his father at age 8 and mother when he was 12. He said those early childhood tragedies, as well as others in his life, give him the empathy to be a good leader.

“My experience makes me more compassionate for what people are going through,” he said, noting that such experience would help him navigate political issues such as immigration.

“I can damn well tell you I am going to approach it from a compassionate side,” he said. “I don’t think we can have open borders, but I will consider the struggle they are going through.”

O’Donnell also emphasizes the importance of hard work when telling his life story.

He speaks reverently of his mother, who moved the family from Illinois to Colorado after his father’s death so she could take a job as a secretary and continue to support the family.

O’Donnell himself took odd jobs during this time, he said, including washing floors and windows in a strip mall and selling concessions at university football games.

He discussed his mother driving from Boulder to Denver during her lunch break to receive radiation treatment for cancer before she, too, passed away.

"God bless her she never quit her job," he said.

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An aunt and uncle adopted O’Donnell and his siblings after his mother's death and moved the children back to Illinois.

Eventually he tried to balance college and a career, but the job won out before he got his degree.

He worked his way up the Bally Manufacturing company from pinball machines to slot machines, which brought him into the gambling industry, where he eventually worked for mogul Steve Wynn, and then Trump.

After the casino business, O’Donnell ran a development company, then came to Tucson about 15 years ago to help his brother’s businesses, he said. That experience got him involved with the addiction-recovery industry.

O’Donnell has spent the last five years as CEO of C4 Recovery Foundation, a nonprofit addiction program that also has a for-profit consulting business.

“The first time a parent walked into my office and thanked me for saving their child’s life. I didn’t take credit for that. But … I realized the power of the work we were doing in the addiction field,” he said.

O'Donnell promises a focus on bipartisan issues

O’Donnell said as a Democrat he will support a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion, but that he intends to focus on more bipartisan issues that affect Arizona if elected.

"There are ideological issues out there, and I think what candidates are doing today ... is they focus on the ideological issues, which you are not going to be able to do much about," he said.

“... Like every other Democrat, I’m deeply concerned about women’s rights and taking away their right to choose for their own health care needs, (but) you are not going to change any Republican's opinion about that," he said.

He said a moderate who supports the Democratic agenda on that issue could likely make headway on other issues that have broader impact on all citizens.

"I think you can do some good in D.C. with both Democrats and Republicans. I do believe there is room. If you don't believe there is room to make progress on that, you shouldn't be running," he said. "If you continue to run on issues of ideology, nothing is going to change."

An example of such an issue that could bring the parties together, he said, is the opioid epidemic.

“It affects every single community,” he said of that issue. “Because it’s so broad, it’s not just about addiction. It includes issues of housing, job training, women and children. I think I can do some good things in that area.”

He said water issues need more attention as well, and that he supports “blowing up” the seven-state agreement on the Colorado River.

“You can’t have a community like Tucson giving 100% of its CAP water back to save Lake Mead and have California do nothing,” he said.

O’Donnell said that in his free time he participates in horse competitions, having had to give up on long-distance endurance races he used to enter before having his knees replaced.

He has one adult daughter and a stepson with his wife, Nancy.

Reach reporter Ryan Randazzo at ryan.randazzo@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4331. Follow him on Twitter @UtilityReporter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ businessman Jack O'Donnell running for 6th Congressional District