Julie Gunnigle may have run one of Arizona's most tone-deaf campaigns

Did Julie Gunnigle, a Democrat seeking to become Maricopa County attorney by prosecuting the office itself, run one of the worst campaigns ever?

That’s not a new question, now that Republican Rachel Mitchell has declared victory.

Last month, Chad Campbell, a Democratic strategist and one-time Arizona House minority leader, dismissed Gunnigle’s campaign, comparing it to the one that governor hopeful David Garcia ran in 2018. He said it was marred by “misstep after misstep and not understanding the audience,” and dubbed it the worst Democratic effort in the last 30 years.

That may be a stretch. (A more compelling argument can be made about Katie Hobbs, who held on to win in spite of an anemic campaign.)

But the point has merit.

Julie Gunnigle clearly underperformed

Certainly, similarly qualified candidates have lost races by larger margins than Gunnigle, who has trailed by about 4 percentage points since just about the first results were posted.

Yet there’s ample evidence that she underperformed:

• Gunnigle is losing by nearly three times the margin she did when she ran for the same office two years ago against Allister Adel;

• Voters in the county, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 100,000, nonetheless favored Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate and four of the five contested top statewide offices;

• Voters leaned Democratic in key ballot propositions – notably in support of a measure to qualify "Dreamers" for in-state tuition and in opposition to more ID requirements for voting – in a larger percentage than statewide figures.

In knocking Gunnigle, Campbell criticized Gunnigle’s embrace of policies associated with the “Defund the Police” movement. He noted how progressives pushing that view lost against more centrist/traditional Democrats in the August primaries in his state legislative district.

Another view: Team owners fund a despicable attack ad against Gunnigle

Gunnigle has bristled at the charge she supports defunding police, with little success. Earlier support for moving millions of dollars from the Phoenix Police budget to fund mental health services didn’t help her cause.

Her mistake: Calling the office corrupt

Probably more damaging is her repeated assertion that the County Attorney’s Office is a corrupt agency that grants exceptions to the rich and the powerful and genuflects to police departments in cases involving excessive use of force and abuse.

Her attempts to blame Mitchell for inherited problems – such as the fiasco of going after protesters with charges designed for criminal street gangs – didn’t quite stick.

Gunnigle’s first priorities would be to create an independent unit to handle investigations of police wrongdoing and target ways to provide offenders with treatment for addiction and mental health issues.

The vision of prosecuting the prosecutorial office over systemic discrimination against the poor and racial minorities enjoyed brief support in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd (which reflected in her narrow loss against Adel).

In the time since, even Democrats have come to acknowledge that law enforcement needs more staffing and support – not less – to become more accountable. Especially at a time when departments such as Phoenix Police struggle on staffing and recruitment and violent crime is up.

It was no surprise that Mitchell supporters linked Gunnigle to progressive elected district attorneys like those in San Francisco and elsewhere whose policies of more lenient prosecution suffered backlash from the public and voters alike.

Gunnigle simply misread the audience

Gunnigle isn’t wrong that the County Attorney’s Office needs to be part of the solution to prison overcrowding and rehabilitation. Or that it needs to better explain controversial cases involving police and public figures (former prisons director Charles Ryan comes to mind).

But the path to winning called for a scalpel and deft nuance, not blunt whacks with a cleaver. It called for her to pivot from the 2020 playbook and respond to public sentiment.

In that regard, Campbell was on point.

Julie Gunnigle flat misread the audience.

Reach Abe Kwok at akwok@azcentral.com. On Twitter: @abekwok. 

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Julie Gunnigle ran one of Arizona's most tone-deaf campaigns