Republican official behind 'lynching' comment casts Arizona GOP's vote for Donald Trump

Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic
·2 min read
The Arizona delegation celebrates as their votes are cast during the first day of the Republican National Convention. The RNC kicked off the first day of the convention with the roll call vote of the states.
The Arizona delegation celebrates as their votes are cast during the first day of the Republican National Convention. The RNC kicked off the first day of the convention with the roll call vote of the states.
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And the honor of casting Arizona’s 43 votes in Monday’s roll call of delegates to the Republican National Convention goes to:

Shelby Busch.

Busch is the hard-right activist who recently was caught on video saying she wanted to “lynch” fellow Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.

That should fit nicely into Donald Trump’s post-assassination-attempt acceptance speech — the one he says he’s rewritten to call for unity.

Busch's group censures Republicans who aren't hard-right

Busch, when she's not contemplating stringing up the county recorder, sits on the Maricopa County Republican Committee — the one that has spent the last year censuring Republicans who don’t align with its hard-right views.

She’s the leader of We the People AZ Alliance, with links to prominent election deniers like former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com executive who helped fund the debunked Arizona Senate audit of the 2020 election.

In March, Busch urged a group of Republicans to support state Rep. Justin Heap, “a good Christian man” to knock off Richer, who is Jewish, in the July 30 primary.

Heap, she said, is “a good Christian man that believes what we believe.”

“We can work with that, right?” she said. “That, that’s unity.”

And a worse fate for non-Christians like Stephen Richer

She went on to note that “if Richer walked in this room, I would lynch him. I don’t unify with people who don’t believe the principles we believe in and the American cause that founded this country.”

She later said she was kidding. Because jokes about hanging people are oh so hilarious.

Once upon a time, Busch was an outcast in normal GOP circles. These days, she’s a party powerhouse, elected by the likes of Sens. Justine Wadsack and Wendy Rogers and Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern to lead Arizona’s delegation to the Republican National Convention.

This, of course, makes ... perfect sense.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRobertsaz.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona's lynch lady casts the state GOP's vote for Donald Trump