Trump-endorsed candidate Gina Swoboda wins election as Arizona Republican Party chair

Arizona Republican officials voted in a new leader on Saturday after a week of intrigue that highlighted division in the party and raised questions about future fundraising.

State committee members of the Republican Party elected Trump-endorsed election activist Gina Swoboda to lead the party just days after the previous chair, a Trump ally, was forced to resign.

Swoboda won in the first round of voting, in results released about 7:30 p.m.

The annual GOP meeting, attended by more than 1,000 people at Dream City Church in north Phoenix, previously had been scheduled to offer elections only for lower-level officer positions in the party. The sudden departure of GOP Chair Jeff DeWit, who was one year into his two-year term, changed all that, setting off a rush of candidates for the chair position that laid bare the party's deep rifts.

After the election, hopes ran high that the new chair could lead the state party to improved fundraising and better election results this year than in 2022.

The unpaid but high-profile position primarily deals with raising money to elect candidates across the Arizona ballot.

Swoboda is the executive director of the Voter Reference Foundation, a subsidiary of the nonprofit Restoration Action Inc., which promotes the idea that the current election system isn't secure.

She also works for the Arizona Senate as a senior adviser on elections.

The vote followed DeWit's resignation on Wednesday, the day after Kari Lake released a recording of him offering her a job to quit her U.S. Senate race. He said on the recording that "powerful people" had concerns that Lake's candidacy would hurt donations to the GOP and cause election losses.

'Betrayal': Arizona GOP Chair Jeff DeWit resigns after recording of 'offer' to Kari Lake

Lake made the recording in March but chose to release it only days before the annual GOP meeting, apparently to hasten the exit of DeWit, who had been a target of party members who wanted a chair who leaned further right.

'Disgusting': Kari Lake assails former AZ GOP boss Jeff DeWit, doesn't say why she released 'bribe' recording

Party members more focused on what they believe is rampant election fraud quickly put together an "Ultra Grassroots" slate of GOP officer candidates after DeWit left, with Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O'Connor at the top slot. Other candidates, including Yuma County GOP leader Greg Wilkinson, found enough support to throw their names in for the job.

"I'm God's guy," O'Connor told The Republic before the meeting. "He's got this. Case closed."

In the end, many in the Grassroots movement sided with Swoboda.

"Gina Swoboda is the stability that this party needs," conservative activist Merissa Hamilton said. "The fate of America runs through Arizona, and Gina has gone through decades of leadership experience. She's the right person to lead the party."

Swoboda's eligibility questioned

On Friday evening, Donald Trump took time during a day in which he was ordered to pay a woman $83.3 million for defamation to endorse Swoboda, the state party's third vice chair, as his preferred candidate in the internal GOP election.

That forced Trump-supporting, election-fraud-minded Republicans to choose between O'Connor and the Trump-endorsed candidate, Swoboda, who some felt was too tied to DeWit and others they perceive as RINOs (Republicans in Name Only.)

The endorsement was soon echoed by Lake and conservative elected officials in Arizona, including U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs and state Senate President Warren Petersen.

But soon after Trump endorsed her, some political observers said Swoboda wasn't eligible to be a chair, pointing to GOP bylaws that required a chair to be an elected precinct committee member, not appointed, as Swoboda was after a move to a different legislative district.

But Swoboda, who's an expert on elections, told The Arizona Republic on Saturday that according to state law, it's the "will of the body" that matters.

"I’ve been determined eligible," she said before the elections began. Party members voted later in the day to make her selection official.

Elections attorney Kory Langhofer, reached by phone, backed up the position, saying that if party members voted for Swoboda, "no court would throw it out."

Attendees have long, dramatic day

The GOP banned journalists from the event, but information trickled out from attendees. The meeting was supposed to start at 10 a.m. but was delayed for nearly an hour, signaling the long and contentious day ahead for Republicans.

Not unusually, the meeting of party activists included some unruliness. Former party Chair Kelli Ward apparently cut in line to speak to presenters on the stage, took the mic from a woman's hand and began to speak as people shouted at her.

In a video of the incident, someone claims Ward "hit" someone. Ward denied the accusation.

Members first nominated three chair candidates: Swoboda, O'Connor and Mesa resident Verl Farnsworth, who ran for U.S. president in 2012. During the candidates' speeches before the vote, Republicans reflected their division with boos as well as applause for both Lake and O'Connor.

The state committee members from Arizona's 15 counties took the first couple of hours of the meeting to decide how or if machines should be used to count votes in the day's officer elections.

They decided to use vote-counting machines for the preliminary results, with a hand count for final votes. O'Connor and many of his supporters hope to someday eliminate machines in all elections, which they feel create too much risk of voter fraud.

The first vote began after 4 p.m. and ended up being counted by hand, anyway, when officials deemed the vote-counting machines deficient.

Initial results were released to the crowd about 6:30 p.m., with the results of the chair race announced an hour later.

Two members of the "America First Conservatives" slate with Wilkinson won leadership positions. Gina Maloney was elected as first vice chair, and Brandon Turley was elected as assistant sergeant-at-arms.

The event was supposed to end no later than 8 p.m., and officials reportedly canceled voting on proposed changes to bylaws.

DeWit scandal exposed more GOP division

Outside the church before the meeting began, party members milled around the booths for candidates and conservative organizations, discussing the events of the day and what led up to them.

Some Republicans who identify as more moderate expressed dismay at the chaos caused by the party's Trump-supporting wing. But the sharpest division of the day was between those strongly for Trump and election reforms like hand-counts and ending early voting, whose main beef was DeWit and his connections to traditional, business-minded Republicans.

Some people wearing "Ultra Grassroots" stickers and T-shirts viewed the fight as one between righteous constitutionalists and those who want to preserve the status quo embodied by DeWit's job offer to Lake.

"You know, even sometimes Trump gets it wrong," said Janie Barnes of Mesa. "We need some fresh blood. Basically anybody that's in the DeWit camp, I would vote opposite of that, because that camp is corrupt."

The Republicans she opposes tried to promote former Trump primary opponent Ron DeSantis and worked with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to "cherry pick" the appointments of precinct committee members for their own purposes, said Barnes, who is a precinct committee member.

Chris Hamlet, a state committee member from Mesa, said the event was all about getting O'Connor made chair. The DeWit resignation allowed the "golden ticket" of the Grassroots slate to emerge. Swoboda, he said, "shouldn't be in the building," referring to his belief she was ineligible for the chair job.

Opinions about the week's events and players involved landed all over the map among attendees.

J.D. Watson, a state committee member from Scottsdale, wore a Swoboda sticker and said he felt his preferred candidate was "genuine" and good for the party, but added he had nothing against O'Connor. He was, however, concerned about the "corruption" in the state party he feels that Lake revealed.

"I believe that he did something wrong," Watson said of DeWit. "He needs to own up to it and stop being the victim."

Lake's leak of her tape and turning down a high-paying job, on the other hand, took guts, he said.

"We're talking six figures, possibly, and she could not be bought," he said.

'She’s walking a tightrope': How will Kari Lake's close ties to Trump play in Senate race?

The split between O'Connor and Swoboda supporters showed "we are divided strongly," said Malba Alvarez Campa of San Luis, a state committee member.

She had hoped to see Yuma County activists David Lara and Gary Snyder, both on the Grassroots slate, elected as sergeant-at-arms and third vice chair.

Arizona Speaker of the House Ben Toma, who is not a state committee member but had a booth promoting his run for the seat in Arizona's 8th Congressional District, said the turmoil of the past few days was "unfortunate" for the party.

"I hope we can find a way to get united as a party very soon, because I think that matters a lot," Toma said. "It'll make a big difference by the time we get to the general election."

Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X @raystern.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: New Arizona Republican Party chair is Gina Swoboda, endorsed by Trump