Ruth McClung, 28, has the support of Tea Party activists and is mounting a serious challenge to Representative Raul M. Grijalva, a Democrat.
TUCSON — When it comes to endangered species in Arizona, there are the bonytail chub, the Sonoran pronghorn and, perhaps soon, the Congressional Democrat.
Of the state’s eight House members, five are Democrats. That may change next Tuesday, with four of the five in varying degrees of trouble. Democrats, Republicans and independents are about evenly split in Arizona, but Republicans could soon have a virtual lock on the upper reaches of power in the state.
“It’s high anxiety for Democrats everywhere, but it’s especially so in Arizona,” said Barry Dill, a Democratic strategist in Phoenix who is still hopeful that the party’s incumbents can rebound in the final days before Election Day.
Representative Ed Pastor, who represents western Phoenix, is considered safe. And in the race for the open seat in the Third Congressional District, Jon Hulburd has been locked in a close contest against Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle. But elsewhere in Arizona, Democrats are on the defensive, even incumbents who were thought to dominate their districts, like Representative Raúl M. Grijalva in the Democratic-leaning Seventh District.
In Congress since 2003, and before that a county supervisor and a school board member, Mr. Grijalva enjoyed relative cakewalks in his previous elections. But not this time.
In a humbling reversal, Mr. Grijalva, 62, is fighting for his political life against a virtual unknown, Ruth McClung, an Idaho native who moved to Arizona in 2000 to go to college. Ms. McClung, 28, has the support of Tea Party activists and is receiving major support from outsiders like Sarah Palin and Americans for Tax Reform.
The tables have clearly turned. It is usually the challengers who struggle to persuade entrenched incumbents to debate them. This time around, with incumbency a dirty word, some challengers are playing hard to get.
Ms. McClung debated Mr. Grijalva once but then backed out of a second debate last week, citing a scheduling conflict. The Grijalva campaign is accusing her of dodging a face-to-face discussion of her conservative views.
A few days before, Mr. Grijalva learned that Ms. McClung was going to a candidate forum sponsored by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, so he rejiggered his schedule to make sure he was there as well. “If she’s there, I’m there,” he told aides.
And there she was, standing in a park with other candidates from the Tucson area, most of them Democrats. On the sidelines, Ms. McClung did engage in some debate with Grijalva supporters, who challenged her support for school vouchers and Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
“You need more education,” Isabel Garcia, a local activist, said to Ms. McClung, pointing her finger at the candidate. “You need knowledge to have strong opinions.”
Ms. McClung brushed off the harsh words. “You just smile and listen,” she said later.
There has been little smiling, however, in the battle that Ms. McClung is waging on the airwaves. She knocks Mr. Grijalva for supporting the economic boycott of Arizona that was put in place after the state passed its tough anti-immigration law. Mr. Grijalva subsequently backtracked on the boycott.
But in a district where the unemployment rate is among the nation’s highest and with many families facing foreclosure on their homes, the idea that a congressman would support sticking it to his own state has won Ms. McClung support. That it has angered some in Mr. Grijalva’s district is clear: a bullet was fired into one of his offices, and last week a package arrived scrawled with swastikas and containing a suspicious substance, later determined to be harmless.
Across Arizona, other Democratic members of Congress are similarly vulnerable.
Considered even more in danger than Mr. Grijalva are Representative Ann Kirkpatrick, who represents the sprawling First District in northern Arizona; Representative Harry E. Mitchell, a second-term congressman who represents parts of Phoenix and communities to the northeast; and Gabrielle Giffords, whose Republican-leaning Eighth Congressional District covers southeastern Arizona.
Ms. Kirkpatrick, 60, who is in her first term representing a centrist district, and Ms. Giffords, 40, in her second term, are both in tight races against political newcomers who are trying to link them to President Obama.
Facing Ms. Kirkpatrick is Paul Gosar, 51, a dentist who sold his practice to run for office; Ms. Giffords is opposed by Jesse Kelly, 28, a former Marine who works at his family’s construction business.
Ms. Kirkpatrick promotes her advocacy of a pay cut for members of Congress in these tough economic times as evidence of her independence from her party’s leadership. She has been sending 5 percent of her salary to the Bureau of Public Debt, which has done little to quell attacks from Mr. Gosar that her votes have been fiscally irresponsible. He has avoided debating her as well.
Ms. Giffords, a conservative Democrat who does not toe her party’s line, spoke at a recent candidate forum about how party labels mean little to her. In a debate on Oct. 18 at the University of Arizona, she linked herself to the state’s two Republican senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain.
But Mr. Kelly, at the debate, said Ms. Giffords had shown herself to be more allied with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Are you happy with Congress right now?” he asked. “If you’re happy with Congress, if you’re happy with Obamacare, with bailing out Wall Street, if you’re happy with high taxes, continue to vote for Representative Giffords.”
In the Fifth District, Mr. Mitchell is facing David Schweikert, a former treasurer of Maricopa County, in a rematch of a 2008 contest that Mr. Mitchell won, 53 percent to 44 percent. This year’s race is expected to be much closer.
nytimes.com
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