In 2004, Stuart Starky was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Arizona. He faced incumbent U.S. Sen. John McCain, then already a state institution after having served in the position since 1987.
Starky lost in a landslide, attaining only 20.6% of the vote to McCain’s 76.7%.
“Even my daughters wouldn’t bet on me in that one,” Starky said.
Starky, currently the principal of C.O. Greenfield Elementary School in South Phoenix, is running for Congress as a Democrat in a race that is only a little bit less of a long shot.
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar has represented Congressional District 4 since 2011 and won his most recent election by a margin of 38 percentage points — so, better than the 56 that Starky lost by in 2004.
Starky is one of two candidates competing in the District 4 Democratic primary to be held on Aug. 4, along with Delina Disanto. The winner of that race will go up against either Gosar or his Republican primary challenger, Anne-Marie Ward, in the general election.
Starky speaks with pride of his 2004 loss, saying it was an “honor” to run against McCain, who he holds in high esteem, and stand opposite him on the debate stage. He is taking the same approach to running in the heavily Republican district, saying that even if he loses, it would
be worth it to make the case for his values and do the work of reaching out to voters on behalf of the Democratic Party.
“It’s now. This is the chance to do it,” Starky said, pointing to recent advances Democrats have had at the state level and polls suggesting opposition to President Donald Trump in the state. “There’s value in closing the gap. [Gosar has] been winning by 35, 40 points. If we can cut that in half, it means that we’ve solidified the fact that change is possible here. Certainly we want to win, but the idea that we can break away from the idea that this is only Republican territory — especially with the redistricting coming — and who knows what the final lines will look like — this is a campaign you can’t sit out.”
Starky can be hard to define ideologically. He praised Bernie Sanders’ campaigns for president in 2016 and 2020 and lauded the registered independent from Vermont for his advocacy on the minimum wage, which has pushed for wage increases at several major companies. But Starky also puts forward a tax plan that calls for significant reductions in income tax rates for most earners, along with a doubling of the standard deduction and an elimination of all taxes on business income, to be replaced with a combination of sales taxes and a Value Added Tax.
He sees environmental protection as an important part of his platform and said that his motivation to run this year came from the possibility of uranium mining being resumed in the Grand Canyon. He proudly says that he has been advocating for marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage all the way back since his 2004 race, when both were fringe positions.
Starky argues that on many of the important issues, he is trying to meet voters in the middle. He expressed support for the cause of the protests that broke out around the country after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and said that he believes that statues of Confederate generals and politicians should be taken down, but he also denounced the instances where the protests have turned violent and said that monuments of Founding Fathers must be preserved, even if they were slaveowners. On guns, Starky said he wants to ensure that gun owners can continue to keep their guns, but wants to be able to limit clip sizes to prevent mass shooter situations.
“Unfortunately, the pandemic has put an end to probably the best method I had for campaigning, which is face to face,” Starky said. “You’d be surprised when you go in and you ask a Gosar strong Republican voter, ‘Would you be willing to limit clips to 30 instead of 100, so policemen can respond faster?’ and use for example the Las Vegas shooting. And they’ll say, ‘Yeah, 30 makes sense.’”
On the pandemic, Starky believes that the federal and state governments have largely failed to contain the spread of the virus and sees that as a key reason why change is needed in Washington, D.C. He argued for making the CDC guidelines on things like mask wearing mandatory, and also said that Congress should renew the boosted unemployment insurance benefits passed as part of the CARES Act to allow those who have lost jobs during the crisis to remain financially secure.
As a principal, Starky said that he wants to be able to bring students back to school but worries that with the current state of the pandemic, it would not be safe.
“We definitely want our kids back on campus, but we want them back at a time when we can feel confident that we did the best we could, for the parents, that we prepared their kids, not only academically, but health wise,” Starky said. He believes that with the high positive test rates in Arizona, it would not be safe to bring schools back without a full testing regimen and increased precautions in classrooms to prevent the spread.
