Yavapai County District 3 supervisor candidates Nikki Check [D] and Lori Drake [R] released their pre-general election campaign finance reports on Saturday, Oct. 26.
For the election cycle, Check raised $68,354 and had $203 remaining at the end of the reporting period. The political action committee Democrats of the Red Rocks donated $1,000 to her, and the political action committee Arizona List, which supports pro-choice Democratic women, gave $1,500.
Drake, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary, raised $32,880 and had $9,537 left as of Oct. 26. Among Drake’s larger contributors were the Mingus Mountain Republican Club, which gave $2,000, and the Yavapai County Republican Committee, which gave $1,000.
Drake and Check finished primary season at the end of September on a comparable financial footing, with Check reporting $18,737 to Drake’s $17,477.
Democratic incumbent Donna Michaels raised $82,407 after starting the campaign cycle with $1,281. Despite Michaels’ larger warchest, Check defeated her 72% to 28% in the July 30 primary election.
The general election contest between Check and Drake will be the last race to determine the makeup of the board of supervisors, as Check and Michaels were the only Democrats running for seats in Yavapai County government.
The Republican candidates who won their July primary races will take their seats without facing any challengers in the general election.
Brooks Compton won the Republican race for District 1 with 41% of the vote and raised $31,790, followed by Greg Mengarelli with 36% and $69,456, David McNabb with 12% and $755 and Deb Pernice with 10% and $5,573.
In District 2, incumbent James Gregory won 58% of the vote and raised $4,750; primary challenger Wiley Cline self-financed his campaign and spent $6,599.
Chris Kuknyo, a Yavapai College Governing Board member, raised $48,723 to narrowly defeat District 4 incumbent Craig Brown by 138 votes to receive 40% of the vote in a three-way matchup with Luci Reyna Wheat. In that race, Brown raised $12,676 and Wheat raised $5,119.
Mary Mallory won reelection in the primary for District 5 with 70% of the vote and $8,115 raised against Richard Tupek’s $343 of personal spending.
In the race for U.S. Congressional District 2 between Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Eli Crane and Democratic challenger Jonathan Nez, Crane’s $7.39 million in total receipts has given him nearly a two-to-one fundraising advantage over Nez’s $4 million, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Ruben Gallego, had raised $56.8 million against Republican Kari Lake’s $21.4 million as of Oct. 16.
Recall of DuVernay
Cottonwood City Councilwoman Lisa DuVernay is in a recall election to remove her from office and replace her with challenger Christopher Dowell, the former interim chief of the Cottonwood Police Department, on the grounds that she screened a pornographic video during a council meeting on Aug. 8, 2023 where children were present; voted on Oct. 3, 2023, to appoint her husband Michael DuVernay to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, in violation of Arizona’s nepotism law, Arizona Revised Statute §38-481; and threatened legal action against the city if the mayor did not instruct staff to draft a city ordinance that had already been voted down by the majority of the council.
Dowell filed a report showing he raised $788, of which $680 was personal funds.
DuVernay has not filed any campaign finance reports for her recall election, according to City Clerk Tami Mayes
