Guests - Ally Miller, Anthony Dunham, David Schweikert
What Arizona Needs — and What It Cannot Afford to Get Wrong
Tuesday on Winn Tucson packed three consequential conversations into two hours: a former Pima County Supervisor with sharp opinions on the attorney general's race, an LD-17 candidate introducing himself before the primary, and a sitting U.S. Congressman running for governor who brought the kind of economic precision to the conversation that most politicians avoid. The day opened on a news alert — Trump endorsed Ken Paxton — and closed on a warning from a numbers man about what happens to Arizona if conservatives don't win this November.
Ally Miller: Paxton, Glassman, and Why On-the-Job Training for Attorney General Is Not an Option
Ally Miller served on the Pima County Board of Supervisors from 2012 to 2020. She won twice. She fought every fight that needed fighting. She was Pima County's most outspoken conservative voice in a chamber that was four to one against her. She is now retired from elected office but not from the business of paying attention.
She opened the show on the Texas Senate race — and on Karl Rove.
Ken Paxton, John Cornyn, and What Loyalty Actually Means
Trump's endorsement of Ken Paxton over John Cornyn dropped during the show — confirmed by texts from multiple listeners. Miller had been tracking this race closely, and her read was unequivocal.
"The Senate Campaign Committee has spent 150 million against him and he's still ahead," she said of Paxton. "That tells you everything you need to know. The voters want change."
Cornyn has been in the Senate since 2004. Miller's assessment was direct: it is time for new blood. What she found most compelling about Paxton was a specific moment that illustrated genuine political courage. When the race was still in flux after the primary and pressure was building for Trump to endorse Cornyn, Paxton took an unusual position: he offered to drop out of the race if the Senate would first pass the SAVE Act.
"He put what the country needed ahead of his own race," Miller said. "And you know what — that hasn't happened yet. So he stayed in."
The loyalty argument ran deeper. When Trump was being prosecuted, it was Ken Paxton who was in the courtroom with him. Not Thune. Not Cornyn.
"I think loyalty should be a two-way street, not blind loyalty like Ruben Gallego for Eric Swalwell. But the kind of loyalty that counts when things get hard — that's Paxton."
She acknowledged that Karl Rove had been on Fox that morning launching personal attacks on Paxton. Her response was a kind of delighted clap: every time Rove opens his mouth against someone, it reminds primary voters why they left the old guard behind. "You are the reason Ken Paxton is winning."
The Pima County Board's New Signs: Advertising Lawlessness
Before turning to Arizona races, Winn shared a photograph that had been circulating since the weekend: a new sign posted on Pima County property, in both large and small print, reading:
This property is owned and controlled by Pima County. It may not be used for civil immigration enforcement as a staging area, processing location or operations base. Authority: Pima County Resolution 2026-10.
The Pima County logo appeared at the bottom — in case anyone missed that they mentioned Pima County four times in a single sign.
Miller didn't miss a beat. "They're inflicting crime on the community with these toothless resolutions that are absolutely meaningless. They're out there trying to interfere as ICE and Border Patrol are doing their jobs — and it needs to be stopped."
Her immediate connection: this is exactly why the attorney general's race matters.
The Attorney General Race: Why Glassman, Why Now
Miller is supporting Rodney Glassman in the Republican primary for Arizona Attorney General, and she made the case with specific personal knowledge.
"I met him when he was down here serving as a JAG Corps Reserve Officer at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. He gave me a tour and we had a long conversation. We had so much in common in terms of our values. He's a Trump supporter. I consider him a friend and I consider him the best candidate for this job."
Her primary argument was structural. The attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of Arizona. The office is built around prosecuting cases.
"We cannot have on-the-job training for an attorney general. We need someone who can hit the ground running. Warren has never practiced law. Rodney has 18 years of experience practicing law. How can you be an effective attorney general if you have never been in a courtroom?"
Beyond courtroom experience, she highlighted two specific Glassman commitments that she described as genuinely exciting. First: Glassman has committed to launching a DOGE-style wing inside the attorney general's office — dedicated to identifying and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in state government. She served on the board of supervisors long enough to know how much of that exists and how rarely anyone pursues it.
"I think that is so needed in Arizona. California, Minnesota — they are not unique. It's across the country. We need investigations and prosecutions where people have broken the laws."
Second: using the attorney general's authority to hold county governments accountable when they post signs advertising their intention to violate federal law. The attorney general has the power to work with the governor to withhold state revenues from noncompliant local governments.
"If we had an attorney general who was doing her job — or his job, but it's a her — those signs wouldn't be allowed. The attorney general can work with the governor and withhold state revenues. They might want to get back in line before Rodney gets in there."
She noted that she sent a photograph of the county signs directly to Tom Homan that morning.
On Warren Peterson, she gave one concession — his schedule is constrained because he is currently serving as Senate president, actively in session. But she returned to the core argument: you cannot lead an office whose daily function is courtroom prosecution if you have never argued a case.
The Ally Miller Endorsement of Anthony Dunham
Before signing off, Miller confirmed publicly that she is supporting Anthony Dunham in the LD-17 state Senate primary.
"I came out early for him. I think he's a great candidate and I do hope he progresses to the Senate so we can have good representation there."
She also closed with a pointed note about the importance of the Winn Tucson platform itself — saying that the value of having a show where all candidates can be heard, where issues are debated on facts rather than personal attacks, and where listeners are treated as intelligent adults capable of making their own decisions, is something she has found genuinely rare in Arizona's political media landscape.
Anthony Dunham: The Everyday Guy Running for LD-17 Senate — and Why He Thinks That's Exactly the Point
Anthony Dunham is not a politician. He has never served in elected office. He is a resident of Legislative District 17, a Tucson local, and a candidate for state Senate who came to Winn Tucson after being seen at a constituent event in Picture Rocks the previous weekend.
Ali Miller had just given him a live endorsement on air. Trump's endorsement of Paxton had just broken. And Winn had a direct question for him: what is the number one concern of LD-17 voters?
Affordability and Accountability
"Right now it's probably affordability — their number one issue. Followed closely by they want government accountability. There's a lot going on here in Pima County with the sheriff, and people are paying attention to that."
The two issues are, in his telling, not separate. Affordability without accountability produces waste and corruption. Accountability without addressing the cost of living leaves people treading water. LD-17 voters want both — and they want a representative who understands that these are kitchen table issues, not legislative abstractions.
Why an Everyday Person and Not a Career Politician
Dunham was specific about his reasoning for running as a political outsider.
"I think that's important — and here's why. We the people are tired of exactly what we were talking about: politicians who get elected and feel like they're bought and paid for, whether that's by special interest groups, lobbyists, or large donors. They get up there and they've got these people in their ear, and it no longer becomes about serving the people."
He framed the state legislature's design as the answer to the problem: it was designed as a part-time body so that the people serving in it would be everyday community members, not career politicians. The moment it becomes a career, the incentives shift.
On accountability to voters rather than donors: he offered a personal anecdote. Over the weekend, someone texted him saying they almost disowned him over something. He laughed — they were joking, but the point is real. The people around him already hold him accountable. That accountability infrastructure is built into his decision to run the way he's running it.
The Independent Voter Problem — and the Strategy to Address It
Winn raised the specific threat she has been tracking in LD-17: in the last cycle, an implausibly high percentage of registered independents voted for the Democratic candidate Kevin Volk, contributing to a result she described as deeply disappointing in a district that carries a plus-eight Republican registration advantage. She wants to know if Dunham has a plan.
Dunham's answer was built around what he calls "80-20 and 90-10 issues" — the issues where independent voters, regardless of party affiliation, are with the conservative position when the question is asked directly and honestly.
"Do you want to keep men out of your daughters' and granddaughters' spaces? Do you want accountability in government? Do you want your communities to be safer by securing our borders and backing law enforcement? These are the kinds of issues that are important to independent voters."
His read on the general election opponent — Edgar Soto, who he described as embedded in the Grajales-Grijalva political network and connected to Pima Community College — was that this network does not have the broad community support it believes it has, especially in LD-17, which is Juan Ciscomani's territory, not Adelita Grajales's.
On Volk's constitutional rating: the Turning Point app rates Kevin Volk below 20 percent on the Patriot or constitutionality scale and lists him as a tyrant. That is a data point Dunham intends to use with independent voters who are willing to look at records rather than party labels.
Youth, Family, and the Nuclear Family as the Legislative Priority
Winn pressed on the broader societal decay she has been watching: school walkouts organized by teachers, teenagers throwing chairs at each other in restaurants, the spectacle of supporters showing up at the Luigi Mangione trial to celebrate a murderer. Does a state legislator have tools to address this, or is it beyond the scope of the job?
Dunham's answer was personal before it was political.
"Reform begins at home. If we really want to bring reform to our society and start specifically in LD-17, we've got to start in our homes by supporting the nuclear family. When kids have a stable home environment with both an involved mom and dad, it makes a huge difference."
He noted that one of the large reasons he is running is to model for his own children what it looks like to be involved in the community and try to make a positive impact. The legislation can follow from the culture — but the culture has to come first.
His top two legislative priorities: protecting children while in school so they never feel like their school is a battleground, and bringing fiscal accountability to the state — including DOGE-style audits in all 15 counties, a project he has already been discussing with State Treasurer candidate Elijah Norton.
"Bringing fiscal responsibility back to the state so we can return the waste, fraud, and abuse money back to the taxpayers."
David Schweikert: Forty-Five, Not Fourth — and What the Math Actually Says About Arizona
David Schweikert is a sitting member of Congress representing Arizona's 1st Congressional District. He is running for governor. He is also, by his own description and demonstrated track record, one of the more numerically rigorous people in American politics — a man whose father taught him that everything is a math problem, and who has taken that lesson seriously enough to become, in his own words, the Democrats' most expensive loss in America over the past six years.
He came to Winn Tucson with a clear agenda: tell the truth, show the numbers, and make the case for why this particular election — in this particular state — is not a midterm people can afford to treat as routine.
The True State of Arizona: Not 47th, Actually 45th — and Falling Faster
The popular shorthand for Arizona's economic decline under the Hobbs administration is the slide from 4th to 47th in economic growth rankings. Schweikert refined the picture.
"We are 45th right now in affordability. We are now falling to near the bottom in job creation. Remember — we're losing jobs in Arizona."
The 2025 jobs data, which he presented in front of groups to documented disbelief, showed Arizona producing approximately 24,000 jobs for the entire year. Every single job produced was in either healthcare or welfare services. The traditional private sector — manufacturing, construction, professional services — lost jobs.
"They just look at you with their heads cocked to the side saying that can't be Arizona. Arizona always grows. We're only a couple of ticks above zero population growth."
The wages picture is equally concerning. The only mechanism for raising wages sustainably is having more employers competing for workers than workers competing for jobs. Arizona is currently running the opposite dynamic.
"You want employers competing for you, not you competing to get a job. And right now it's just the opposite."
California's Redistricting Money Is Coming to Arizona
On the financial landscape for November: Schweikert confirmed what political observers have been predicting. California's Proposition 50 redistricting removed three of the most expensive congressional seats in America from the competitive map. A substantial portion of the progressive money that would have funded those races has to go somewhere.
It is coming to Arizona.
"Arizona being one of the targets for those resources. If you have the normal cycle of the party in power often having to fight like crazy in the off-year election — we're off presidential cycle. That's what's coming at us."
His honest message to conservative Arizonans who want reaffirmation: there is a path to win. But the voter registration trend is real. Democrats in Arizona are not growing — they are shrinking. But independents are growing. And independents are not becoming Republicans.
"They're becoming independent. That means we can still save their souls."
How Conservatives Win Independent Voters — By Being Conservatives
Schweikert made what he described as the key insight of his political survival in a district where a Republican has no business winning by the registration numbers: you win independent voters not by becoming moderate but by demonstrating moral clarity and economic credibility.
"I love people, care about their prosperity. Arizona is hurting right now. Last month we lost about 10,800 jobs. Wages in many categories have gone down over the last 12 months. Evictions, foreclosures, repossessions are kicking up."
People who are stressed about survival need a candidate who can explain what is causing their stress and how to fix it. Not a candidate who is primarily angry about things that happened years ago.
"That independent voter we need — they're just trying to survive. Start caring about prosperity. Prosperity is moral and we're conservatives. We believe in that morality."
He credited this approach — not moderation, but genuine compassion backed by economic understanding — with his ability to walk into households where every registered voter is a Democrat and come away with potential supporters.
The Bond Market, the National Debt, and Why Congress Needs to Act
Schweikert was doing the red-eye back to Washington that night, and he had a reason.
Parts of the U.S. bond market and the broader world debt markets had hit levels not seen in nearly two decades. The direct consequence: the change in interest rates from February to that week alone would likely add an additional trillion and a half dollars of interest spending over the next ten years.
"We have to convince the world debt markets that we're getting our act together, that we're managing inflation, that we're heading towards economic growth."
He added a second pressure: multiple countries around the world are rolling off their holdings of U.S. debt. They are reducing their positions in U.S. Treasuries. This creates additional upward pressure on interest rates independent of anything the Federal Reserve does.
This is not abstract. Every point of interest rate increase on the national debt is money that cannot be spent on anything else — defense, Medicare, infrastructure, tax cuts. The fiscal soundness of the country is, in Schweikert's framing, the foundational issue from which all other issues derive.
The Arizona-Specific Numbers: Fentanyl, Medicaid, and the DPS Midnight Gap
Arizona is the exception to the national fentanyl trend. Nationally, under President Trump's border security and enforcement push, fentanyl deaths, overdoses, and seizures are declining. In Arizona, they are getting worse.
Schweikert's diagnosis: Governor Hobbs's policies have created a specific enforcement gap. DPS officers have told him directly that between midnight and 5 a.m., there is almost zero DPS presence on Arizona highways. That is the window during which drug running and human trafficking move through the state.
"There will be five of our brothers and sisters who will die today of fentanyl overdoses. The morality of that is just... it should almost make you shake."
His solution is not just enforcement. Banner Hospital is actively in negotiations with a company around a technology developed at the University of Houston — a drug that blocks fentanyl molecules from passing the blood-brain barrier, with an effect lasting a couple of years. Applied to the addicted population cycling through shelters and streets, this drug could fundamentally change the revolving door that has made homeless encampments a permanent feature of Arizona cities.
"You could take our brothers and sisters who are addicted living on the streets and they could succeed in making it through rehab instead of this revolving door where they keep going back and keep going back and ending up on the street."
The economics of this are not just moral — they are fiscal. A research paper on Arizona calculates that fentanyl chews up 11 percent of the state's entire GDP: drug rehab costs, deaths, lost productivity, people not showing up to work. The entire state budget is approximately $75 billion. Eleven percent of Arizona's GDP is approaching $50 billion in misallocated resources.
"This is how you take really good math, really good economics, the morality of being a conservative and children of God, and make people's lives better while cutting spending."
The Medicaid Number Nobody Is Talking About
Arizona's Medicaid program — called AHCCCS, or "Access" — reached 28.4 percent of the state's population at peak enrollment last year. More than one in four Arizonans on state-managed healthcare.
Schweikert's question, which he acknowledged makes people uncomfortable: is it moral for a government to hand someone an EBT card while simultaneously managing their health outcomes under Medicaid, without connecting those two systems toward a healthier population?
"We need to have everything from nutrition support to the way we deliver healthcare be about having a healthier population — so they use less healthcare, they live a better life, and we spend dramatically less money."
Housing, Water, and the Unified Approach
On housing affordability — the structural barrier keeping young Arizonans from building the kind of family life the state needs to grow — Schweikert was direct about both the problem and the failure of single-solution thinking.
The building permit process in Arizona's urban areas is running months. Technology exists to process permits in a single day using automated inspection tools that verify plumbing and electrical compliance without a human inspector having to visit every site. Removing months from the process removes months of carrying costs, which removes a material component of the final price of every new home.
Water is more complex. The Colorado River's upper-basin and lower-basin battles, the agricultural water rights question, the desalination potential, the efficiency technology investments — none of these has a single answer. They have a portfolio of partial answers that, assembled correctly, produce a functional water supply for a growing state.
"Complex problems actually do require complex solutions. But you're not going to get there by engaging in the politics of just being angry. It has to be the politics of solutions."
The Stakes: Arizona Cannot Become Virginia
Schweikert's closing argument framed the entire conversation in a single risk scenario: what happens if Democrats win the governorship and the legislature in November?
It happened in Virginia. When Democrats gained unified control, they rewrote election laws to their structural benefit — including same-day registration, no voter ID, and aggressive ballot harvesting. Arizona's Republicans currently hold the legislature by margins measured in thousands of votes. If the Democrats had won just a handful of races differently, the legislature would have flipped.
"They will rewrite the election laws to their benefit. There's a model out there that says Republicans would be in the wilderness for 10 to 15 years by just changing those election rules — no voter ID, same-day registration, ballot harvesting. All the things that lead to really bad acts that the Democrats do in California."
The governor's race, the legislative races, the secretary of state race, the attorney general race — they are not parallel contests. They are a single interlocking system. Winning some but not others produces a partial result that the Democratic Party has demonstrated, in multiple states, the ability to exploit.
"Do you care about election fraud, election security, election fairness, the public actually believing in our democratic process as a republic? Anyone with a good soul will say yes. I will argue to you: the greatest threat to election integrity in Arizona is actually this election."
He was asked for his campaign's web presence for listeners who want to follow or contribute. Campaign activities can be found through David Schweikert's existing congressional and campaign channels.
Winn Tucson airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 11 a.m., on KVOI 1030 The Voice.
Ally Miller is endorsing Rodney Glassman for Arizona Attorney General and Anthony Dunham for LD-17 State Senate.
Anthony Dunham is running for Arizona State Senate in LD-17. The primary is July 21st.
David Schweikert is running for Governor of Arizona.
Primary voter registration deadline: June 21. Early ballots: June 23. Primary: July 21.