“Many factors contribute to such movements on the part of individuals, including difficult personal times, loss of identity, historical grievances, and being trapped in media viewing and reading that reinforce such grievances. It’s related,” he said. Thomas Volgie, former mayor of Tucson and professor of public policy at the University of Arizona.

Cochise County Republicans continue to spread claims about election fraud, including the 2022 midterm elections. District 1 County Supervisor Tom Crosby, along with District 3 County Supervisor Peggy Judd, promoted manual ballot counting. Crosby refused to certify the election results.

The supervisor’s actions led to the resignation of elections official Lisa Mara over allegations of a toxic work environment. The county judge refused to approve the hand counting of ballots. Community members didn’t like the uncertainty Crosby brought and formed a recall group, but they were unable to gather enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

“Every waking hour was exhausting and I was so tired. I was so confused,” Cochise County Democratic Commissioner Elizabeth Tindall said. “Part of the problem is that many laws are written in a way that is open to interpretation, which creates a lot of uncertainty. There is certainty.”

Mr. Tyndale joined the commission in 2016 after the election. She said she believed she had no other choice when Trump won the presidency. Since 2018, Tyndale has been chairman.

“We’re a small community here, so it feels more like we know each other,” she said. “We’re neighbors and see each other a lot at the store, which makes it feel more personal than if you were in a big place.”

Adding to the uncertainty is an internal rift on the Cochise County Republican Commission between new chairman Brandon Martin and former chairman Robert Montgomery and other commission members.

The age of conservatism in this county is not surprising. Arizona has a long history of supporting Republican candidates and sharing values ​​similar to those of the settlers who established a political culture.

Arizona’s political culture can be divided into three categories: traditionalism, moralism, and individualism. According to a research paper published by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, the state primarily reflects a traditionalist cultural type with low voter turnout, limited respect for cultural diversity, and a more conservative government. It is said that there is

The settlers who decided to move west brought “frontier values.” Research papers say that the pioneers developed an idea that emphasized government-free individualism, entrepreneurial freedom and willingness to take risks, and political and social democracy.

However, the county was not always run by conservative Republicans. The area was once populated by Democrats.

In 1912, Cochise County was one of the most influential areas of Arizona, according to an article in the Washington Post. Mining has left the area pro-union and left-leaning.

“The mid-’70s was very Democratic,” said former Republican Oversight Committee chair Judy Gignac. “We deliberately ran candidates for every county office we could think of, and we lost them all.”

Gignac became involved with the Cochise County Republican Party. She was a member of the Huachuca Area Republican Women and later joined the Thunder Mountain Republican Women.

Gignac, along with Beverly Jenney, was one of the few Republican women to run for office in Cochise County during her unionist days.

“What I learned running for county office was that back then you had to put the union stamp on the print and on the billboards. said Mr.

She said mining company Phelps Dodge is heavily involved in politics. After each shift, the candidate waited and shook hands with the miners. If the candidates weren’t connected to them in some way, they had little chance of winning.

After constant power struggles between union workers and businesses, the mine closed in the late 1980s, the unions were dispersed and the area became more conservative.

I remember going door to door in the Sierra Vista when Gignac was running for a seat on the Supervisory Board. The women who opened her door told her she would have to ask her husband.

“The reason I smile and say ‘okay’ and move on to the next road is because I want people to remember that the woman was running,” she said.

Gignac said the experience was interesting but disappointing.

“There were two women here running for office that had never been run by a woman before, but they were only interested in men running for legislature because they Because that was clearly the emphasis,” she said.

She recalled another campaigning memory when she had to speak at a club in Bisbee, which at the time had only male members, about what she wanted to achieve when she took office.

“Then there was a question and answer session, and that was the big part of these things,” Gignac said. “Anyway, what I confessed was a guy who said to me, ‘Well, you’re married, you have two kids and a little one, and now you want this job.’ But how are you going to do all these things?’ And I still feel it as I speak to you, and I stood there with a serious look on my face and said, I said to him, ‘It doesn’t take a day to clean the house, no matter what your wife says.’

Gignac remembers thinking she would not be elected, but to her surprise, she was the first woman elected to the board. She served her three terms, after which she was elected regent, where she served for eight years.

“What I learned from being a member of the Supervisory Board helped me later when I was on the Regent: You have to be strong with yourself,” she said. “You have to be careful when they smell blood in the water. But most importantly, you have to do your homework, you have to know everything. You gotta read all those shitty books, and I had a reputation for doing that.”

Mr Gignac said the military expansion had begun to turn the region from Democrat to Republican.

“It started in the ’60s. I don’t know how or why STRATCOM came here or was founded here, but that was the beginning of the growth of the region and the political change in the region. I know it happened,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter if there are fluctuations like that, whether it’s politics, games, strategy, missions, things to do,” said longtime Sierra Vista resident Jane Strain. “There are basic things a campaign must accomplish, and it doesn’t matter whether you have John McCain, John Kennedy, or Mo Udall in office.”

“As a candidate, you have to have a certain amount of passion, not an exaggeration,” Gignac added. “Both the candidate and the people who work closely with the candidate are a very interesting mix. The candidate has to have the same passion, but the candidate needs to be boosted, so maybe a little more passion. must have.”

Strain said campaigns begin with the message and vision that a candidate conveys to get the public to vote.

“We need locals who will always open the door for us so that people can decide whether to support them or actually campaign,” she said. “Some people want to open the door, others don’t because of the negative backlash.”

Mr. Strain became involved in Cochise County politics around 1995 after retirement.

“I think he must have been bored,” she said. “It’s all about those connections and who you meet at what time of year, and I was drawn to that. I enjoy this game, it’s like chess. It’s strategy.” .”

Over the years, Strain has campaigned in multiple elections, backing candidates such as Jeff Flake, Jim Kolbe and McCain.

“It’s a lot of fun, at least it used to be,” Strain said. “Not so much now.”