Why and what it means

Scottsdale voters showed their dissatisfaction with the city by dumping all three incumbent council members running for re-election, opting instead for two staunch conservative challengers and one newcomer who is more left-wing than anyone else on the council. Today.

Those entrenched in Scottsdale’s political scene offer a range of reasons for the outcome. Some say this was the result of party politics and the ‘Republican wave’ overtaking elections nationally, while others argue that misinformation about local issues such as overdevelopment influenced the electorate.

But the results indicate there was overwhelming anti-incumbency sentiment on Scottsdale’s Election Day, as voters crossed ideological lines to unseat those currently in power.

Now a shift in the way the city functions is guaranteed: A new five-member supermajority on the city council will pursue everything from tighter scrutiny of finances to an even more development-averse stance and less vigorous opposition to short-term rentals.

“This was a change election. And residents told us very clearly that they were not happy with the direction the city is taking,” said Councilman Barry Graham, who was not up for re-election this year.

An ‘anti-incumbency cycle’: withdrawing voters from ideology to overthrow the status quo

Most of the 2024 cycle was defined by a battle for control of city hall between an opposition faction of candidates and everyone else. By the time the general election took place, three categories of candidates emerged:

The opposition listconsisting of city council candidate Adam Kwasman and mayoral candidate Lisa Borowsky – two particularly conservative challengers who have been highly critical of the current city leadership. Both won.
A status quo groupthree incumbents registered as independents: Mayor David Ortega, and council members Tammy Caputi and Tom Durham. All three lost.
A lone liberal candidateMaryann McAllen, who looked more like the status quo group than the opposition. She was included in the former group during discussions about majority control and won a seat on the new council.

The campaign was steeped in partisan politics, with Legislative District 8 Republicans putting Borowksy and Kwasman on their slate. “golden ticket” of preferred candidates. That form generally does not include nonpartisan local elections.

But Scottsdale residents sidestepped ideological consistency by electing both liberal McAllen and conservative Kwasman to the council, instead of the more centrist incumbents.

That trend carried over to the mayoral race. Borowsky comfortably defeated Ortega, even though the latter was expected to gain votes from supporters of Linda Milhaven, a third-party mayoral candidate who lost in July and is more ideologically similar to Ortega.

Meanwhile, Scottsdale voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 490, even though candidates like Kwasman did not support the initiative. The measure creates a sales tax to fund improvements and maintenance to Scottsdale’s parks and the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

“It was clearly a wave against the incumbent, both nationally and locally,” Kwasman said. “People wanted authenticity, responsibility and change. And they’re going to get it.”

Why the uprising against Scottsdale incumbents?

Retiring Councilwoman Betty Janik believes multifamily development played a major role in turning voters against the current council. The same issue has caused discontent in Scottsdale at least since the 2020 election.

Opposition candidates were highly critical of the incumbent party’s handling of the issue. Borowsky in particular regularly shot at Ortega for allowing what she called overdevelopment to erode the suburban character of the city.

Election data shows Borowsky won north Scottsdale this year despite a less development-friendly part of the city Ortega conquered large parts of that region when he defeated Borowsky in the 2020 mayoral contest.

However, some of that criticism was unfounded. Many apartments built in the past four years were approved by the previous city council; they have just started construction and have become more visible during the current city council’s term.

“When people see the apartments going up, they think the current city council did it,” Janik said. “Many of these are only from years ago.”

But the current council also approved some of their own unpopular projects, such as the 1,300-unit Optima McDowell Mountain Village in north Scottsdale.

Janik said of Optima, “When you get off the 101 in Scottsdale, your reaction is, ‘Oh no, that’s way too big.’” She added that it is “so visible that I don’t blame citizens for saying, ‘What’s going on?’”

The outgoing council member also mentioned projects like the proposed Mercado Village, which residents are overwhelmingly opposed to but are still being considered by the council.

‘There are hundreds of pages of people who have said they don’t want it. And it comes up way too often. It’s like there’s never a real ‘no,’” she said. “I think the population is tired of that.”

Opposition candidates also faced alleged financial mismanagement in the city, particularly related to the continued budget overruns for city projects. Scottsdales The Bond 2019 program has often been tens of millions of dollars over budgetfor example.

Kwasman claims that these and other issues together formed the main driver of anti-incumbent sentiment among voters: that the current council is out of touch.

“Incumbents tended to believe that everything was fine. The voters clearly stated in a bipartisan manner that it was not right,” he said.

Party politics at play? ‘One shot’ ballots raise questions

Candidates and incumbents believe party politics played a role in the election, even if it was not the most important factor.

City candidates don’t have an “R” or “D” next to their names, but the opposition has openly branded themselves as Republicans in terms of their rhetoric and affiliation with GOP groups, such as the Republican Committee LD-8.

Councilor Tom Durham, who suddenly dropped out of the race late in the campaign To support Caputi and McAllen, voters’ dissatisfaction with the Democrats at the top of the ticket could have been reflected in the vote.

Janik also said the partisan branding helped Republican council candidates ride the red wave that swept the national elections in November.

“The Republicans were organized. They sent their message to the city early. They made it biased, which was not okay. It’s against our charter. (But) I really think that was the overwhelming factor,” she said.

Voting patterns also suggest that party politics may have played a role, Councilor Caputi said.

About 119,000 of the 184,000 votes cast in the City Council race, or almost two-thirds were ‘undervotes’. This means that residents elected only one councilor instead of two.

Caputi suspects this may be a result of partisan voters choosing only McAllen or Kwasman, depending on whether the voter was liberal or conservative, respectively. That ‘one-shot strategy’ may have distorted the mood against the independent established parties, Caputi believes.

“This was an anti-establishment cycle that seemed to value partisanship over merit. The undervotes were impossible to overcome. I am proud that despite both parties opposing us, more than 50,000 residents have entrusted me with their vote,” Caputi said.

Scottsdale’s new council: What residents can expect

The new city council will sit in January, with the conservative bloc having a powerful five-person supermajority on the seven-member platform, allowing them to control all decisions if they vote together. The group in power will consist of Borowsky, council members Graham and Kathy Littlefield, Jan Dubauskas who won in July and Kwasman.

Members of the Conservative bloc want to tackle the city’s financial problems. They specifically discussed investigating the root cause of frequent project cost overruns, such as a road project that tripled in price earlier this year.

“I believe Mayor Borowsky is going to present an agenda that has a focus when it comes to accountability, a focus on a citizen budget commission that will take a deep dive into where the money is being spent,” Kwasman said.

The current council has historically approved measures such as a $68 million transfer from the city’s general fund to cover project overruns. But under the new council, such projects are much more likely to be cut or drastically scaled back.

Janik, who is not aligned with conservatives, said the increased scrutiny could be a welcome change.

“There’s been some huge price increases on some of our projects… I think they’re going to say, ‘You damn well better explain that.’ They may have the ability to really slow it down or reduce it in size,” she said. “I don’t necessarily think that’s all bad.”

Scottsdale’s regional leadership on short-term rental regulation may be less powerful in the future if the City Council joins Borowsky.

Ortega is a staunch opponent of the short-term rental industry. leading lobbying efforts in the Arizona Legislature to increase cities’ regulatory powers and speak out favorably on pre-2016 rules that allowed cities to ban short-term rentals.

Borowsky has a more laissez-faire attitude. She told The Daily Independent in October that she “conditionally” supports short-term rentals as long as existing city codes on issues like excessive noise are enforced.

She has indicated that she does not believe the city should infringe on the rights of property owners to rent out their own properties, and indicates that Scottsdale would not lobby for an outright ban or overbearing regulations.

On the development front, the new council will likely oppose all future multifamily housing projects, from Axon’s proposal in north Scottsdale to the upcoming Mercado Village.

But Janik suspects that voters will be disappointed with what the council can do in that area. The development pipeline of previously approved projects will still exist, and the council cannot stop their progress.

“(Voters) are probably going to become disillusioned because they’re going to say, ‘Why is this happening?’” she said. “What they don’t realize is that (the projects) have already been approved. It’s the same thing that happened to us.”

Reporter Sam Kmack covers Tempe, Scottsdale and Chandler. Follow him on X @KmackSam or reach him at [email protected].