Camelback Strategy Group (CSG), a consulting firm associated with the moderate and McCain wing of the Republican Party, appears to be aligning itself with an effort to institute ranked-choice voting in Arizona. Matt Kenney, a partner and vice president with the group and former associate of the late Senator John McCain, sent an email from his CSG account on April 24 to undisclosed recipients stating that Save Democracy Arizona is looking for a political director to oversee a ballot initiative effort for ranked-choice voting.
The Kari Lake War Room Twitter account tweeted a copy of the email, stating, “RINO Consulting firm Camelback Strategies goes all in for Ranked Choice Voting. They can’t get their establishment candidates elected anymore. So they’re just going to rig the primaries. This would be the death of free & fair elections in Arizona. And it must be stopped.”
RINO Consulting firm Camelback Strategies goes all in for Ranked Choice Voting.
They can't get their establishment candidates elected anymore.
So they're just going to rig the primaries.
This would be the death of free & fair elections in Arizona.
And it must be stopped. pic.twitter.com/JhUhDPrf12
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) April 26, 2023
The account added, “From the brains that brought you: Let’s steal 20 billion dollars from Ed Robson & then help elect Katie Hobbs because we’re sore losers.” CSG represented moderate Republican Karrin Taylor-Robson in her gubernatorial race against Lake, funded almost entirely by Taylor-Robson’s wealthy developer husband. CSG came under criticism last fall for a PAC it ran, Defending Arizona Values, spending very little of the money raised on actual candidates. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer runs a PAC supporting GOP election fraud deniers, contributing $45,000 to Defending Arizona Values.
The email from Kenney was titled “Know anyone?” and appeared to contain a standard job description, which began, “Save Democracy is hiring a detail-obsessive political director to oversee the collection of almost 1 million signatures for an election-reform ballot measure.” It described rank-choice voting, “SDAZ is seeking to place on the 2024 ballot a measure that would implement Final Five Voting (FFV) in Arizona elections.”
ABC-15’s Garrett Archer responded to the Kari Lake War Room account and downplayed the association. “I have confirmed this is false. It was a courtesy forward of the email,” he tweeted. “Camelback Strategies is the primary consultant for @AbrahamHamadeh. Whoever runs this account apparently does not consider the alliances of the candidate they are ‘war rooming’ for.”
State Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) said, explaining why Hamadeh is a client, “They are a RINO firm which doesn’t mean it wasn’t smart to hire them for a general election where you have to appeal to moderates. What does this have to do with @KariLakeWarRoom‘s point?” CSG represents a wide variety of candidates across the spectrum, mainly Republicans but also a handful of conservative Republicans including Hamadeh.
Carolyn Wren, a spokesperson for the Kari Lake campaign, responded, “So @CamelbackStrat doesn’t support the initiative, but they are helping to hire a field operation and soliciting friends in the industry to work for the effort that the entire GOP is against? If you believe that, I have a beachfront property in Scottsdale to sell you.”
Archer said, “I mean, I don’t know if they collectively supported or not. I did not ask. I just know some poor twenty something wants to continue in politics just got burned by leaking out this email from a CS partner.”
After the series of tweets, Kari Lake War Room said, “Our mistake. They’re not involved. They’re just actively soliciting other people’s involvement to advance Ranked Choice Voting in Arizona. How silly of us.”
The Arizona Sun Times contacted CSG about its relationship with Save Democracy Arizona and the ballot initiative effort and received a short response. The Sun Times asked multiple questions regarding whether CSG was working with Save Democracy Arizona on the effort, was in talks to, or intended to, etc. CSG replied, “Matt [Kenney] forwarded an email to one person who had previously been looking for a job. To answer your questions: no, no, no, no, and no.”
Save Democracy Arizona consists of activist Arizona Democrats and a few moderate Republicans. Kenney helped run the pro-McCain Super PAC Arizona Grassroots Action in 2016, which filed a complaint against a PAC supporting former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward when she ran against McCain for U.S. Senate. He still speaks highly of McCain, tweeting in February, “John McCain’s views have taken root in Western leadership.”
Ward told The Sun Times CSG is “full of money-grubbing consultants who lack principles, hearts, souls, and spines and who only seek to enrich themselves in any way possible.”
“They’ll take on any client or cause if they can make money from it,” she said. “The latest example of this is their willingness to destroy what’s left of Arizona’s electoral process by trying to bring Ranked Choice Voting here. They usually prey on Republicans, but I’m sure they’d take on clients from other political parties if the GOP largesse dried up for them. They are the epitome of what’s wrong — SO WRONG — in politics.”
– – –
Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
