In 1st Congressional District, Tom O'Halleran faces Tiffany Shedd in Trump country
Rep. Tom O’Halleran’s four-year congressional career is at a crossroads.
O’Halleran, a two-term centrist Democrat, faces voters in his northeastern Arizona district again with President Donald Trump on the ballot. His constituents narrowly voted for Trump in 2016.
O’Halleran won two elections in that time, but against Republican candidates freighted with controversy that hobbled their prospects in an area that has seemingly grown more conservative over the years.
This time, O’Halleran, a former Chicago police detective, faces Tiffany Shedd, an Eloy lawyer and cotton farmer who is touting her roots in Arizona and holding close to Trump in a bid to retake a seat the GOP hasn’t held since the 2012 election.
Shedd has a fraction of the money O’Halleran brings to the campaign. And while Republicans have been far more aggressive about returning to door-to-door campaign work in a pandemic, nothing is easy in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, which is physically larger than 26 states.
O'Halleran and Shedd are set to meet face-to-face Thursday in a televised debate that will air at 5 p.m Thursday on Arizona PBS (Channel 8).
While the race seems to pit O'Halleran against a more mainstream opponent, Republicans have been significantly outspent, at least so far.
Visible in district, voted to impeach
O'Halleran flashes independence, such as when he was one of the few Democrats who voted against allowing proxy voting by House members during the coronavirus.
He is the rare member of the House who has done live town halls in recent years offering unscripted contact with constituents. These days, he has focused on responding to the pandemic that ravaged much of his district — especially the Navajo Nation — as well as the usual issues of economic development in rural Arizona.
"I have a tremendous amount of experience that she would not be able to bring to the table over the next few years that are critical to our country moving forward," O'Halleran said. "There's nobody out there, Republican or Democrat, that says, 'Well, you've never seen him or never heard that he was in our area.' That's part of what I do."
In the current term, O'Halleran points to money secured for expanding access to broadband in rural America and a continued push for an elusive infrastructure program that would lead to long-term investments across his district.
He's also voted with his party most of the time in the past two years, a notable pattern in a district that voted for Trump by 1 percentage point in 2016.
O'Halleran supported the Trump agenda 54% of the time in his first two years, when the House was under GOP control, according to the website FiveThirtyEight. Under Democratic control, O'Halleran has voted in line with Trump's known preferences less than 5% of the time.
He voted to impeach Trump over delaying military aid to Ukraine in an effort to pressure the president of Ukraine to announce a corruption investigation of Joe Biden's son.
"President Trump abused the power of the presidency and broke his oath of office when he bribed the Ukrainian president," O'Halleran said at the time.
Deep roots, relations in Arizona
Shedd's message to voters begins with her ties to the state:
"I have faced the same problems, the same challenges for the majority of my life as the voters of CD 1. I grew up here. I went to public school here. I was a bilingual kindergarten teacher. As a lawyer, I worked on water, so these things affect my family as well."
Shedd casts O'Halleran as a reliable vote for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "I don't think that she makes a good congressman for rural Arizona," Shedd said. He opposed Trump's corporate-tilted tax cuts in 2017 and has supported raising property tax deductions that she said would help the wealthy in coastal California.
She accuses O'Halleran of hypocrisy for urging uranium cleanups in the district though his family has owned stock in a company that abandoned dozens of mines in Arizona.
Shedd compares the present state of rural broadband to that of rural America 100 years ago, before electricity was widely available. O'Halleran, she said, has failed to change that.
Shedd's plan is to stay close to Trump, who, she notes, carried the district in 2016 and remains popular there today. During his most recent visit to Phoenix, Trump specifically endorsed Shedd, something she is playing up in an area where that can stir conservatives to get behind her.
"We're seeing President Trump with very favorable polling in Arizona 1. That's because they realize that the Republican policies have less taxes, less regulation and empowering people to build an economy work," Shedd said. "That will get us back on track to make Arizona 1 great again."
Like many Republicans, Shedd is a critic of the Affordable Care Act. She said she is committed as a cancer survivor with a diabetic child to preserving coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. Asked whether she supports Trump's efforts to overturn the ACA, which requires coverage of pre-existing conditions, Shedd outlined broader goals.
"I support any effort to fix the system. The thing is, is we need to make sure there's insurance coverage," she said. "We need to lower premiums. We need to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. We need to cover preexisting conditions. ... I'm less concerned with hashing back and forth on the political side of the ACA."
Little GOP help for Shedd
O'Halleran enters the final stretch of the race with a clear financial advantage. Through mid-July, he had $1.4 million in cash available. Shedd had $215,000, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Beyond that, O'Halleran, Democrats and their allies have spent more than $6 million to defeat Shedd, according to figures from Advertising Analytics. By contrast, Shedd, Republicans and their allies have spent about $400,000 in the race.
Among the outside money being spent, the Center Forward Committee, which casts itself as a centrist independent group that has supported House members from both parties, has spent $146,000 to help O'Halleran.
The American Liberty Fund, which backs conservative challengers, has spent $27,000 supporting Shedd. The political arm of the National Rifle Association has spent $6,200 to help her.
David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report that tracks congressional races, said O'Halleran faces a challenge, unlike his first two campaigns.
"The weaknesses of O'Halleran’s past opponents has masked the competitive nature of the district," he said. "Between Paul Babeu and Wendy Rogers, O'Halleran hasn't had to face a Republican that the national party actually likes.
"This time, Republicans did get the candidate they wanted in Tiffany Shedd. It's still an uphill battle for Republicans, but it may have a bit more potential than most offensive opportunities elsewhere for Republicans this cycle."
Even so, the analysts still see it as an unlikely GOP pickup.
Cook rates it as a seat leaning Democratic. Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball and Inside Elections, which also rate races, consider it likely Democratic.
A district bigger than some states
One reason for the consistency is the district's daunting challenge to campaign managers.
Spanning 55,000 square miles, it’s one of the largest districts in the country.
It occupies an area larger than Florida and a population smaller than Indianapolis.
The district covers northeastern Arizona, from the Utah border south to the outskirts of Tucson.
Politically, the most Democratic areas of the district are around Flagstaff to the north, while the most Republican area is in Pinal County, orphaned in the south.
It’s why campaign advertisements can appear on TV in Phoenix and Tucson — and still miss much of the intended audience.
No congressional district has a greater share of Native Americans, about 23%. It’s one of the portions of the country most reliant on the tourism industry and on government work.
The 1st District, like all of Arizona’s congressional districts, was redrawn before the 2012 elections.
Democrats have won the district in all four elections under the current configuration. Ann Kirkpatrick won it in 2012 and 2014; O’Halleran in 2016 and 2018.
But the margins are usually tight and the long-term trajectory of the district is running counter to the state as a whole.
Democrats have had a registration advantage in the 1st District since its creation, but that edge has fallen over the years. In 2012, Democrats had a 7.5 percentage point registration advantage over Republicans. Today, it’s 5 points.
By contrast, the rest of Arizona has moved from a 7 point registration advantage for Republicans to just 3.4 points for the GOP in the same period.
Reach the reporter Ronald J. Hansen at ronald.hansen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4493. Follow him on Twitter @ronaldjhansen.
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