‘Sham’ Green Party candidates win primary races over party-backed write-ins

The only Green Party candidates who made it onto Arizona’s primary ballot for governor and secretary of state, and who the party disavowed as frauds, won their races against Green Party-backed write-in candidates. 

In the July 21 Primary Election, Risa Lombardo took the governor’s race with 430 votes to Green Party-endorsed write-in candidate Carlos Melendez’s 202 votes, according to final vote counts released by the Secretary of State’s Office after the counts were finalized Thursday. 

Duwayne Collier won the Green Party nomination for secretary of state with 421 votes to Green Party-endorsed Jon Ralston’s 217 write-in votes. 

“The Arizona Green Party is disappointed, but not surprised, to hear that Arizona Republican backed fraudulent sham candidates; Risa Lombardo and Duwayne Collier have won their respective races for Governor and Secretary of State,” Ralston, the Arizona Green Party’s recorder, told the Arizona Mirror in a statement. 

In what’s expected to be a tight race between Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and Republican gubernatorial nominee Andy Biggs, votes for a third-party candidate could swing the outcome. With Green Party candidates typically appealing to liberal or left-of-center voters who don’t like the Democratic Party’s nominee, that could mean fewer ballots cast for Hobbs.

Lombardo and Collier both say they’re genuine Green Party candidates, but both of their campaigns have worked hand-in-hand with Arizona’s Republican campaign machine, while seemingly violating Clean Elections rules and sending huge chunks of public campaign funding to a shadowy, brand new Nevada business.

Lombardo was a Republican precinct committeewoman, an elected position that is typically held by people who are highly involved in partisan politics, from October 2024 until days before she registered with the Green Party and filed a statement of interest to run for governor on March 5, 2025.

Although she told the Mirror in April that they were divorced, as of May, Lombardo still shared a North Phoenix address with “dedicated Republican activist” Michael Lombardo, a member of the Maricopa County Republican Committee’s “Ultra Grassroots” team. The Mirror could find no records that the couple had divorced.

Both Lombardo and Collier were registered Republicans as of the 2024 General Election. 

Both candidates gathered enough $5 donations to qualify for public Clean Elections campaign funding. Ahead of the primary, Lombardo received about $1.1 million in public campaign funding and Collier got nearly $296,000. The two campaigns spent the vast majority of that money in large payments in June and July to Bootstrap Campaigns, a Nevada business with no online footprint that was created May 12. 

As of Aug. 5, Lombardo had paid more than $1 million and Collier had paid more than $270,000 to the business for a wide range of campaign services like photography, videography, mailers and get out the vote canvassing. As of July 21, both campaigns had less than $100 in cash on hand. No other candidates running for federal office or in Arizona or Nevada have reported making payments to Bootstrap Campaigns.

When the company was created, a man named David Wilson was its president, secretary and director, and Bryan McPartlan was its treasurer. But 10 days later, corporate documents were amended to list a man named Christopher Silva as holding all four offices. Attempts to identify Silva were unsuccessful, but David Wilson and McPartlan experienced Republican political campaign consultants who have worked together in California. 

“The Arizona Green Party is a small party of dedicated activists,” Ralston said in the statement. “However we were unable to overcome the immense amount of money these two candidates were able to raise as well as the coordination with, presumably, Republican operatives to send out mass communications as well as placing a large volume of signage in high traffic areas of major metropolitan areas next to other Republican candidates.”

Together, the Lombardo and Collier campaigns paid $7,500 to Republican election attorney Tim La Sota in legal fees. And the campaigns paid $3,000 apiece to Financial and Treasury Services, LLC, which was created on May 30, and whose principal agent is Tim Sifert, a former communications director for the Arizona Republican Party.

Among her numerous additional ties to the GOP, Lombardo’s campaign also paid $50,000 to Tucson-based Gigs AZ, which is operated by Jose Acuna, who works for the Arizona Republican Party. 

The Collier and Lombardo campaigns have both seemingly violated Clean Elections rules that require candidates who use public funding to identify the people and entities they pay by name and street address, including for subcontractors, even if those subcontractors are paid through another vendor.

Lombardo and Collier paid Bootstrap Campaigns for an unusually large and varied list of services for which even large campaign management firms with decades of experience would typically subcontract. Both campaigns failed to list on their campaign finance reports local business that did work for them, including for sending mailers to voters and sign placement. 

Neither Lombardo nor Collier responded to repeated requests from the Mirror to explain their apparent violations of Clean Elections rules or their continued work with people and businesses that are clearly part of the Republican campaign machine.

Ralston said in his statement that the Arizona Green Party planned to file campaign finance complaints with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and the Clean Elections Commission, based on the Mirror’s past reporting. 

The Arizona Green Party is encouraging Arizonans not to vote for Lombardo or Collier in the General Election and to support party-backed candidates Brendan Trachsel in Legislative District 6, Gary Swing in Congressional District 6 and Mike Cease for Corporation Commission.

Ralston had some harsh words for Arizona Republicans who for years have pushed for improved election integrity. 

“The ‘Election Integrity’ crowd has been suspiciously silent regarding these shenanigans that the Arizona Republican Party routinely engineers,” Ralston said. “This instance of Election Fraud by the Arizona Republican Party as well as previous instances demonstrates the lack of integrity in which the ‘Election Integrity’ crowd claims to stand upon.”