Tucson, Arizona municipal elections, 2015

2016 → ← 2014

2015 Elections for Mayors and City Councils

Municipal Elections

2015 Elections By State 2015 Elections By Date Recent News

2015 Elections

Albuquerque • Anchorage Arlington • Aurora • Boise Boston • Buffalo Charlotte • Chicago Cleveland • Colorado Springs • Columbus • Dallas • Denver Durham • El Paso Ferguson • Fort Wayne Fort Worth • Garland • Greensboro Henderson • Hialeah Houston • Indianapolis Irving • Jacksonville Kansas City • Laredo • Las Vegas • Lincoln • Los Angeles • Long Beach • Louisville • Madison Memphis • Miami Milwaukee • Nashville North Las Vegas Oklahoma City • Orlando Philadelphia • Phoenix Pittsburgh • Plano • Raleigh Riverside • Sacramento San Antonio San Francisco San Jose • Seattle St. Louis • St. Paul St. Petersburg • Tampa Toledo • Tucson Washington, D.C. Wichita

Note: Cities listed in this box are those among the 100 largest in the United States that held elections in 2015.

The city of Tucson, Arizona, held elections for mayor and city council on November 3, 2015. Because no races had more than one candidate from each party, the primary scheduled for August 25, 2015, was called off. The filing deadline for candidates who wished to run in this election was May 27, 2015, for primary candidates and was September 24, 2015, for general election candidates. Three of the six city council seats were up for election.

In the mayoral race, Democratic incumbent Jonathan Rothschild ran for and won a second term. He was the only major party candidate to file to run and faced three write-in candidates in his re-election bid.

Council races were held for Wards 1, 2 and 4. The three Democratic incumbents ran unopposed in the primary, but each incumbent faced and defeated a Republican challenger in the general election. These challengers shared a joint campaign website, calling themselves the Winning Team for Tucson City Council and referring to each other as "winning team members."

Although many of America's 100 largest cities hold nonpartisan elections, Tucson elections feature candidates affiliated with political parties. Read more about the partisan background of city hall below.

Major issues that shaped the city council race included road maintenance and budgetary concerns. A controversial billboard campaign, funded by an independent committee, emerged in the summer of 2015 to raise those two issues as well as the issue of poverty. Read more about these issues below.

Mayor

Candidate list

November 3 General election candidates:

Jonathan Rothschild - Incumbent Rothschild was elected in 2011.

Joshua Chesser (Write-in)

Charles Phillips (Write-in)

Paula Huff (Write-in)

Election results

Mayor of Tucson, General election, 2015
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Jonathan Rothschild Incumbent	93.1%	61,358
	Independent	Paula Huff (Write-in)	0.2%	109
	Independent	Joshua Chesser (Write-in)	0.1%	71
	Independent	Charles Phillips (Write-in)	0.1%	65
		Write-in votes	6.56%	4,327
Total Votes				65,930
Source: Pima County Elections Department, "Official Canvass Consolidated Elections November 3, 2015," November 9, 2015

City council

Candidate list

Ward 1

November 3 General election candidates:

Regina Romero - Incumbent Romero was elected in 2007.

Bill Hunt

Ward 2

November 3 General election candidates:

Paul Cunningham - Incumbent Cunningham was appointed to the council in 2010.

Kelly Lawton

Ward 4

November 3 General election candidates:

Shirley C. Scott - Incumbent Scott was elected in 1995.

Margaret Burkholder

Election results

Tucson City Council Ward 1, General election, 2015
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Regina Romero Incumbent	57.6%	45,367
	Republican	Bill Hunt	42.1%	33,141
		Write-in votes	0.33%	261
Total Votes				78,769
Source: Pima County Elections Department, "Official Canvass Consolidated Elections November 3, 2015," November 9, 2015

Tucson City Council Ward 2, General election, 2015
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Paul Cunningham Incumbent	57.5%	45,296
	Republican	Kelly Lawton	42.2%	33,231
		Write-in votes	0.31%	246
Total Votes				78,773
Source: Pima County Elections Department, "Official Canvass Consolidated Elections November 3, 2015," November 9, 2015

Tucson City Council Ward 4, General election, 2015
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Shirley C. Scott Incumbent	55.7%	43,824
	Republican	Margaret Burkholder	44.0%	34,611
		Write-in votes	0.31%	242
Total Votes				78,677
Source: Pima County Elections Department, "Official Canvass Consolidated Elections November 3, 2015," November 9, 2015

Issues

Billboard campaign

Two of 20 new billboards rolled out locally in 2015, paid for by the independent expenditure committee Revitalize Tucson

A controversial billboard campaign alleging road maintenance, poverty and public safety problems instructed citizens to question the three city council members seeking re-election about the issues. The billboards—20 in all, highlighting four different issues—were paid for by Revitalize Tucson, an independent expenditure committee chaired by former state Senator Frank Antenori and Christine Bauserman. They cost $15,200.

Bauserman said of the campaign, "We just have some questions for Tucson City Council that we think people want to know." The four questions were posed as follows:

• "Who gets $1.36 billion and won't fix the potholes?"
• "Who lets a few radicals hold downtown hostage?"
• "Who made Tucson the 5th poorest city in the US?"
• "Why are we Arizona's most dangerous city?"

Incumbent Councilman Paul Cunningham commented when asked about the boards:

“

They [Revitalize Tucson] are obviously tied to our opposition. This the type of campaign they are going to run, what kind of leadership can you expect? At the end of the day what you really see you see if 300 to 400 miles of road repair, a downtown project that is working after failures in the past. What you are seeing is record job numbers, what you are seeing is no police and fire layoffs, and a downturn in crime rates. It's complete manipulation of the facts.

”

Roads and transportation

Several candidates mentioned road maintenance as one of their primary concerns. On his Facebook page, Bill Hunt cited Tucson Potholes, a blog that asks Tucson residents to submit photos of local potholes, as an illustration of the problem. On the same note, Margaret Burkholder asked readers on her website, "Have you also replaced three tires in the past 12 months like I have?" and Kelly Lawton said he was in favor of "better roads with year-to-year maintenance."

Incumbent Regina Romero also emphasized public infrastructure as one of her priorities. In a candidate survey conducted by Arizona Public Media, she wrote,

“	Public infrastructure leverages private investment, which creates jobs and improves our quality of life. … I worked with our congressional delegation to solicit more than $63 million for the Streetcar, linking millennials at the UA to Downtown. I fought for the 2012 voter-approved $100 million road bond to repave our city streets and the 2006 RTA 20-year, $2.1 billion plan for transportation infrastructure.	”
—Regina Romero

Mayor Jonathan Rothschild also made mention of road maintenance as well as other transportation issues. In the two-year plan outlined on his website, he said he would aim to "set forth a plan to reauthorize and reallocate existing Regional Transportation Authority funds, to direct more funds toward transit, road repair and pedestrian and bicycle improvements."

Economic issues

Data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau

The three Republican challengers—Bill Hunt, Kelly Lawton and Margaret Burkholder—emphasized budgetary concerns in their campaigns. They claimed that they would work to reduce spending and seek out long-term economic solutions.

Lawton said he would "encourage and support investment, incentives, and revitalization strategies unique to our community at large," while at the same time building a "rainy day fund." Burkholder suggested a two-pronged approach: "First re-prioritize the money we have in a more than $1.25 BILLION and secondly grow the the [sic] revenue stream through job creation—more people with better paying jobs equals more city revenue."

Incumbent Regina Romero also emphasized economic growth, writing in a candidate survey that she believed "strategic economic development will encourage the right kind of growth for Tucson, and help local entrepreneurs build their own success."

Mayor Jonathan Rothschild took a different angle on city government sustainability, saying that part of the budgetary problem was rooted in failure to annex neighboring regions:

“

Lost revenue to our region through failure to annex or incorporate is estimated at $70 million a year. These are tax dollars we pay, but don’t get back. Instead, they’re spent in Maricopa County, which is 93% incorporated. Through annexation and incorporation, we can recover that revenue, which can mean more services and lower property taxes. In the next two years, we’ll continue to increase Pima County’s incorporated area.

”

Data collected in 2014 by the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 34.8 percent of Tucson's annual incomes were under $25,000. Ranking cities by that criteria, Tucson was the fifth-poorest, ahead of Memphis, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit. This is presumably the criteria used by the creators of the billboards mentioned above. However, when instead using the federal poverty threshold as the ranking criteria, Tucson ranked 18th-poorest among Ballotpedia's largest 100 U.S. cities.

Ballot measures

Photographic Traffic Enforcement Ban Initiative

See also: City of Tucson Photographic Traffic Enforcement Ban Initiative, Proposition 201 (November 2015)

A measure banning use of traffic cameras for prosecution of traffic violations was on the ballot for Tucson voters in Pima County, Arizona, on November 3, 2015. It was approved.

Proposition 201 amended the Tucson code to make inadmissible any evidence gathered from automatic red light or speed cameras. If the only evidence of a traffic violation was gathered from such cameras, the violation could not be prosecuted and the city of Tucson was barred from using such evidence in court, according to Proposition 201. The measure was designed to require the testimony of a human, on-site witness for the prosecution of traffic violations.

As of October 2015, there were eight intersections in Tucson that used red light cameras.

Mayoral Voting Authority Expansion

See also: City of Tucson Mayoral Voting Authority Expansion, Proposition 403 (November 2015)

A measure giving the Tucson mayor equal voting rights as the members of the Tucson City Council was on the ballot for Tucson voters in Pima County, Arizona, on November 3, 2015. It was approved.

Proposition 403 gave the Tucson mayor an equal vote to members of the Tucson City Council in council meetings. It also allowed the mayor's presence to count towards the quorum of council members who must be present for a meeting to be conducted.

Appointment and Removal of Department Directors Amendment

See also: City of Tucson Appointment and Removal of Department Directors Amendment, Proposition 404 (November 2015)

A measure to provide a uniform method for appointment and removal of city department directors was on the ballot for Tucson voters in Pima County, Arizona, on November 3, 2015. It was approved.

Proposition 404 amended the Tucson City Charter to create a uniform method for appointing and removing city department directors. Prior to the amendment, directors were appointed and removed using various methods. Under the new system, directors must be appointed by the city manager, subject to the consent of the mayor and council, and removed by the city manager.

Mayor and Council Member Salary Increase Amendment

See also: City of Tucson Mayor and Council Member Salary Increase Amendment, Proposition 405 (November 2015)

A measure to increase the salaries of the Tucson cayor and city council members was on the ballot for Tucson voters in Pima County, Arizona, on November 3, 2015. It was defeated.

If approved, Proposition 405 would have amended the Tucson City Charter to increase the salaries of the Tucson mayor and members of the Tucson City Council. The mayor's salary would have been increased from $3,500 to $4,030 per month, while each council member's salary would have been increased from $2,000 to $2,288 per month. The last time these salaries were raised was in 1999.

Background information

As of 2015, Tucson was the only locality in Arizona to still hold partisan elections. Democrats have controlled the city council for most of the 21st century. The last time the city elected a Republican to the council was in 2009, when Steve Kozachik edged out Democratic incumbent Nina Trasoff 51 percent to 48 percent. Kozachik, however, switched his party affiliation to Democratic in 2013 following criticism from conservative groups over his request for a gun buyback event in Tucson. Before Kozachik, the city had elected two Republicans in 2001. Both of them lost re-election in 2005. Republicans held the office of mayor from 1999 to 2011. Leading up to the general election in 2015, Democrats held full control over the council.

Rothschild's victory in 2011 made him the first Democrat to take the reigns in Tucson since 1999. In the 2011 Democratic primary, he initially faced four opponents, but local courts ended up removing one from the list, while another dropped out before the election. Rothschild advanced with almost 97 percent of the vote. In the general election, he faced Green Party candidate Mary DeCamp and Republican Rick Grinnell, who won his party's primary after staging a write-in campaign following the court removal of two other Republican hopefuls. Rothschild won with almost 55 percent of the vote, compared to DeCamp's 5 percent and Grinnell's 40 percent.

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Tucson Arizona Election. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

Tucson, Arizona municipal elections, 2015 - Google News

See also

• United States municipal elections, 2015
• Tucson, Arizona

External links

Suggest a link

• City of Tucson - About City of Tucson Elections
• City of Tucson - 2015 Primary Election Candidates