March 26, 2021
Yassamin Ansari, who came in second in an election for the Phoenix City Council last November, emerged the winner of a run-off election held March 9.
With all the ballots finally counted, Ansari took 58.3 percent of the votes to easily defeat fellow Democrat Cinthia Estela for one of the eight seats on the City Council in Phoenix, which is the fifth largest city in the United States with 1.6 million residents.
The seats on the council are officially non-partisan, but both Ansari and Estela have long worked in the Democratic Party before they entered the non-partisan race last fall against three other candidates. In November, the two women came out on top with Estela just 116 votes in the lead, sending them into the run-off. Estela had 26.9 percent of the vote and Ansari 26.7 percent.
Ansari, 28, won big in the run-off presumably because she did a better job of getting her supporters to the polls. In the November elections, 32,000 people voted, but only 12,500 turned out for the run-off.
The run-off campaign did not win any awards. There was widespread talk against Estela based on purported domestic troubles. Ansari was the target of a mailer that accused her of being a Trump supporter, although Ansari once worked for House Speaker Navy Pelosi.
A total of $1 million was raised by the two candidates combined—an astounding sum for a City Council race. The money flow was generated by the main issue in the campaign, which was the creation and empowerment of an oversight board to keep watch on the Phoenix Police Department. The police opposed the oversight board while liberals came out strongly for a board with strong powers.
The flyer was an oddity. It isn’t clear if the attack mailing hurt Ansari or possibly helped her because it was such an overreach.
“Don’t let another election get stolen!” trumpets the flyer along with a picture of Ansari. “Make Phoenix Great Again!”
On the back, it promises that Ansari will “drain the swamp,” “stop fake news,” and protect elections from fraud.
One problem: Ansari is an adviser for a climate-related nonprofit group, has a long list of Democratic bonafides and once interned for Speaker of the House Pelosi.
“Are you kidding?” Ansari asked when the Phoenix New Times inquired whether she thought the presidential election was stolen. ”I was being attacked this whole time for being too progressive and now I’m in an alternate reality where I’m a Trump supporter.”
Ansari won despite—or because of—the fact that fellow Democrat Estela won the endorsement of the outgoing councilmember, Democrat Michael Nowakowski. Estela stuck closer to his positions on police oversight and expanded homeless services in the district, while Ansari, who was backed by Mayor Kate Gallego, staked out more aggressive and progressive positions in support of those proposals.
Ansari said she had received several calls from concerned voters who said they were planning to vote for her until they received the flyer.
“This is just a completely nefarious and slanderous attack coming from this illegal dark money group trying to impact Phoenix elections,” Ansari said.
The group listed on the flyer, “Americans for Progress,” does not appear to be registered with the city, state, or Federal Election Commission. Neither is “Democrats for a Better Phoenix,” which sent out a flyer supporting Estela using the same bulk mailing account. Political mailings by un-registered groups are illegal under Phoenix law.
One interesting point: Ansari was not attacked for her Iranian ethnicity. She was born in the United States of Iranian parents.