My Response to National Money Pouring into this Nonpartisan Judicial Campaign

A national political action committee (PAC) recently disclosed spending over $87,000 on digital advertising and mailers in a local Yuma County judicial race.

This November, Yuma County voters will decide the open Superior Court seat being vacated by Judge Roger Nelson. I am a candidate in this race. Having practiced law in Arizona for more than 23 years, I am seeking judicial office for the first time. My competition is Jorge Lozano, a former justice of the peace who previously lost bids for the Superior Court bench in 2014 and 2018.

Until recently, our race tracked the quiet, typical cadence of a local judicial campaign. That changed in late September when the Washington, D.C.-based State + Local Election Alliance (SLEA) launched targeted digital ads favoring Mr. Lozano whom it initially labeled progressive, over me, whom it initially labeled conservative. Campaign finance disclosures filed yesterday revealed a $50,000 price tag for that digital blitz (see page 1028 of the filing). On top of that, SLEA saturated local mailboxes with physical campaign flyers in early October.  The size of that separate expenditure was $37,268.48 (see page 2,763 of this filing).

This is unprecedented.  Yuma County has never before seen out-of-state PAC money intervene in a local judicial election, and the size of this intervention completely dwarfs local campaign realities. Raising money as a judicial candidate is intentionally restrictive. The Arizona Judicial Canons of Ethics strictly regulate fundraising, even requiring judges to recuse themselves from cases if an appearing party has contributed more than a specified sum to the judge’s campaign.  For this reason, many judicial candidates self-fund. For example, my campaign has raised $16,200, funded primarily by my wife, myself, and our parents. Meanwhile, Mr. Lozano has not filed a financial disclosure report with Yuma County, which is legally required once his campaign receives or spends more than $1,500.

SLEA, on the other hand, operates under none of these ethical constraints. Public records filed with the Arizona Secretary of State show that SLEA pulled in more than $1.8 million in the second quarter of this year—and not a single dollar came from an Arizona donor! Instead, SLEA is funded nationally via left-of-center conduits like ActBlue.

This money traces directly to billionaire financier George Soros. Soros established Democracy PAC and Democracy PAC II with initial capital investments of $5 million and $125 million, respectively. Federal records show that Democracy PAC transferred $1 million to SLEA in two donations, on July 2, 2025, and March 26, 2026.

For over a decade, Soros has funded progressive prosecutors in major metropolitan areas nationwide.  Now, that same financial apparatus has turned its sights on Yuma County’s judicial bench.

Yuma voters have a right to ask why an out-of-state super PAC wants so badly to place Mr. Lozano on our bench. Major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco have elected Soros-backed candidates to lead their criminal justice system.  Voters may want to consider how that has worked out.

Yuma voters should also worry what SLEA’s participation is likely to mean for future judicial campaigns.  If local campaigns can be overwhelmed with national money, the character of our local courts is in jeopardy.

Yuma County's judiciary must remain loyal to the law and accountable to the people who live, work, and raise families here, not to a Washington, D.C. treasury pool.