State Representative David Cook (R-Globe) is running for the Arizona Senate against incumbent State Senator Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff).
Rogers, who raised over $3 million in recent years – the most of any legislative candidate in state history – is widely expected to defeat Cook in the Legislative District 7 (LD 7) primary on July 30.
At the opening of Donald Trump’s campaign office in Casa Grande on Tuesday, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley discussed the GOP’s plans to recruit 100,000 election observers across the country to ensure election integrity in the 2024 election including 5,000 in Arizona.
“What we want to see is a fair, accurate, secure and transparent election cycle. And when we get that, we’re going to feel very comfortable with the results,” Whatley told reporters after the event, according to AZ Central, accompanied by Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda. “We want to make sure that we are in the room with observers, with volunteers, with attorneys whenever a vote is being cast and the vote is being counted.”
After the 2022 election, Cook denied that election fraud had occurred. He posted on X, “I realize today my party has been taken over by people that like to yell and scream and blame everyone but themselves for a loss.”
In 1986 I stood in the post office to register for the draft and to vote. As I registered Republican, (which there weren’t many of us) -I realize today my party has been taken over by people that like to yell and scream and blame everyone but themselves for a loss.
— David Cook (@RepDavidCook) December 10, 2022
During the Clean Elections forum, also on Tuesday, Cook (pictured above, right) emphatically reiterated his view that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen.
“What is not giving confidence to the people in my district are these people with these blanket statements that have no facts to back anything up … these things have been litigated,” Cook said. “There have been evidentiary hearings, no court system has ever upheld any legitimacy.”
But according to physicist and auditor John Droz and his team of statistical PhDs at electionintegrity.info, of the 93 election lawsuits in 2020, only 32 were decided on the merits. Of those, former President Donald Trump and/or the Republican plaintiff prevailed in 24 of them.
The Arizona Sun Times published a two-part special report detailing the cases and their outcomes in January.
On Wednesday, Cook doubled down on his position that there was no outcome-based wrongdoing in the 2022 election. On X, he listed Republicans whose races weren’t “stolen,” including himself, adding, “Let’s not let people from out of state especially 3,000 miles away or even those 165 miles away (carpetbaggers) impact what is good for us. I am asking you for your vote.”
Cook has accumulated a lengthy record hostile to Republican positions. AZ Free News published an article in 2022 about a Democratic PAC contributing $120,200 to Cook. Revitalize Arizona PAC contributed more to Cook in 2020-2021 than any of its other candidates, who were all Democrats.
The article observed that the PAC’s “funds began flowing to Cook last June, after Cook was the only Republican to join Democrats in voting against legislation that would’ve prohibited cities and counties from requiring prevailing wages or union labor as a condition of receiving a bid or contract.”
Then, in 2023, Cook voted against SB 1141, which would have required voter ID at polling locations. He voted with Democrats to stop SB 1143, which would have prevented candidates and PACs from harvesting early ballot requests.
He voted against SB 1140, which would have brought back precinct-level voting locations instead of the huge vote centers that some counties like Maricopa County have adopted. Also, Cook voted against the county recorder transparency bill SB 1142.
The two-term state representative said he decided to run against Rogers (pictured above, left) after she reposted a video clip on X a year ago that contained a few blurred-out photos of Hunter Biden engaging in sexual acts. The video accompanied a tweet stating that there are 459 crimes related to the Biden family. State Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) cleared her of any wrongdoing.
Bryan Blehm, an attorney who is representing Kari Lake in her election challenge, told The Sun Times that Rogers’ repost did not violate the law against revenge porn. Ultimately, Rogers deleted the repost.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club ranked Cook the lowest-scoring Republican legislator in the State House last year. In 2021, the Republican Liberty Caucus of Arizona ranked Cook lower than any other Republican member of the State House except former legislator Paul Boyer. Boyer, often a reliable vote against election integrity bills, chose not to run for reelection in 2022.
In the Arizona State House, Cook serves as the chairman of the Transportation & Infrastructure committee, and is a member of the Education and Land, Agriculture & Rural Affairs committees. In this legislative session, he is listed as the primary sponsor of at least 37 bills.
Rogers championed countless election integrity bills while a state senator. She chairs the Senate Elections Committee and has put on testimony regarding election illegalities. Trump has endorsed her.
LD 7 encompasses Coconino, Gila, Navajo, and Pinal counties, stretching all around the state.
The Sun Times asked Cook for comment, but did not receive a response by press time.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Arizona Capitol” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
