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by\u00a0David Dayen<\/a><\/strong> July 15, 2026 (Prospect.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Kai](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prospect.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Dayen-AZ-Kai-Newkirk-071526.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1\")
Two weeks ago, Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) put out a poll<\/a> showing him leading the July 21 Democratic primary in Arizona\u2019s Fourth Congressional District, located in and around Phoenix, by 33 points, while carrying a massive 70 percent favorability rating. Normally, incumbents with that kind of lead wouldn\u2019t bother putting a poll like that out; we have to surmise it was meant to either calm supporters or scare off opponents from investing money in his opponent\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stanton\u2019s supporters were apparently not calmed. A week after the poll release, an affiliate of Leading the Future, one of the main electoral PACs funded by the artificial intelligence industry, sunk $227,000<\/a> into television and streaming advertising and text messaging on Stanton\u2019s behalf. The outside expenditure isn\u2019t enormous, but it is curious: Why are AI oligarchs defending an incumbent who is blowing out his opponent?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe it\u2019s because Stanton\u2019s lead isn\u2019t so secure. A more recent survey taken last week<\/a> by A Fight Worth Having, a backer of his opponent, democratic socialist Kai Newkirk, shows the race narrowing to single digits. Stanton leads Newkirk 46-38, but among those who have yet to vote, about half the electorate, Newkirk leads 41-30 with 17 percent undecided. If the undecideds break for Newkirk, another Democratic incumbent could fall in what has already been a historic primary season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More from David Dayen<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Newkirk, a longtime activist and organizer, only got into the race four months ago, inspired by a deepening sense of outrage at the inadequacy of Stanton\u2019s responses to Donald Trump\u2019s extremism and the genocide in Gaza. As co-chair of the Arizona Democratic Party\u2019s Progressive Council, Newkirk said they had tried to push Stanton on Gaza, including by sending a delegation to his office. But Stanton, despite making a conditional call for a cease-fire, continued to vote for military aid to Israel without conditions, voted to sanction the International Criminal Court for its charges against Israeli leaders, and criticized Joe Biden for briefly stopping the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd then, when Trump returns to office, he voted for the Laken Riley Act,\u201d Newkirk said, referring to the immigration legislation that has helped to facilitate mass detention and deportation. \u201cHe just wasn\u2019t showing up to push back against Trump in this seizure of authoritarian power \u2026 it was a cascade of things where I felt, as a sense of emergency and injustice and moral travesty is intensifying, that there was too much cost to having a corporate Democrat not fighting but enabling and facilitating it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That decision led someone who has spent a career running campaign finance reform groups like Democracy Spring<\/a>, which engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience to call attention to the need to get money out of politics, to have to raise money himself for an election campaign. He has only raised $151,000<\/a> over the cycle as of June 30, but when we talked last week, he said the campaign had just had its best fundraising day. \u201cOur job is to bring to people\u2019s attention the big gap between the decisions Stanton has made and where Democrats stand,\u201d he said. That includes social media and digital organization, with volunteer door-knocking that Newkirk believes is working. \u201cMy experience on the doors and what our people have seen, it tells me that it\u2019s right there to be seized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysis that goes beyond the noise, from Dayen, Kuttner, Meyerson, and more.Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n No paywall, no programmatic ads \u2014 just the reporting. Unsubscribe anytime. Submitting your email signs you up for The Daily Prospect, Today on TAP, Aftermath, and Weekend Reads.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Stanton has raised over $2 million this cycle<\/a>, with less than 5 percent coming from small donors under $200, according to Open Secrets<\/a>. Over $600,000 of his campaign haul comes from corporate PACs like UnitedHealth, Cigna, Humana, SpaceX, Walmart, Amazon, Google, Fox Corporation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Clear Channel, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, McKesson, UPS, body camera makers Axon, Waste Management, Boeing, State Farm Insurance, Medtronic, Visa, Home Depot, Tenet and Elevance Healthcare, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest Airlines, the Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, and BNSF railways, weapons manufacturers RTX, L3Harris, General Dynamics, and Honeywell, as well as several banking trade groups, the American Hospital Association, and a bunch more. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee also contributed $6,000 directly. Newkirk, adding in AIPAC donors who have also contributed to Stanton, calls AIPAC Stanton\u2019s top contributor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That relates to an exceedingly unusual circumstance that Newkirk personally experienced. \u201cSeveral weeks ago, I and others started getting these texts saying, \u2018Do you have a minute to talk about U.S.-Israel relationship?\u2019\u201d Newkirk told me. \u201cIt seemed like an AI chatbot.\u201d The texts, which provided pro-Israel messaging on behalf of \u201cFriends for Peace\u201d and cast doubt on atrocities in Gaza, were associated<\/a> with an organization called Clock Tower X run by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale<\/a>, whose political firm has $9 million in direct contracts<\/a> with the state of Israel. They\u2019ve been circulating since last year, but Newkirk said they appear to show up more in primaries where Israel is a major issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019d think it\u2019s a fable but it\u2019s true,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a foreign government\u2014not AIPAC but Israel\u2014intervening in our politics to mold public opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newkirk filed a formal complaint<\/a> with the Arizona attorney general\u2019s office over Israel\u2019s election interference. He hadn\u2019t heard back as of last week. The office did not respond to the Prospect<\/em>\u2019s request for a status update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite an odd incident where the Arizona Young Democrats canceled their endorsement<\/a> of Newkirk over \u201cconcerning patterns of behavior,\u201d apparently based on a ten-year-old article that was retracted two years ago by the author<\/a> and rejected by other youth organizations<\/a>, the latest poll shows that Newkirk has some momentum, with attention<\/a> in independent media<\/a>. Meanwhile, Stanton hasn\u2019t really made his presence felt, hoping that his name recognition and superior fundraising will carry him to victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stanton has skipped debate appearances<\/a> in the district and has done no town halls. Newkirk says Stanton\u2019s events are very controlled. His campaign office is listed as a UPS mailbox<\/a>. Newkirk did track Stanton down recently at a lightly publicized event around health care. \u201cI asked him about health care in Gaza and asked if he would commit to renounce AIPAC funding, end military support for Israel, and denounce election interference,\u201d Newkirk said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t answer and was hustled out of the room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet when it came time for an outside super PAC to boost Stanton, it was not AIPAC\u2019s that did the job, but an artificial intelligence\u2013funded PAC. Newkirk has rallied opposition<\/a> to an AI data center project in Ahwatukee, a city in the district. And his general platform involves progressive taxation and public provision of goods (including an innovative proposal around price caps on a basket of essential goods that was used to great effect in Mexico) to rebalance the relationship between the wealthy and everybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPolitical and economic power are becoming more concentrated and leading to deepening inequality,\u201d Newkirk said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to break the grip of oligarchs on our democracy and move toward a shared prosperity \u2026 If we break from corporate power and make government a tool to deliver for working-class people, there\u2019s no limit to what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stanton\u2019s campaign did not respond to multiple questions for this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A victory for Newkirk would show that Stanton\u2019s sleepwalking on threats from Trump carried over into sleepwalking in his own race. Newkirk believes that the fight against Trump should be seen as existential. \u201cWe have to prove, like when FDR was fighting fascism, that democracy can change people\u2019s lives for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n UPDATE: <\/strong>This story has been updated to better reflect the timing of a retracted hit piece about Kai Newkirk.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope that you found this article interesting and thought-provoking. The reason we\u2019re able to publish stories like this \u2014 free of programmatic ads and never behind a paywall \u2014 is because readers like you step up to support our work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Prospect <\/em>doesn’t answer to advertisers or billionaire owners. We answer to you and to our commitment to pursuing the truth, wherever that leads us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Independent, reader-supported journalism is critical at a time when the free press is under assault. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you believe this kind of reporting should exist and remain free to read, we hope you’ll consider chipping in. Every contribution, however modest, makes a real difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donate Now<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n David Dayen<\/strong> March 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n April 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n February 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n ddayen@prospect.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect. He is the author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power and Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street\u2019s Great Foreclosure Fraud. He co-hosts the podcast Organized Money with Matt Stoller. He can be reached on Signal at ddayen.90. More by David Dayen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A sleeper race in Arizona could see community organizer Kai Newkirk upset Rep. Greg Stanton in a House race in the Phoenix area. by\u00a0David Dayen July 15, 2026 (Prospect.org) Two weeks ago, Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) put out a poll showing him leading the July 21 Democratic primary in Arizona\u2019s Fourth Congressional… Continue reading ![\"Rep.](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prospect.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Dayen-AZ-Kai-Newkirk-071526-2.jpg?resize=780%2C975&ssl=1\")
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