He’s back… Joe Arpaio, the Republican former Maricopa County sheriff known for his hard-line immigration tactics is running for the Senate. Arpaio, also known as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” was pardoned by President Trump in 2017, amid a backlash of criticism and controversy. The move by Mr. Arpaio upended the race to replace Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican who abandoned his 2018 re-election campaign after coming under criticism from Mr. Trump. During the sheriff’s reign, his office engaged in racial profiling and was the subject of several federal civil rights lawsuits for abusing his power, leading to more than $146 million in fines and the appointment of a federal court monitor to oversee his office. Arpaio was defeated in the 2016 election after 24 years in office as sheriff. Like Trump, Arpaio was a “birther” who has questioned President Barack Obama’s citizenship by claiming that he wasn’t born in the United States. In fact, he continued his racist rants after his announcement, calling Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate a “phony document” in a CNN interview. He also reiterated his opposition to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which allows immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to stay in the country. “Deport them,” Arpaio said in a recent NPR interview. Telling the Washington Examiner, “I’m going to have to work hard. You don’t take anything for granted. But I would not being doing this if I thought that I could not win. I’m not here to get my name in the paper, I get that every day, anyway.” Democrats view Arpaio as Arizona’s version of Roy Moore, the Alabama judge who lost a U.S. Senate seat last month to Democrat Doug Jones, the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the state since 1992. Early polls for the Aug. 28 primary show Arpaio grabbing between one-third and one-fifth of the electorate, behind the establishment-backed front-runner, Rep. Martha McSally, a former Air Force combat pilot. Arizona has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988. If he wins the seat, Arpaio would be 86-years-old by the time he is seated, making him the oldest senator ever elected to office.
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