Gina Swoboda, a campaign activist backed by former President Donald Trump, has been selected as the next leader of the Arizona Republican Party, a leadership position that will put her center stage in the battleground state for November’s presidential election.
Fox 10 television in Phoenix reported that Swoboda received 67% of the vote at Saturday’s state party conference. Republicans declined to confirm their margin of victory to The Associated Press.
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Swoboda replaces Jeff DeWitt, who was midway through his two-year term. Wednesday after a leaked audio recording showed him offering a job to U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake and asking her to offer a price to keep her out of the 2024 election cycle. I resigned.
At the time of the recording last March, Lake was preparing for his U.S. Senate campaign and was engaged in an unsuccessful legal battle to contest his loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race. Meanwhile, Republicans in Washington, hurt by disappointing results in the midterm elections, were openly talking about plans to seek a stronger Republican Senate candidate in the general election.
Gina Swoboda, a campaign activist endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has been chosen to be the next chair of the Arizona Republican Party. (Fox News)
DeWitt was the chief operating officer of Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, and served as NASA’s chief financial officer during Trump’s presidency.
He was seen as a reliable and experienced operative who could bridge the bitter divide between Arizona’s Trump supporters and veteran Republicans, many of whom were brought into the party by the late Sen. John McCain. It was something that was given to me.
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Swoboda is a former employee of the Arizona Secretary of State’s office and served as President Trump’s election day operations manager in 2020. She works as a senior campaign adviser for the Arizona State Senate.
Lake, who is running for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat, congratulated Swoboda and called her victory a “huge victory” for her campaign and the Trump campaign.
“Gina is a national leader in election law. She is a grassroots hero, a woman who has overcome challenges and is a woman of great integrity,” Lake said in a statement. “Gina understands that the White House and the Senate majority and, frankly, the survival of our republic are in control of the 48 states.”
