Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction results are in!
Team Horne - don't sit this one out on November 3rd!
When it comes to who should be the next Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, conservatives were divided between the incumbent, Tom Horne, and challenger Kimberly Yee, who currently serves as State Treasurer. In the end though, the July 21, 2026, primaries shows a potential leftist takeover:
Arizona still ranks near the bottom
WalletHub, a personal financial website, shows Arizona’s education quality ranking at 46/51 (a slight uptick) with school safety ranking at 41/51. In light of these dismal numbers, per pupil spending is around $12,000 each year and continues to increase. Meanwhile, leftist organizations like Save Our Schools Arizona are attacking the ESA program, which spends around $7,000 to $9,000 per student and is well regulated.
Leftist outrage over school choice is disingenuous at best. At worst, liberals actually want students to graduate with little to no reading, writing, or math skills. They truly believe emotional manipulation and activism are shaping the best future for America. We will never see the same zeal, controversy, or calls to action applied to failing public schools.
Any minor improvements we are witnessing across the state are likely due to parents taking control of their children’s education. Over 100,000 families are utilizing the ESA program and this growing number frightens government school worshippers. Statistics show students learn more, test higher, and have less peer-related issues when they’re enrolled outside the public education system. Thus, school choice should always be available to K-12 families.
Leftist policies and activist influences ensure our schools primarily cater to overpaid administrators, special interest groups, and teachers’ unions. We see the expansion of immorality as they contend for children to experiment with sexual identities, hide student issues from parents, and replace legitimate education with DEI programming. I’ll add that school board members, like the radical majority in Peoria Unified (two of which claim to be “conservative”) are weak in their struggles against evil.
The little bit of progress Arizona has made will be lost if leftists take full control of education.
Team Horne vs. Team Yee
Here’s the debate in case you missed it:
Blind loyalty is not our forte on the right, hence the sharp split between these two candidates. Ultimately, there’s no reason to pretend as if Horne and Yee are so different. Neither one is all good or all bad. Politics is a sport that’s only played in mud. It takes patience, discernment, and lots of research to wade through propaganda and foolishness.
I’ve listened to complaints against Horne and Yee: “He didn’t do enough to expand the ESA program” 😏… “She served on some DEI committee” 😒…“Both have sketchy transactions on their ledgers” 🧐…I’ve read the articles mocking both candidates. I watched Yee’s interview on Arizona’s Family slamming Horne as a “racist.” I went through Horne’s hit-piece website on Yee…🥱
Squabbles, slander, and sparring among conservatives is nothing new. When you get to the bottom of most accusations, you will likely find the same compromises, popularity contests, and public pressures that every politician buckles under. It’s like the flu, everyone will catch it at least once…especially when lobbyists come calling. The Arizona legislature itself paints a sometimes funny, sometimes frustrating picture of what a slim conservative majority can accomplish.
Inevitably, we’re going to have wishy-washy types who take the path of least resistance or avoid controversial issues altogether. I also think it’s nonsensical to “reach across the aisle” on something as crucial as school choice when conservatives appear to be winning. Then again, I’m not looking to score points with voters in an upcoming election. When you’re loyal to truth, you typically find it easier to keep priorities straight.
We also have the “ultra” grassroots, the moral absolutists who flat-out refuse to support any candidate with a blemish on their public servant record. This level of scrutiny and defiance is warranted when someone suddenly flips their ideological position or swaps parties in the next cycle (they know who they are). It’s otherwise silly to expect perfection from flawed human beings.
We need to pull the conservative votes together
The majority of voters typically fall somewhere in between the cowards and the hypocrites. The average constituent is not fully bought into the Establishment agenda of either party—they just want truth to prevail. They don’t care about lobbyists—they want the Constitution to be followed. If you run as a conservative, vote like a conservative.
“Political dynamics” are not always in the realm of our understanding. Nevertheless, we remember candidates’ campaign promises, how they smile in our face and make a point to shake our hand coming and going. In cynical terms, elections are one big social experiment with serious consequences. Still, once you know the game, you don’t hate the players as much. 🤷🏽♀️
Bottom line, we can only expect the failures of public education to increase if we allow a liberal takeover of key leadership positions. Team Horne, we see you, and we appreciate your turn out during the primaries. We need you turn out once more. We can work through any issue together over the next four years. Please fill in the bubble for Yee to become the next Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction on November 3, 2026. 🙏🏽