Phoenix Independent publishes article by Richard Grayson, "Green Party must work harder to gain equal ballot access it covets"

Today, Tuesday, April 28, 2026, the Phoenix Independent published an article by Richard Grayson, "Green Party must work harder to gain equal ballot access it covets."

Tucson Sentinel publishes article by Richard Grayson, "Why Risa Lombardo may be least harmful choice in Az’s Green Party primary"

Today, April 26, 2026, the Tucson Sentinel published an article by Richard Grayson, "Why Risa Lombardo may be least harmful choice in Az’s Green Party primary." 

Richard Grayson is a write-in Green Party primary candidate for State Representative in Arizona's 7th Legislative District

Richard Grayson is a write-in Green Party primary candidate for State Representative in Arizona's 7th Legislative District. Two state representatives are elected per district. There are four Republicans running for the two Republican slots on the November ballot. There is one Democrat running for the two Democratic slots on the ballot. 

In the Green Party primary, a write-in candidate needs a plurality of the vote to advance to the November ballot. In last July's primary in the special election for Arizona's 7th Congressional District, Grayson won the No Labels Party primary with one write-in vote. 

This year's primary is on July 21, 2026.

Arizona Republic Covers Richard Grayson's Fundraising in Campaign to Replace Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona's 8th Congressional District

The front page of today's Valley and State section of The Arizona Republic has a story on fundraising among candidates in the special election in Arizona's Eighth Congressional District for the seat formerly held by Gabrielle Giffords.

The article began:

Ron Barber, the Democratic congressional aide who was wounded alongside former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in last year's shooting rampage, has raised more than double the money raised by each of three of the Republicans competing for her House seat, records show.

Campaign-finance reports were not available for a fourth Republican candidate, state Sen. Frank Antenori.

Figures were also unavailable for Green Party candidate Richard Grayson.

The fundraising numbers may take on outsized importance in the highly compressed time frame for selecting a replacement to serve the remainder of Giffords' term.

Richard Grayson Ties for Third Place with 6.96% of the Vote in 2012 Arizona Green Party Presidential Preference Primary

We tied for third place, with 6.96% of the vote, in yesterday's Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary. But we had 39 votes, and the second-place finisher had only 50 votes, so we weren't far behind. We finished second in four counties: Pima (Tucson), Pinal (our home county), Mohave and Navajo, and we tied for second in a fifth county, Cochise. In three Arizona counties -- La Paz, Santa Cruz and Greenlee -- we finished in a six-way tie for first place, or last place, since none of the Green Party candidates got any votes at all.

We carried our hometown, Apache Junction, and apparently the Navajo Nation as well. In a majority of Arizona counties (8 out of 15), we did no worse than second place. Here is the end of today's front-page story in The Arizona Republic, which was of course mostly about Mitt Romney's win in the Republican primary:

Although Republican politics dominated the day, six Green Party candidates also appeared on Arizona's primary ballot. Jill Stein, a physician who has run for statewide office several times in Massachusetts, jumped out to an early lead, far outpolling the other candidate with a national organization, Kent Mesplay, who is an air- quality inspector from San Diego County.

Two other nationally prominent candidates did not make it on Arizona's ballot: Harley Mikkelson, a retired government employee from Michigan, and comedian Roseanne Barr.

Richard Grayson, a familiar face in the Arizona Green Party, appeared on the ballot, but he released a statement last month that he would act as a stand-in for Barr and ask that votes he receives be given to her at the national convention this July in Baltimore.

Two other Arizonans, Gerard Davis and Michael Oatman, along with Gary Swing, who is also a candidate for Congress in Colorado, trailed in votes.

This is an early report from reporter Suzanne Adams' story in the Kingman Daily Miner in Mohave County, where we got 25% of the vote, our second-best showing:

According to unofficial election results, Romney got 39 percent and Santorum got 31 percent of 15,070 Mohave County Republican voters. Newt Gingrich came in third with 21 percent of the vote and Ron Paul received 9 percent.

Romney won Arizona by a slightly larger margin - 47 percent of state Republicans voted for Romney and 27 percent voted for Rick Santorum. Gingrich also came in third in the state with 16 percent, followed by Paul with 9 percent.

In the race for the Green Party nomination Stein got five of the votes from eight Mohave County Green Party members who participated Tuesday. Richard Grayson came in second with 2 votes and Michael Oatman came in third with one vote.

Tuesday Morning in Downtown Phoenix: Official Drawing for Arizona Presidential Primary Ballot at the Historic Senate Chambers at the State Capitol

This morning we were again at the Arizona State Capitol

in downtown Phoenix for the official drawing for the Arizona presidential preference primary ballot order

for the Green and Republican parties.

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett presided as candidates or their representatives drew lots

from a historic trophy, given by the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1915 to the USS Arizona in 1915,

and announced the results. We went up first of all the candidates because we were the first Green to file,

and had our campaign manager, Bunny Greenblatt, draw for us.

She handed the paper to Secretary Bennett and he announced that we got ballot position five out of the six candidates in the February 28 primary. We had made sure to wear all Green for luck, but it didn't work.

Neither did evil Sheriff Joe Arpaio. This fat old cannibal from the house of walking swastikas drew number 17 out of 23 for Texas Governor Rick Perry on the Republican ballot.

Many of the candidates are part of Project White House 2012,

a civic project of the Tucson Weekly newspaper, which has encouraged ordinary people to get on the ballot.

All of Secretary Bennett's staff worked hard to make this a great event and were extremely helpful to everyone.

Secretary Bennett himself, using white gloves, drew for those candidates who weren't there, and one of his staff members, as he said, "played Vanna White" and put up the candidate's name in the proper ballot order. (Bunny and I did it ourselves.)

It was a tense moment as Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin went to draw for Mitt Romney, who got ballot position number 9, which the Speaker hopes was good enough to get him a job as undersecretary of something.

When Sheriff Arpaio went up to draw for Rick Perry,

he apparently noticed Bunny sitting next to me. The next we thing we knew, a deputy asked her for proof that she wasn't in this country illegally.

Actually more annoying to Bunny was news radio station KFYI getting her name wrong:

Arizona's lax requirements to get on the ballot leads to colorful candidates on the ballot. Green Party candidate Richard Grayson brought his stuffed animal, Bunny Green Black, who he claims is his campaign manager to pick his ballot number.

This is presidential candidate Gerard Davis of Phoenix, who was accompanied by his wife Sonya and their child. He is number 6 out of six on the Green Party ballot, but the last shall be first, according to Rick Santorum (whose representative, a really nice man, was wearing a sweater vest just like his candidate).

This is Kip Dean, one of the Republican presidential candidates you've never heard of, perhaps because unlike Romney, Paul, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, Cain and the serious ones, Kip actually knows that we're not in the 1950s anymore and he's not running for leader of Leave It to Beaverland.

Kip wrote this and posted this pic on Facebook:

Favorite part of my day--the rolling of Sheriff Joe's eyes and his comment of "gawd" when he saw Richard Grayson's campaign manager (the bunny hand puppet pictured in the middle of us) pull his ballot spot slip for the Green Party Presidential Primary. My thoughts were different as I thought the bunny puppet was smarter than John Huntsman's campaign staff and Rick Perry's racist jackass slip puller (Joe himself).

These people in the back looked like politicians and seemed out of place.

The press was really interested in why former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China did not make the ballot when all anyone had to do was sign a simple declaration of candidacy and get it notarized. Secretary Bennett said that if Gov. Huntsman was going to challenge his not being on the Arizona ballot, he'd better do it fast because Maricopa County planned to start printing their ballots tonight.

Arizona Green Party co-chair Angel Torres drew for both of the presidential candidates officially recognized by the Green Party of the United States, Jill Stein and Kent Mesplay, and at the end of the drawing took photos of the ballot so the Arizona Green Party will know which of its own candidates it will sue to kick off the ballot this year.

Bunny and I were grateful to everyone at the Secretary of State's office and to all the fine candidates running in the Arizona presidential preference election.

It was wonderful to see American democracy at work, sort of.

Tuesday Afternoon in Apache Junction: Richard Grayson interviewed by ABC15 about his Green Party presidential campaign

Back in Apache Junction, we were interviewed this afternoon by Eric English of ABC15 of Phoenix about our candidacy for the Green Party presidential nomination. We are running in the February 28 Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary.

Tuesday Afternoon in Apache Junction: Election Day Voting at Cactus Canyon Junior High School

Today was Election Day in Apache Junction, so in late afternoon we moseyed over to Cactus Canyon Junior High School


to do our civic duty in our fair city.

One council member was facing a recall election

and three other council seats were also up.

Leading citizens debated the issues outside the polling place.

It was a beautiful afternoon, sunny and about 73 degrees, perfect weather for casting a ballot.

When we gave our yellow voter registration card (we are one of our 5,000 Arizonans who belong to the Green Party and had the honor of being our party's candidate for Congress last November), we got a green ticket

to get our ballot.

We voted to re-elect our incumbent A.J. mayor -- not that we had any choice.

We fed our marked ballot into the machine

and got our "I voted" sticker.

Tonight we'll watch the exciting election returns.

Thursday Afternoon in Battery Park: Flags of Heroes by The Sphere from the World Trade Center

On a day when it was confirmed by a judge that I am the official candidate of the Green Party for Congress in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District,

on a day when I took advantage of a friend's spare ticket to attend some of the day's Rosh Hashona services at an Upper East Side synagogue (Mort Zuckerman and some of the Sulzbergers were there, too)

only to discover I'd been called a Nazi supporter by my own party's lawyer in a Phoenix courtroom -- I found myself in Battery Park in the afternoon, watching people take photographs with the field of Flags of Heroes

by The Sphere from the World Trade Center. It was a nice Rosh Hashona respite.

L'shanah tovah!