Best Republican
Thomas Galvin
Given how completely Donald Trump has captured the Republican Party, this is a difficult category to fill. But there are still a few not-crazy GOPers out there, and Maricopa County is particularly fortunate that Galvin, who chairs the powerful but perennially overlooked county board of supervisors, is one of them. Like former county recorder Stephen Richer, Galvin has little patience for Arizona’s unique breed of election denier. Indeed, with MAGA doofus Justin Heap now running the recorder’s office and waging war against the Republican-dominated board of supes, Galvin has regularly clowned Heap and called out his every misstep. He has provided a refreshing dose of sanity in an increasingly insane world, as well as a bulwark against the damage an unfettered Heap would do to elections in the state’s largest county. To be sure, Galvin is still a Republican — his positions on Israel’s war in Gaza, Trump’s attack against Iran and the need to speed up vote-counting could hardly be mistaken for liberal. He has also opportunistically railed against the ongoing independent oversight of the county’s problematic sheriff’s office, griping about the price tag while sidestepping the agency’s languishing backlog of internal affairs cases. Then again, if he didn’t hold some of those positions, he wouldn’t really qualify for Best Republican, would he?
