BY PHOENIX NEW TIMES STAFF These Arizonans biffed it the hardest in 2024. Giving thanks is boring. At Phoenix New Times, we’d prefer to observe the Thanksgiving holiday in a different fashion. While Valley residents sit down with their families and desperately avoid talking politics, we’re steering into the skid. While you roast a turkey at home, we’re roasting a few turkeys right here. By turkeys, we mean losers, failures, embarrassments. A lot of people biffed it in 2024, and we think that’s worth pointing out. Get your plate ready, be- cause we’re carving them up. From politicians to cops to billionaire sports owners, here are the biggest flops of the year. This year was an endless parade of bad news for Lake, Arizona’s highest-profile MAGA firebrand. Instead of rising from the ashes of a gubernatorial loss two years ago, Lake cemented her status as a loser with a second consecutive statewide political defeat. Running for a U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Kyrsten Sinema, Lake was always expected to lose to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego. The year began with Lake getting booed at the annual meeting of the Arizona Republican Party. Lake then consistently ran behind Gallego in polling all year, unable to shake her gaffes from the previous cycle. Much of her campaign was defined by her comical flip-flops on abortion and by her court battles — one to overturn her 2022 election loss and the other a defamation case brought against her by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. Lake managed to claim victory in neither. As the year wore on, the flimsiness of Lake’s support became more and more apparent. GOP megadonor Randy Kendrick urged her inner circle to support Lake’s primary opponent, warning that Lake had no shot at winning the general election. National Republicans lost faith and stopped spending money on Lake’s campaign. In the end, Lake did worse than before. Donald Trump won the state by 188,000 votes, but Lake lost to Gallego by about 80,000 — a far worse margin than Lake had in her 2022 defeat. However, Lake did win something this year: Phoenix New Times awarded her the 2024 title of Best Dumpster Fire. – TJ L’Heureux The two years that Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has spent in office have been defined by gridlock. With a Republican-controlled state legislature, Hobbs has frequently exercised her veto pen but also run into barriers herself. When Republicans wouldn’t confirm her agency nominees, Hobbs tried to squeeze through a loophole by technically demoting them. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge quashed that idea. Hobbs has also taken flack for sketchy fund allocations to a group home and, recently, for allegations of nepotism by her state tourism director, who now will resign. Many of those problems could be solved by one thing: a Democratic-controlled legislature. Hobbs set out to flip both the Arizona House and Senate, with state Democrats spending $10 million to do so. While Hobbs was barely visible whenever Kamala Harris campaigned in Arizona — an absence for which there’s been no satisfying explanation — she pounded the pavement often for state legislature candidates heading into November. And then … Democrats lost seats in both chambers, handing Republicans a more ironclad majority. For the next two years, Hobbs will face an even more hostile legislature than before. Already, buzz abounds about a possible 2026 primary challenge from Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes or Attorney General Kris Mayes. If Democrats can boot an incumbent president just months before an election, there’s no telling what might happen to Hobbs’ reelection bid in two years. – Zach Buchanan The Phoenix Police Department is one rancid, ptomaine-filled fowl for which we are not giving thanks. In June, the U.S. Department of Justice released a damning 126-page report calling out the department for a host of abuses — excessive force plus mistreatment and discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities, the homeless, disabled people and even children. Since then, Phoenix cops have done nothing but prove the DOJ right. Case in point: The recent release of footage showing Phoenix cops’ shocking, unprovoked beatdown, Tasering and arrest of a deaf Black man with cerebral palsy. The incident was a perfect example of what the DOJ described as a “force first” mentality ingrained in Phoenix’s supposed finest. According to the report, the city of Phoenix “has trained its officers that all force — even deadly force — is de-escalation.” No wonder Phoenix cops have shot and killed 12 people so far this year, matching last year’s total and putting the police on a path to exceeding it. Our local political leaders have largely played ostrich over the need for a vigorous consent decree to rein in this unnecessary violence. And given Donald Trump’s open encouragement of police brutality in the past, his Nov. 5 victory likely means the chances for police reform in Phoenix are deader than the turkey on your Thanksgiving dinner table. – Stephen Lemons
