Joe Arpaio Announces 2020 Run For His Old Job As Maricopa County Sheriff
Joe Arpaio, who previously served as the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, from 1993 until 2016, has announced his intentions to once again run for the position he held for decades.
Serving 24 years as sheriff, he currently holds the title of the longest-running sheriff in county history, according to The Hill.
On Sunday, Arpaio tweeted a statement announcing his intentions to run along with several reasons why August 25 is a special date for him and his family.
“Thousands want me to run for Sheriff. Today Aug 25 announcing run for Sheriff Important day for me. Wife’s Birthday & Pres Trump Pardoned me. Ready for bruising, bitter campaign. Never back down,” Arpaio wrote.
August 25, 2017, was the date when Arpaio found out that President Donald Trump had issued a pardon for him, after facing a conviction for criminal intent in federal court over a nationally controversial racial profiling case.
In a statement attached to his tweet, Arpaio outlined several reasons why he’s running for his old job and several policies and programs he would implement should he win, which included his infamous “tent cities,” which also caused national backlash because of the extreme heat and conditions his prisoners would face on a given Arizona day.
“When he is back in office, Sheriff Arpaio will re-open Tent City Jail and bring back his popular jail policies, reinstitute the Posse to its former strength and continue to enforce all Arizona laws that deal with drug trafficking, sex trafficking and other crimes associated with the border and illegal immigration,” the statement read.
The statement also explained that Arpaio announced two months ago that he would make his final decision on whether or not to run again for the sheriff’s job, and that in those two months, thousands of people across America have “humbled” the former sheriff and asked him to run again.
JUST IN: Joe Arpaio to run for Maricopa County sheriff in 2020 https://t.co/V3kOIiybTQ pic.twitter.com/5vrpCGzAlt
— The Hill (@thehill) August 26, 2019
Though Arpaio ran in the Arizona Republican Senate primary in a bid to replace then-Senator Jeff Flake, who was set to retire, Arpaio ultimately lost the election to Sen. Martha McSally, who was later defeated by a Democrat. McSally was later appointed to the Senate to take over a vacated seat from Sen. Jon Kyl, who, in turn, took over John McCain’s seat after the longtime senator passed away last year.
But as Arpaio’s statement noted, the longtime long arm of the law has never lost a Republican primary for the sheriff’s position and also holds the title of the only Republican sheriff to be re-elected in the past 100 years of Maricopa county’s history.
Taking a page out of Trump’s 2016 campaign playbook, the statement said that Arpaio’s primary mission is to “Make Maricopa County Safe Again.”
Maricopa County’s current sheriff is Democrat Paul Penzone, and as The Hill reported, he is expected to run for re-election in 2020.
