Joe Arpaio clings to relevancy in what’s likely his last run

Arizona has grown more politically moderate in the past five years, but Republican primary voters haven’t entirely abandoned Joe Arpaio, the six-term sheriff of metro Phoenix who lost the job in 2016 amid voter frustration over his legal troubles and headline-grabbing tactics. In what Arpaio acknowledges could be his last political race, he was trailing Jerry Sheridan, his former second-in-command, by 572 votes as the vote count continued Wednesday. Mike O’Neil, a longtime Arizona pollster who has followed Arpaio’s career, said the lawman remains in contention because he has strong name recognition and is still popular in some Republican circles — even though he was trounced in 2016 and finished third in the 2018 U.S. Senate primary.