A self-funding businessman is seizing on messy scandals to try and topple President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate for a deep-red House seat.
Republican Daniel Keenan is making a hard run at former Sheriff Mark Lamb in Arizona’s 5th District, pouring over $1.6 million of his own cash into the effort and raising questions about Lamb’s fitness for office following a string of sex scandals. The race will test whether GOP voters care more about the allegations — or whether Trump’s support is enough to get him across the finish line.
A multi-part Arizona Republic investigation found that Lamb allegedly engaged in a yearslong pattern of sending sexual images and instigating intimate encounters between him, his wife and others. One woman involved, Jillian Stannard, alleged Lamb encouraged her husband to have sex with other women, including Lamb’s wife. She also alleged that Lamb threatened her, saying there would be consequences, when Stannard raised concerns to leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which both Lamb and Stannard were members. Screenshots the Republic obtained of messages with another woman, Tammy Peacock, suggest Lamb — then a sitting county sheriff — threatened to leverage Arizona’s revenge porn law against her. In a statement, Lamb spokesperson Ed Morabito said “these allegations are false and come from long-discredited political opponents.”
Reached for comment on Wednesday, Stannard said her allegations reported by the Republic are “accurate and true.” Peacock passed away in 2021.
“A guy that goes around and says, ‘God, family freedom,’ is sending pictures of himself and nude pictures of his wife, encouraging his friends and his employees to have sexual relations with his wife,’” Keenan said in an interview this week of the allegations, repeating similar attacks he’s made in campaign advertising. “That’s not ‘God, family freedom.’ That shows you’re morally broke.”
Morabito, the Lamb spokesperson, noted the candidate has Trump’s endorsement and is “confident Republican voters will stand with him.”
“[Keenan] is spending millions attacking a Republican and not a dime attacking Democrats. His name ID is less than 30 percent and he is not a serious factor in this race,” Morabito said in a statement.
Janel Lamb, Mark Lamb’s wife, said in a May Facebook post that “a massive smear campaign is certainly not going to stop us from doing what we know is right.”
The race’s outcome will reveal the power of Trump’s endorsement in a deep-red Phoenix-area district. Already this year, GOP primary voters have been willing to accept scandal-ridden candidates favored by Trump. In Texas, Republican primary voters nominated scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn.
“I’ve never seen in Republican politics in my life a stronger endorsement than Trump’s,” said former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), who represented the 5th District. “And I think that the rank-and-file within the Republican party would rather do anything than cross Trump.”
Keenan has put more than $1.6 million of his own money into his campaign and is using that to make sure voters know all about the reporting. His campaign has spent more than $1.8 million on TV advertising listing the allegations in the Republic, is also hosting numerous town halls a week and has put significant cash into mail advertising as well. Meanwhile, Lamb’s campaign hasn’t put a penny onto the airwaves, according to the tracking service AdImpact.
Lamb has also faced scrutiny for spending much of his time on a ranch in Tennessee and not in the district he is seeking to represent. And Keenan is hitting him over another top issue for Arizona Republicans: Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
“[Lamb] betrayed our president after the 2020 election,” Keenan told POLITICO. “However he feels about election fraud, he testified for Democrats saying there was no fraud and that President Trump lost the election. I think all of that is disqualifying to represent this district.”
There is some evidence that the pitch to voters is landing. An internal poll from Keenan’s campaign obtained by POLITICO shows Keenan leading Lamb 42 percent to 40 percent, narrowly within the poll’s margin of error. The campaign’s earlier polling from late June had shown Lamb leading 43 percent to 35 percent.
Keenan said he has been in touch with the White House about his bid and made the case that he has always been a steadfast supporter of Trump. He also said Georgia businessman Rick Jackson’s recent gubernatorial primary win without Trump’s endorsement shows he can win without the president’s nod — even if it’s hard.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Still, Lamb’s allies are taking notice of Keenan’s rise. The Washington-based Club For Growth poured $250,000 into pro-Lamb advertising in recent weeks, which Keenan says is a sign of Lamb’s vulnerability: “There’d be no reason for them to do that if he wasn’t in trouble,” Keenan said. Asked about the spending, a spokesperson for the Club pointed to their own internal poll from a few weeks ago showing Lamb up by a 34-point margin.
Lamb was never charged with a crime for his alleged actions. An investigation by the Pinal County attorney found no criminal wrongdoing, though it also concluded a previous county attorney failed to adequately investigate the accusations.
“I know him. I’ve seen him. I’ve seen him time and time again stand for the right things,” said Tyler Farnsworth, a Republican candidate for the Arizona House in Gilbert. “My belief is that the voters here in CD5 have seen who Mark Lamb is.”
“I tend to believe what I see out of the legal system, the justice system, much more than some reporting that may have some very intentional bias toward it,” he added.
The women in the Republic investigation said they also repeatedly raised concerns to Latter-day Saint church leaders. It is unclear what disciplinary action, if any, the church took: The church does not publicly disclose membership status or disciplinary proceedings. The church did not respond to a request for comment.
The stories sent waves through the district’s large Latter-day Saint community. Arizona’s 5th District — sometimes colloquially called the “Mormon district” — includes Gilbert, Queen Creek and parts of Mesa, all areas with significant Latter-day Saint populations.
“When you see the picture of him in a baptismal outfit, with the brother he baptized, and he’s having an open marriage with his wife and this man, it doesn’t seem to uphold our gospel standards,” Suzanne Lunt, an independent voter in Gilbert, said of the allegations. Lunt helped organize Latter-day Saints against Trump in 2024.
In late May, as the Republic’s reporting rocked the valley, a group of prominent Latter-day Saint politicians and strategists coalesced to try and force Lamb out of the race, noting Lamb could make the seat a vulnerability for Republicans in November, or drag down statewide Republicans in the crucial race for governor. But that push tapered off after it became clear Lamb — or his supporters — wouldn’t budge.
“More of an effort hasn’t been made because he doesn’t have a serious opponent well-funded enough to make the numbers close enough,” said Tyler Montague, a Mesa-based political operative who is a Latter-day Saint. “That’s why there isn’t any real movement elsewhere.”
Keenan begs to differ, arguing that Lamb’s scandals could put the district that went for Trump by 20 points “at risk.”
“I don’t actually like [Keenan],” said Amy Wudel, a Republican in Gilbert. “He’s sort of on the extreme side, from typically what I would vote for.” But Wudel, who worked for an independent challenger to Rep. Andy Biggs in the 5th District last cycle, will vote for Keenan because “I do not vote for candidates who do not display the character worthy of office.”
Keenan still faces an uphill battle. His own poll shows the huge name ID deficit he faces — when voters were asked their opinion of Keenan and Lamb, one-third said they were not sure about Keenan, while only 11 percent said the same of Lamb.
It’s unclear how much the mudslinging will land with voters. The Arizona legislature moved the primary date up from early August to late July, meaning thousands of voters already cast a ballot through mail-in balloting or early voting. And the timing of the primary could make it a low-turnout affair: Because many Phoenix-area public schools return in late July or early August, many families are trying to beat the heat by getting in late-summer travel.
“This time of year, any given week, the pews are empty on Sunday and everyone is in Show Low, Flagstaff or San Diego,” said Chad Heywood, a Republican strategist who is neutral in the race.
Meanwhile, Lamb’s supporters are bullish, especially after Trump reinforced his endorsement of Lamb in a social media post Sunday without addressing the scandals. To show his dominance in the 5th District, supporters point to the 2024 election. Lamb ran for Senate, and even as he was being trounced in the primary by Kari Lake, he still managed to win his home of Pinal County by 25 points. One ally also pointed out that Lamb received a standing ovation during a June gathering of Republican women, long after the allegations became public. And his allies in Congress are sticking by his side: Lamb’s campaign sent out fundraising solicitations from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in recent weeks.
Even Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz), who previously said Lamb’s activity “borders on immoral” and that Lamb should drop out of the race if he isn’t willing to address the accusations, is now keeping the race at arms length.
“I stay out of [District] 5, because it’s not my district,” Schweikert said in an interview at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. “If that’s good enough for his voters, I mean, they’re the ones in the district.”