Debbie Lesko on 2020, Maricopa County elections and a party that demands ‘100%’

Maricopa County Supervisor Debbie Lesko, who as a congresswoman voted to reject Arizona’s 2020 electoral votes, says fellow Republicans now call her a RINO for defending the county’s elections. She blames Republican County Recorder Justin Heap.

Lesko said Friday on KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Mike Broomhead Show that Heap targeted her district meetings and made false claims that people there believed.

“After 17 and a half years of serving and being a conservative and having this long record of conservatism, they’re going to believe a guy that has been in the state legislature for two years and then got elected as a recorder,” she said. “That was very disappointing to me.”

Debbie Lesko’s 2020 doubts

The complaint marks a turnabout for Lesko, once one of Arizona’s most prominent voices questioning the 2020 election.

Days after the November 2020 election, she said in an interview that affidavits from voters and poll observers showed Maricopa County poll workers had improperly pressed the green button on ballot tabulators. A Trump campaign lawyer later told a judge,

“This is not a fraud case.”

The campaign dropped its lawsuit days later.

Lesko signed a brief backing a Texas bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn results in four states.

On Jan. 6, 2021, hours after rioters stormed the Capitol, she voted to reject Arizona’s electoral votes and Pennsylvania’s. The House committee that investigated the attack later played a recording in which Lesko predicted Trump supporters would erupt once they realized Congress would not overturn the election, The New York Times reported.

She told KTAR that day she expected protests but not how severe they would become.

Lesko’s new perspective while on the Maricopa Board of Supervisors

On Friday, Lesko said she had simply been uncertain at the time.

“People would ask me, was there fraud in the 2020 election? And I said, I don’t know, because nothing was proven in court,” she said.

She brought that doubt with her to county government. When she joined the Board of Supervisors in January 2025, she promised to push for a full audit of the county’s election system.

Once she was there, she said, seeing the process from the inside changed her mind, including the bipartisan teams that handle ballots.

“From what I have seen and what I have really dug into, Maricopa County elections is run very well,” Lesko said.

That conclusion has put her at odds with parts of her own party. She said longtime conservatives have left party posts because newer activists demand total agreement.

“We need to stop ostracizing people that they don’t agree with 100%,” she said.

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