•GRESS WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE ACADEMY–State Representative Matt Gress, facing a tough re-election campaign, touted in late September that he’d received the “Maricopa County Excellence Award.” Axios reported yesterday that the county never authorized such an award. Supervisor Mark Stewart presented the certificate at a youth-violence summit. Stewart says it was a District 1 recognition, not an award from the entire county, and that county communications staff provided the certificate template. Gress says he understood the honor recognized his work on the “anti-swarming” Preston’s Law. Gress got in trouble last month after a campaign ad claimed he’d “passed” Ava’s Law, when in fact he’d merely played a role in its passing. The irony is that Ava’s Law and Preston’s Law are two of the most widely-supported, least controversial bills in recent memory. So maybe Gress just needs to hire better people for his socials.

•WHAT MARICOPA COUNTY ELECTION WORKERS DO IN THE SHADOWS–The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors pushed back Wednesday against a video circulated by We the People AZ Alliance showing two election employees working late at night. The organization suggested that the activity was suspicious. Supervisors Kate Brophy McGee and Debbie Lesko said the employees were conducting authorized software updates to the county’s ballot-duplication system. They explained that the equipment wasn’t connected to the internet or ballot tabulators and that using a USB drive for the work was permitted. It’s not like there’s an election coming up in less than three weeks or anything.

•TRUMP STUMPS IN BULLHEAD CITY–Air Force One paid Arizona a visit yesterday, as President Trump tried to rally the vote in  the“most important midterm election we ever had,” he said. Of the plane itself, gifted to him by the Qatari government, he said, ‘You know, when you’re given gifts, you take them, right?”

Arizona will be a terrible place if the “Dumb-acrats” take power nationally, he said.”They will immediately reopen your borders, sell out Arizona to the cartels, raise your prices, and open the prisons and the jails of the planet so that they can come in totally unchecked, totally unvetted into Arizona and every other place.”

A who’s who of current Arizona Republicans appeared with Trump, including gubernatorial Rep. Andy Biggs, congressional candidate Mark Lamb, secretary of state nominee Alexander Kolodin, and U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Abe Hamedeh, along with former boxing title-holder Floyd Mayweather.

•PLAYING NICE IN MARICOPA–The city of Maricopa held a council debate on October 8. None of the four candidates used their rebuttal opportunities during the two hours, which also included a school-board meeting. They all agreed that water, transportation and public safety mattered, without offering much specificity. One candidate said they were proud of their work with the Maricopa Youth Council and candidate Tena Dugan said she uses AI to make her emails “sound nicer.” We all have much to learn from these good people.