12 News has verified that Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s first video of his re-election campaign justifiably claims credit for several achievements while ignoring another that his office bragged about as recently as last week.
The governor also steers clear of two significant failures during his four years in office.
Let’s review the video, released Monday:
Jobs
“Politicians or governors don't create jobs,” the governor says. “I always get a kick out of it when people say they create jobs.”
Ducey says governors create an environment for job growth.
His campaign does takes credit for 160,000 new private-sector jobs since January 2016, when the state recovered all of the jobs lost during the Great Recession.
According to AZStats, the state’s population and labor statistics website, the Ducey campaign’s claim is correct.
Education
"In these past three years we have been able to put $1.7 billion into K-12 education,” the governor says.
We've verified that number is correct. However, most of that $1.7 billion was approved by voters in Prop 123, a partial payment for money the state Legislature owed Arizona schools.
Border
“Arizona and America are safer because of the Border Strike Force,” Ducey says.
The governor and Legislature have given the state Department of Public Safety about $40 million to pursue drug cartels with its new strike force. The unit works with federal and local law enforcement.
The results, according to Ducey’s campaign: More than 3,000 arrests and thousands of pounds of marijuana, meth and heroin seized.
We couldn't independently verify those numbers.
We also verified what Gov. Ducey's campaign video doesn't tell voters:
Theranos
“I want a government that works at the speed of business,” Ducey says. “We've had a number of successes.”
But there have been two major failures resulting from allowing new technologies into Arizona with zero oversight.
In 2015, Ducey signed a bill allowing a company called Theranos to perform blood tests on Arizonans without a doctor's order.
Theranos collapsed after its technology was exposed as fraudulent, but the health of thousands of Arizonans were placed at risk. The company's founders could face jail time.
Driverless cars
“The New York Times described us in a front-page, above-the-fold article as having a tech boom,” Ducey boasted.
The governor leaves out this part of the story: The “tech boom” was driven by autonomous cars using Arizona roads as their test track. Ducey welcomed companies like Uber and Waymo with the promise of no rules for the road for their vehicles.
That promise ended in tragedy last March, when a self-driving Uber killed a Tempe pedestrian. Federal and local authorities are investigating the crash.
The almost four-minute digital version of Ducey's campaign video is driverless car-less.
Mexico
One more thing the governor's campaign left out of his video: any mention of Mexico.
That’s puzzling, because just last week Doug Ducey's spokesman tweeted that Arizona's strong ties to Mexico might be “the most under-reported story of the year.”
Ducey could face former secretary of state and 2014 gubernatorial candidate Ken Bennett in the August primary, if Bennett survives a challenge to his nominating petitions.