Alma Hernandez, in her own words

The race for the state Senate seat in Legislative District 20 has become one of the most heated campaigns in Southern Arizona.

Our summer intern, Nicole Camacho, interviewed a key player in that drama, Alma Hernandez. She’s a Democratic state representative who’s trying to make the leap to the Senate this year.

We asked her about the allegations being thrown around in the race, the surprisingly tense campaign and how the race has impacted her personally.

All my signs are getting vandalized with "Zionist bitch" because that is what (Perez) goes around telling folks, and that's become very normalized, unfortunately.

My home has been shot at. I don't know if he knows the definition of doxxed, but doxxing is actually when you are putting someone's home address and personal information online and harassing them in that way. Doxxing is not asking people questions in person. There's a very clear distinction.

Editor’s note: Her home was shot at during her brother’s run for the seat in the 7th Congressional District last year, which served as a headquarters for campaign activity. This was before she had an opponent for the state Senate seat.

I personally have been doxxed before. I've had people come to my home. I've had flyers posted all over downtown with my home address and my personal cell phone number. These are all things that have happened to me in the past.

But I have never experienced such a negative, attack-focused campaign as I'm experiencing now. It's never been this way, and I've had primaries in the past. I've been serving in office for the last eight years. This has never been the way things have gone, even when there have been contentious primaries.

This one has probably been the worst as far as civility goes. The only time I have ever seen him in person was when we were in court, and that's about it. For me to waste my time going around attacking him or even mentioning him is not at all my priority.

Look, I'm a woman. I'm a woman of color. I have been serving in the district for many years. It's nothing new for people to attack you because they're upset with you or disagree with you. But the level of pure disrespect that I've seen in this campaign is nothing that I've ever experienced in the eight years that I've been in office.

During this campaign, it started from day one since he announced he was running.

Actually, before he announced he was running, and I have screenshots of everything because he uses social media a lot. I'm not as big on TikTok and Instagram. That's what he seems to be focusing the majority of his campaign around. Quite frankly, I don't think social media wins elections. My priority is the voters. I'm knocking on doors. I'm calling these folks.

The first thing I experienced was him tagging me in a post saying that he might run, "fuck around and find out" or something like that.

That's just not the way I express myself or even talk when it comes to political work. I think that's where the negativity and attacks started. From there, it just kind of spiraled. And that was about a week before he even announced he was running.

I've had other elected officials respond and say, "I wouldn't be able to be as quiet and as civil as you are with some of the things that have happened."

The majority of the people who know me know that I have, for the most part, run my campaign as if he is not part of any of this because I'm just focused on myself.

As far as whatever his claims are that I've done this or that, again, I've never sent a text message attacking him. All of his messages, I think he's sent three already, have attacked me and mentioned me by name. Every phone call I've received through his voicemail drops talks about me. There's been nothing positive on his end.

So I would say that from day one, even before day one that he launched, he has run a very negative campaign.

No. The Jewish Federation actually put something out recently because it was reported by members of the community. (My critics) are going around writing "Zionist bitch" in red letters across my face on my signs.

I wasn't the one who officially reported it to the Federation, but multiple folks have reached out regarding this. I've gone to see them, and we've tried to clean some of them up, but of course you can't remove the red lettering.

Again, I don't think people, especially voters in our district, really care for negative attacks. I've actually had folks tell me they don't like negative campaigning and won't vote for people who campaign that way.

I've never done it. In any of the races I've ever run, I don't spend my money attacking people because there's no point in doing that. I'm running on my record.

When you're running by attacking someone on personality and not offering what you can bring to the table or what you're going to do differently, I think that says a lot about a campaign and a candidate. So I try not to engage.

As an elected official, I know what I signed up for. We are not protected from public opinion because people have the right to disagree or agree with us.

At the end of the day, I've been serving proudly for the last eight years. It's not my only job. I've been a professor for years, I run my small business, and I do a lot of work. So I know what I signed up for.

It doesn't pay you a lot, as you said, but I love what I do, and no amount of negativity or attacks against me are going to make me change my mind about running or serving in office.

Ever since I first ran almost nine years ago, I wasn't immune to negative attacks from the super far-right folks who were extremely antisemitic when they found out I was running. That included David Duke, who came after me. That was my entrance into serving in office.

I wouldn't say you get used to it because I don't think it should happen or that it helps improve our communities, but it's definitely something that happens.

Again, if you look at all the stuff I've done and what I'm working on, none of it even acknowledges my opponent.

Aside from me sharing the article about his online political violence rhetoric and his pornography, other than simply sharing that article, I could have gone on the attack, sent multiple messages, and blasted it all over social media. I'm not doing that because that's not my job. He has to answer those questions himself.

Ever since he decided to run, it has always been negative attacks about why I, as a person, am not good enough to serve our district.

But I was born and raised here. He was not. This is my district. I have been serving it for the last eight years. I know my community very well.

If he wants to run a negative campaign, that's going to be his choice. I haven't seen any indication that he's going to run a positive, issue-focused campaign. His entire campaign has just been extremely negative.

I can't answer why it's been negative. That's a question for him because none of my campaign materials even acknowledge his existence.

I don't know how.

Ever since he decided to run for office, it has just been solely about talking directly about me instead of his vision. Again, I haven't mentioned him at all, so I don't see how I would be part of the negative campaigning because I haven't done it.

Every text message, every email, every social media post. If you go through his posts, I've never seen a serious candidate make videos talking about how I'm plastic, comparing me to Mean Girls. Again, this is childish behavior that I've never seen in any candidate.

I've been in tough primaries before that focused on issues, but I've never seen something like this. It reminds me of high school, and I kind of laugh about it because I'm not even engaging or responding, and it continues.

Social media is not real life. It's not going to win people elections. There's hateful rhetoric, and it sets a really bad tone in politics. People don't like it.

I've had other elected officials reach out and say they've never seen something like this, and I agree. I haven't either.

I'm a 33-year-old woman who was the youngest woman ever elected at 25. In the last eight years, I have never engaged in this type of rhetoric or behavior.

So if the question is whether I take accountability for this race becoming so toxic, absolutely not. There's been nothing on my end that has contributed to this.

Every interview I've done and everything I've done has not been focused on or centered around him. I don't need to mention him. But all he's done is attack me.

I'm not responsible for the actions he takes in his race. If that's the campaign he wants to run, that's his choice, but I'm not responsible for those actions.

No. As I mentioned, I've had my home shot at before.

In the last few years, I had to put wrought iron on my windows, which isn't something people normally do in this neighborhood. I've had to install cameras, which wasn't something I wanted to do because I didn't think I needed them.

I've spent a lot of my own money trying to secure my home. But that's part of serving in office. The state isn't going to pay for that.

We've had multiple reports filed with the Department of Public Safety regarding me over the years. I've had the Speaker reach out and offer extra assistance if I needed security or anything like that.

At the end of the day, I'm not worried about what someone might do to me because if I worried about that, I wouldn't be able to live a normal life.

I'm focused on doing my job and making sure my campaign is centered around delivering results and my ability to get things done.

Editor’s note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and to add clarifications when necessary.