azcc.gov

Battles over solar policy, a quest to uncover the source of dark money, questions of outside influence on commissioners and efforts to raise electricity bills — this year’s election for the Arizona Corporation Commission has no shortage of intrigue.  

The race to be one of the five commissioners usually flies under the radar, but, with some major decisions on the horizon at the regulatory agency, this year's it's particularly close. Five candidates are running for three spots. 

But as it turns out, most voters seem unsure of how they’ll vote.

“A little over a third of the electorate was undecided," said Chuck Coughlin with HighGround, a public-relations firm. 

Their polling shows Republican Andy Tobin at nearly 17 percent, followed by the two Democrats Bill Mundell and Tom Chabin, who have been bullish about the alleged influence of dark money in the last election and what they call a “culture of corruption” created by Arizona Public Service’s CEO.

“If Chabin or Mundell were to be elected, they would be the only statewide elected Democratic officials in the state,” Coughlin said.

Republican Bob Burns, who won the primary vote, has been leading the fight against APS over dark money. But he, Tobin, and the final republican Boyd Dunn are enjoying more than a million dollars of support from an APS-backed ad campaign in these finals weeks. A new TV commercial tells voters the three will "represent our state taxpayers, not out state special interests."

Those out of state interests: national rooftop solar-leasing company Solar City, which has poured more than $2 million dollars into the race to support the Democrats and Burns.