Top Maricopa county official quits as election looms: ‘All I do is play defense’

Clint Hickman, who helped lead Arizona’s largest county through the pandemic and 2020 election, has faced endless harassment for the last few years

For Clint Hickman, an official who helped lead Arizona’s largest country through some of the most difficult moments of the pandemic and the 2020 election, the current moment in American life feels like the right one to quit.

Amid yet more tumult and tense division in American public life, the Maricopa county supervisor announced this week that he’s not running again, choosing instead to prioritize his family – and get rid of the endless harassment that’s been a feature of his job the last few years and put him more than once in the national spotlight.