Why This Former QB Built Companies Then Decided to Run for Governor | Hugh Lytle

So Equality Health ended up being a passion project I'm really

pissed off that we have two tier healthcare system, that people of color

have their quality of care is much lower than your and my quality care.

How is that fair in the world we live in today?

this is 2000 plus, right?

Why in the hell is this happening?

So that's why I got fixated on that space, but it ended up turning into a

very, very large business that helped shape me from being, call it maybe

more of a Republican and minimum right to center to more left to center.

Seeing how face to face with poverty, with this large and growing amazing

Latino community we have that is upwardly mobile, busting their ass, doing all

the right things as immigrants have.

And so when former mayor Paul Johnson came to me, he had a healthcare

company, so I thought we were actually having a meeting about healthcare.

And he goes, "Yep, you'd never win a primary."

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What's up everybody?

Welcome to another episode of the What's Your Story podcast.

I'm Scott Leese, just came in here to Scottsdale from Austin, Texas with my

good friend and co-host Mike Lindstrom.

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Yeah.

I'm excited to, welcome our guest, Hugh Lytle, here today.

He, is one of the biggest names in the healthcare space, and now he's

running here for office here in Arizona.

We're talking about a big crossover.

he's a very known guy in the healthcare … And I consult in

that space, as you well know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So to be able to say, "Hey, I'm gonna go out there and I'm

gonna be a public figure." I just can't wait to dig into that because

I believe if we look back in the last 35 episodes or so, we've never really

had anybody that was in politics.

No, this is our first person.

from the

political sector.

We've had athletes-

Yeah.

… Scott Leese: people from the news and media-

Yeah.

… Scott Leese: authors.

Yeah.

So let's

do- But now we're entering politics.

We

gotta hear his story.

So without further ado, welcome to the show, Hugh.

Thanks for having me.

Well, we start everybody off the same way.

We wanna know who's the man or who's the woman behind the face,

the brand, my first question is if people who've known you your whole

life, what would they say are you the same as you were when you were young?

Have you changed quite a bit?

Who is Hugh?

What's the story behind the man?

100% same guy.

that is just, both, a good thing, on one hand and the other

thing, maybe not a good thing.

But, but yeah, I'm the, I'm the same guy.

always have … I've learned early, I had a, a well-known father, iconic guy

in healthcare, that was my dad and, always taught me about, managing the ego.

Ego, e- ego's a killer in your life.

You let the ego if it gets in front of you, it can, ruin the

greatest things in the world.

And so I've always, even in my successes I've had, tried to stay

attuned to that and stay grounded and then, because you have failures too.

So it's that trying to be one degree above or below at any point in time in

that, straight line of life of, trying to maintain, emotional intelligence

and, not get carried away with yourself, that's always been an important thing.

So yeah, I, you mentioned politics before.

It's, really weird to hear that I'm in politics so-

Yeah.

… Hugh Lytle: to say that I'm your first politician-

It's a new association for you.

Yeah.

It's an identity.

It's an identity shift.

Yeah.

But that's how people … I think people would tell me

I'm pretty much the same guy.

Yeah.

And you grew up in Indiana, yeah?

Yeah.

Midwestern values, Indianapolis, Indiana.

I was born in, Port Smith, Arkansas.

I went to … My father was 18 years old when he had me.

My mom was 17.

Wow.

they moved to, Greenville, Texas where they're from originally and, I grew up

till I was about, you know, young, five, six years old in Greenville and then

moved from Texas to Indiana, because my dad had early success in healthcare.

So, gave us an opportunity to go there and, was in Indiana

up until I went to Arizona.

Wow.

So was healthcare like your destiny because of your father?

Yeah, like every kid, I didn't want anything.

I didn't do anything my father was doing, right?

And healthcare sounded so ridiculously boring.

I couldn't imagine a career in it.

no, I wanted to be a quarterback, NFL quarterback or an astronaut.

And I was too big for an astronaut still fascinated by astronomy, but, being an NFL

quarterback is every kid's dream, right?

So, had a lot of football success in high school, so thought

maybe I'd take that chance.

And back when I played, it was, you had to be Pac-10 or Big 10 to make to the NFL.

You, couldn't come from Portland State and make it to the NFL because

that's just not how the recruiting worked and there were sometimes

that would happen, but very rarely.

so, yeah, that's what ended up pulling me to Arizona was, we won three state

championships in a row my sophomore, junior and senior year, quarterback of

those teams and, had the opportunity to go, to Midwestern schools, which,

weren't that exciting to me at the time.

Indiana now who ironically wins the national champ- which is mind numbing,

considering that was a basketball school.

Bobby Knight basketball, the football had zero.

That was the school interested in me.

You know, schools like that, that I just wasn't, an old Wisconsin or Michigan state

that wasn't quite what they are today.

So, sent films out west and ended up going to, ASU and UCLA to

try out and ASU was the, choice.

Yeah.

I wanna dig in on that a little bit because if I have this story

right, you walked on at ASU.

Yeah.

Is that right?

Yep.

Talk a little bit about the mentality of somebody who's, walking on.

You're not a scholarship player.

Yeah.

You're not guaranteed to-

Yeah.

…even be on the roster to get to practice, anything like that.

Right.

And you're, in a position like quarterback.

It's not like-

Right.

…walking on as a-

Yeah.

…lineman or a linebacker or something, you know?

yeah, it was, again, going back to the dream, it was, that's the dream.

And I knew I had to hit that level to have a chance and, you know, in retrospect at

this age, I wish I would've gone to like a NAU or something and probably thrown the

ball 70 times a game and had a great time.

Yeah.

But instead I felt like I needed to do that

to get to that next level.

but yeah, the mindset was, you know, I knew I could throw the ball well.

I mean, that was, I had a really strong arm, so that part

didn't, wasn't the concern.

When it comes down to quarterbacking, it really comes down to, amount of pla-

playing time you have that, that's super important at the level you're playing at.

and then it comes down to, really understanding, recognizing defenses and,

and understanding the dynamics that in that moment, things happen super fast.

So going from high school to ASU was significantly different in the speed of-

Yeah.

…the people-

Yeah.

…the complexity of the defenses that would, the ability to hide

schemes where you thought, okay, this is gonna be a corner blitz for sure.

Now he's gonna be open and then they drop out of the corner

blitz and you're like, oh, crap.

And then you pick, throw the ball and recept into a linebacker you're

like, "Oops." So these kind of things, came up on me very, very fast.

but, but the mindset to your question was, I can do anything.

I mean, that's just how I've always felt like,

Yeah.

… Hugh Lytle: I think, I believe there's so much potential in humans in general.

I think people have so much greatness in them if they could ever listen

to that inner voice and follow it.

And even if you don't get there, it's still a life well lived, I believe-

Yeah.

…you know, optimizing yourself to the best you can.

I, think this is a, really interesting and great thread that you

have throughout your life and your career.

Yeah.

this walk on kind of mentality, you've called

yourself a healthcare rebel-

mm-hmm.

… Scott Leese: RIght?

Mm-hmm.

That's long odds, underdog kind of story.

Mm-hmm.

I think a lot of people relate to that.

I at least- Yeah.

… relate to that.

It seems like that's kind of an arc that has been consistent in your life.

It

is.

you know, it's funny because that's one of the things that I always talk

about is that I, for, as a friend of mine who pointed out, I didn't

even notice that pattern actually.

I just was who I am, you know, and, a, a buddy of mine, I was maybe 40

years old, said, " You know, Lydil, you goes, you're such a rebel, man.

You're such a … You always go for the underdog.Like if it's

Alabama's plan, I'm interested in anybody who's gonna beat Alabama."

Yeah, so am I. I, I'm in Austin, Texas.

Yeah.

Anybody in Alabama.

That's kinda

true.

But nothing against Alabama's program and congratulations for all their success,

but I, I want the underdog to win.

I wanna see, new energy coming in.

Yeah.

I wanna see a, a change.

I don't like status quo.

And I'm a big … I've said this before, but I really, I hate bad rules.

when you're coming up in life-

Yeah.

… Hugh Lytle: just deal with things where you're like, why

aren't we doing this, right?

Bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake.

And that part of me is a big … That's what drove the career ultimately.

I was like, healthcare is so broken-

mm-hmm.

in so many places that, I don't wanna just create a new widget in

healthcare I wanna do systemic change.

I wanna change an entire segment of how they operate and how they think.

And I've been able to do that three times and that was, from truly

being able to believe and bet on yourself and say, "You know what?

Yeah.

I know, and this is what I say even about politics today.

I'm really, really dangerous when I have right on my side and I know

I've got right on my side with how we, where we are politically.

I know we'll talk about that a little bit later.

But, and I knew in the segments of healthcare I went into, like, in

prevention and wellness, the first segment that we transformed, that we

were paying for sick care at the time.

It was all about sickness.

It was nothing about how do we keep people healthy.

Now we take that for granted because wellness has become a massive industry,

but when we s- we basically were on the front end of this thing in the late '90s,

early 2000s and helped build the first kind of scale prevention and wellness

platform that health plans could offer as a benefit to their memberships.

That's how it got to millions of people.

Mm-hmm.

but putting that together, we had to define what are the

modalities of wellness, you know?

So, we had stress and depression management, smoking cessation, fitness

and nutrition, you know, complimentary alternative medicine, another huge piece.

So these kind of things, when you're transforming something,

they scratch that inner itch of-

Yeah.

of rebellion and doing things different and-

And positive.

And positive-

Impact and what-not.

… Hugh Lytle: I'm one of those people who-

Yeah.

… Hugh Lytle: truly, if you're telling me I can't do it, I get that much-

Yeah.

more more locked in.

Sure.

And that's huge as I'm running as an independent in a time

when people act like, how dare you?

what do you mean how dare me?

We got 30% of the electorate that are independents.

I've got right on my side here.

People are dissatisfied with the two party system, there's time for a voice.

that's really interesting that that is exactly the pattern that I followed-

Yeah.

… Hugh Lytle: that turned into just a bigger, platform here.

Midwest Values, you talked about that.

What were some of the things that you remember that you would go

back to now and say, "You know, I remember when my dad taught me this.

The things that still guide you-

Yeah.

…things you were taught, things that you grew up with?

There's simple memories like, we lived out in the, we were in a

rural side of Indianapolis and then we lived on this kind of quasi farm, I would

call it little, five acre type thing.

And, but we had horses, dogs, cats and everything and we had to, do chores,

I had to get up a four in the morning, break the ice out of the buckets and,

water the horses and give them their protein powder, feed them all that, clean

the stalls on the weekend, spread the manure, I had a couple labs and take my

labs back and go to Buck Creek, which was back behind my house, but I had to cross

three or four cornfields to get to it.

So it's, I did, it's picturesque now when I think about it at the time, I was

like, "Why don't I get a little closer to school and be with all my friends?"

You know, I was angry about it, right?

But when I went down there, I would go and I would fish in the creek and I would

walk through the middle of the creek

But what I found is it was basically cathartic and an ability to be alone and

think and think big and think creatively and that really was a good foundation

for, these Midwestern … And then, with the football success, there's a

bunch of strong farm boys solid salt of the earth guys I grew up with.

So having, like … And then we did move across the street

from high school eventually.

So, when football and, and high school started.

So I had, 18 close friends.

It was like a frat house, you know, literally across the street that we

were always out throwing the ball, hanging out together, but it was,

obviously high jinks too at times.

But, but most of it was, really just, conversations, discipline, we had a very

disciplined football program, setting goals and trying to achieve goals.

Those were the things that, I think are really big in the Midwest and are big,

big everywhere now, I guess, but, but certainly things that I picked up on.

And, spirituality is important too and spirituality is, pretty strong in that,

in that area I grew up in as well.

Yeah.

who were some of the big influences outside of family?

when you were on the come up, say college, you're getting into your career,

healthcare speakers, I came from the Tony Robbins camp when I was out of law school.

Tony Robbins big influence on me, for example, who were some of

those people in your career life that when you were on the come up?

You know, I would start the first one with my high

school football coach, ironically.

he was like my second father.

He was, different than my father.

My father was a very big thinker.

you know, I, I describe him sometime like an European intellectual.

Like he is, knows everything about history, is a brilliant guy.

and then my coach is very, pragmatist.

he's in the dirt, five yards in the cloud of dust.

Why would we ever throw the ball back shut up?

You know, like, what, what do you mean?

Please let me throw the ball.

but, he was a real big influence in my life because he, I really respected

him and how he managed this group of men that were strong in personality

and strong in who they were and, and he managed to make us a team.

So watching how he operated was huge.

And I still use a lot of these same football principles today, and leadership.

I say often that I've learned everything I ever needed to learn in the huddle,

because as a QB, you gotta know every position, what every position does on any

given play one of the things that hurt me early in my career was I wasn't able

to let go, fire people early because we were only as good as our weakest guy.

That was what they teach you in football.

So firing someone wasn't and it was like, how do we make that person the best

they can be, even if it's not strong, doesn't work that way in business.

You have to, perform and, do things different.

But, I think that was probably the biggest influence.

on a public basis, it was more, this was the, Cold War era, right?

So for me, Ronald Reagan was a bigger than life figure, Top Gun, Tom Cruise,

there were so many cool things.

Back then, we didn't know these stars personalities we just knew-

Yeah.

you know, we knew what they stood for from the movies, but that

was probably, those kind of people.

There were no … I didn't have any, authors or single kind of

threaded influence outside of pop culture, that I followed.

But, early in my life it was my father.

It was my high school coach and, probably Ronald Reagan in terms of, being inspired.

Was there any part of you back then that you said, one

day I'm gonna go into politics."

Oh, not at all.

Wasn't even … Matter of fact, that's, that you could … Mike,

you could bring that all the way up until I was asked about

[laughing]

January of this year.

So, I've never, thought about public office.

I'm very community centered.

My businesses have a lot of impact and thought about the community, but, I've

always thought about from a business perspective, never thought about

it from a, government perspective.

And, a part of that has just been the dysfunction of government, as a whole.

we live in the greatest country on the planet and, and the greatest

state, I believe, on the planet.

So, those opportunities kind of came together and vectored into this

decision, but it's not part of my

So do you just then feel compelled to try to

fix things that are busted?

Totally.

You talked about fixing things in healthcare that were-

Yeah.

… Scott Leese: broken and busted and how you like being on the side of right.

I can imagine back then you're looking at healthcare and you're like, "This

is wrong. I'm compelled to fix this."

Did you find yourself a litle bit in that position in January and for the

last few months where you're like-

Yeah.

…this stuff is busted, I can fix it?

it was a process, I would tell you that, on the decision to run, but I

would tell you just in general, when I thought about business and healthcare,

and again, all the businesses, I've had are, have been private equity backed

at some level, New York private equity-

Yeah.

not, local yokel stuff.

so these are serious players, right?

These are Harvard NBAs at their highest financial engineers at the highest level.

and the first two businesses I built were what they call LBO style leveraged

buyout, meaning we set the thesis up here.

Here's what we wanna do.

We wanna create an entire prevention and wellness platform, and then we think

it's gonna take X amount of capital.

They deliver hundreds of millions of dollars of capital and then we go out

and acquire best of breeds companies in these five disciplines and we put

them together, integrate them, scale them, and then exit that business.

Yeah.

in that world, you have to perform.

it's like a football business.

It's quarter to quarter in a lot of ways, more scrutinized in public

companies because you don't have public and a few analyst calls to deal with.

You've got some of the smartest people on the planet at business that can

see everything, everything you do.

And any move you should be doing.

so that, 40% CAGR minimum a year you need to grow at.

you gotta return minimum 400% return on invested capital in four years.

and you gotta transform an entire industry in that timeframe, right?

and build teams and do all the things that you would do-

Piece of cake!

Piece of cake, right?

So that is a daunting thing and, these are all large scale businesses that I built.

And so, when the opportunity came … So I like that, first of

all, mental chess game of fixing something really broken in healthcare.

Did it in prevention wellness, integrated home care, my last one, Equality Health,

which was more of a, local visible business here because we're now in

seven states, but that was a process of, getting better and better at what I do.

So Equality Health ended up being a kitchen table startup, a passion project

where the other two were, we're gonna go fix these two segments of industry.

The kitchen table startup was, I'm really pissed off that we have two

tier healthcare system, that people of color have more disparate outcomes than

people that are not of color and they don't have near the quality or access.

their quality of care is much lower than your and my quality care.

How is that fair in the world we live in today?

this is 2000 plus, right?

Why in the hell is this happening?

So that's why I got fixated on that space, but it ended up turning into a

very, very large business that I had no idea would scale that large at the time.

But, that helped shape me from being, call it maybe more of a

Republican and right minimum right to center to more left to center.

Seeing how poverty direct face to face with poverty, with this large and growing

amazing Latino community we have that is upwardly mobile, busting their ass, doing

all the right things as immigrants have.

And the, just as the Irish and Catholics have done- Yeah.

… Irish in the, Italians have done in the early days, but like getting

no respect for it and, because they came from the fields and it's like,

"Hey, stop, this is ridiculous.

We need to step this up." So, that really helped blend me as a person

and so when the opportunity came for this, when, former mayor Paul

Johnson came to me, and said, "Hey, I thought he, he had a healthcare

company, so I thought we were actually having a meeting about healthcare.

he brought a few guys with him and all of a sudden it would turn into,

we would like you to run for governor.

And he goes, "I know you're an independent and, but I'm gonna test that.

" So being Paul Johnson, if you know him, he started whipping through

everything from reproductive riots to gun control to, you name the topic

and just trying to see where I land.

And he goes, "Yep, you'd never win a primary." So I wasn't extreme

enough right or left that, he knew that I was the right guy for it.

So anyways, but for me, ultimately what, I won't take you through with

the whole process, but ultimately it took me a little bit to get there, but

what I finally came down to was it's just taking the same model I had done

from a performance perspective, from a re-engineering perspective and saying,

why not take those skills and put that into something that is a larger calling,

and do it for a larger group of people where everybody in the state can benefit.

Well, I'll give me one example of Equality Health where I did

something that was unusual.

we had a LLC, you know, a typical, for profit business,

supporting Medicaid patients.

But I realized that we had about 20, 25% of Access Medicaid on our

program at any point in time, okay?

So 250, 300,000 people, in Arizona, and I'm going, "Okay, but what about

all the people that don't, that aren't our clients? They don't get a benefit

from this quality of care initiative, right? So how could we fix that?" So we

put a 501c-3 and wrapped it around it.

So I had a not-for-profit side too that allowed us to work with community

partners to go out and bring some of our capabilities out to a bigger audience.

Now, private equity guys, not in love with that idea, right?

we're doing public good, okay?

This is a good thing to do.

and so that became the same concept I might think about government.

why am I only benefiting people in healthcare?

Why can't I benefit people across a broader spectrum?

and as you know just looking at, government, there's a lot of

things we could improve and fix.

So-

Yeah, it's, the independent route is not an easy route.

Yeah.

I mean, you had to go through some legal battles.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah.

'Cause I read up on that a little bit, when we

first initiated with your team.

Yeah.

and I'm a lawyer by, education, I was looking at the stuff

and I'm like, hmm, every state's different obviously, but There's two

different battles, not just the legal system, but then actually getting to

the point of, potentially winning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So talk about that a litle bit.

Yeah.

So certainly easier pass, right?

but that's, going back to what you said that's not my DNA, you know, my DNA is-

Yeah, that's what, you got that walk on mentality.

That's actually what my son said to me, that really got

me over the hump is he said, "Dad, this is the kind of stuff you do.

This is your brand." Yeah. He goes, "You like hard things.

You like doing tough stuff." And so I want my son to respect that and, see

it on a bigger platform and if he's pushing me, then that tells me a lot.

so going as an independent, as you know, haven't had a viable

independent in 40 years, right?

Yeah.

So that was one of the big things.

I'm going, okay, lots changed since then.

and that was probably one of the biggest decisions was how divisive politics

have got, how pathetic it's got.

Yeah.

I mean, how we're name calling and-

Oh, it's ridiculous.

It's just, I think everybody knows that.

The question is, can they be brave enough to say, "You know what?

I'm gonna take this election and on this election, I'm gonna try something

Maybe I don't completely love this guy, but he's worth a shot over what we

already know we're gonna get otherwise." That's the ultimate, calling here.

But as I started in this process, obviously it's incredibly threatening

to an incumbent governor, that's been primarily the Democratic operatives

that have been going after me legally, not that the Republicans didn't have

something to do with the party name at first either, but I think the way I would

summarize it and give a couple details to what you said is that independents

are now 30% of the electorate.

We're larger than the Republican Party or the Democratic Party in the state of

Arizona and that number is growing, right?

They are, people are becoming more and more disenfranchised with the system.

They historically, because of that very dynamic, set a ballot, signature

threshold, which by the way, come being outside politics, coming in,

ballot signature is not easy to get.

I mean, that is not a simple thing.

You think, oh, a thousand, 2,000, that's big, it's hard to get, think

of your own, list of people you know.

Yeah.

You go sign something for me for a thousand people, like-

Yeah.

…that's a lot of people.

Yeah.

5,000 signatures for a Democrat or five or 6,000,

five or 6,000 for a Republican, 45,000 if you're an independent-

Yeah, 9x the size.

Yeah.

Impossible.

r- virtually impo- I mean, you can do it, it would take a long time.

You have to be do- prepar- prayering that for a very … And very expensive,

by the way, to do as well, because you have to pay for a lot of this.

then, Paul offers this party that they commandeered called No Labels Nationally.

It was national.

They set up 50 states, big, enough people to create a party.

it was, done to run someone against Biden Trump, never materialized.

So they, Paul and team took over No Labels Arizona.

So we had a party that put me at like a 2,000 threshold, of signature.

So having fair ballot access as an independent was, was enormous, right?

So I said, "Okay, that's interesting." ended up getting 6,000 signatures,

but of course was challenged on those signatures, on that.

and then early on we, they had changed the name from No Labels

Arizona to Arizona Independent Party.

Again, another threatening thing, just like the signature thing that they,

called, just like before, they called a special session of the legislature, to

make sure that they could build into the Constitution that we could never have the

name independent in our party, which, you know, were challenging in appellate court.

But, really, this is the kind of stuff, right?

We have water crisis, we've got education crisis, but let's focus on this group of

40,000 people out of 4.4 million voters.

and so that's, you know, traditional politics and you got all their silly

talking points, but at the end of the day, I, I think people are smarter than that.

So that was challenged.

And then the final one was my campaign made a clerical error and put my PO

box that I've got my mail at for 15 years, instead of my street address

and they kicked it out and said, "On a technicality, you can't do that,

right?" So the judges looked at it, well, wait a minute, he's running

for statewide office and his mailbox is like five miles from his home.

Like, this doesn't make any sense.

And they challenged it again, they lost in trial court, but then they challenged it.

We're gonna go to appellate, but we had a time pressure on getting ballots

printed, so we decided both of us to go ahead and go straight to Supreme

Court, Supreme Court ruled in our favor.

as you might surprise, we had case law on our- Yep.

… on our side as well.

But either way, the point is let's make it difficult.

And they also caused me to have to spend a lot of money, to do that.

Yeah.

And I'm self-funding the majority of my campaign right now.

do you ever stop and think, there's a word enoughness.

I know it's not technically a word, enoughness.

When's enough enough?

Like, do you really wanna put up with all this BS?

It's like, man, I've, had a good life, I've been an executive, I

can do all these different things.

Yeah.

There's gotta be a certain level where you go, man- is

this worth it?

Is

this

worth it?

I mean, I do have a great life without politics and that's why hopefully people

can appreciate that when, when the reason I'm running is that a lot of people

have great lives and a lot of reasons they don't wanna go into politics, but,

this has zero to do with ego, I've had my name, name in lights all my life.

I, I don't need more Hugh Lytle.

Matter of fact, it's weird to be the product and see my name.

I'm like, enough of that.

Seen my face way too many times, but-

I saw you on the way here to the office.

You're right on the phone.

It's like, "Ugh, come on." but, it goes back

to what we were saying before.

I mean, there's a need here, there's a calling, there's a gap that needs to

be filled and, I thought long and hard and about, you know, I'm, I, I wanna

feel like I lived a purpose-driven life.

I was at that point where, like, maybe I retire, was looking at starting a fourth

business and I'm like, I don't know, like, is this the right thing to do?

and, you know, a lot of people around me, very supportive saying, "You know what?

Being one could pull this stuff off, it'd be you.

so I, think to me, the most important thing is that there's a voice here, you

And whether I make it over and get elected or not, that you can't deny people.

I heard, a consultant say that in- independents are there

to moderate the two parties.

Like, we're just observers that are there to, golf clap when something happens

and I'm going, "Please, you know, for God's sakes, I think, most moderates are

We represent the middle.

We represent common sense." And, I think it's gotten so extreme to this point now

that people either they look at it as a fantasy world, it doesn't really affect

them till it starts to affect them.

And lately, that started to affect.

Affordability-

Yeah.

… Hugh Lytle: is affecting people.

And that starts getting real.

Your government gets real at that point and that's why I

think what I'm doing matters.

It starts to activate the public a litle bit.

Mm-hmm.

People who maybe were, lasseiz faire about it, didn't care that much.

All of a sudden it starts to affect them.

They're like, hmm.

Right.

Maybe I should pay attention suddenly.

Right.

Well, like, you know, gas is shooting through the roof and

they're going, "Well, wait, couldn't we just, like, maybe temporarily

halt the gas tax for a little bit?".

I mean, wouldn't that be some way to help me, right?

and I also think there's just this dynamic with, career politicians.

So back to what you were saying about just what I'm doing, I think

more citizens, there's so much talent in the private sector.

I mean, I wish more citizens would step forward.

This hopefully is a pathway to do that-

Yeah.

…where you can have fair ballot access, but we've

gotta find a way and maybe it isn't that we need three parties.

Maybe we just need two parties, but we gotta have a way to get them

rowing in the same direction and have bipartisanship again and, public discourse

without hating your neighbor, right?

Yeah.

I mean, these kind of things are, I think can be driven by this kind

of activity and career politicians are just trying to get onto their next gig.

I understand.

They got a career.

Yeah.

They wanna stay in public service and, I appreciate that,

but it creates short-term thinking.

So if you look at the kind of bills that we've been sending

up the hill, it's laughable.

You're like, wait, we've got major things we need to execute on, both issues

and also potential lost opportunity if we don't engage these things.

And we're choosing to play what I call small ball politics and just, you know-

Yeah.

… Hugh Lytle: bat the ball back and forth on silly things that cause us to then,

the public one day wakes up and goes, "Oh crap, we're Albuquerque. How did

that happen?" No offense Albuquerque.

You know, it's like, we, we've gotta make, we've gotta make moves, as a state

and I don't think a career politician who's not thinking 30 years out from a

vision perspective is gonna get us there.

how, how much do you listen to like polls?

Like you're gonna have advisors, you have a team around you obviously that's

telling you, "Hey, Hugh, here's the real chances of you winning this deal."

Yeah.

"You're independent.

We know the old school two party system, which blows my mind.

I was a polysci major.

Even when I was 21, I'm like, why the hell do we only have

two parties in this country?

That doesn't represent every single person in this country.

So you're taking a stand for that.

I love that.

Mm-hmm.

But people are telling you, "Hey, man, the chances

are not gonna be there."… The belief in itself can only go so far.

Yeah.

just depends on where you're coming from, right?

So people come in mentally with either a, " I'm interested, convince

me" or "you're gonna be a spoiler.

I really don't want you in this.

You're gonna ruin something.

I want a Democrat or Republican to get in, you're gonna spoil one of their chances."

I get that question every day of my life.

So before I ran, the most important thing I could figure

out is what's the math, okay?

How big of a hill to climb is this?

Mm-hmm.

And then the hill's not that big and that's

what people don't understand.

Again, go back to 40 years, no independent candidate.

So first time ever.

Now, let's go into the fact that I only need basically 60%,

one out of two independents.

Of the 1.5 million independents, I need one out of two to

say, I kind of like this guy.

Independents who I am running as an independent, God forbid I get more than

that, but let's just say I got 60%.

and then I need 20 to 20, 20% and 25% crossover vote on each side.

That's not a huge number, okay?

So on, on my left to center side, I've done a lot in the Latino community.

There are a lot of Latino support from the work I do and I would be amazing

to that or that group of people.

They're, they're a minority majority in this state.

They're gonna be leading us in the future, and I've got their best interest at heart.

And then show me a Reagan conservative that's out there right now.

Show me the bulk of the Republicans in Arizona are Reagan

conservatives, not MAGA, right?

And so there's a MAGA candidate that's likely gonna be the Republican

Schweiger, right?

well, or, right now it's Andy Biggs that's leading- Yeah, okay.

the, the polling, but, you know, you never rule Schweikert out.

Mm-hmm.

one of those two, both Congressmen, both what I consider

very great congressman, appreciative for the work that they've done,

but, they're transactional guys.

At the end of the day, they just vote on things.

They don't govern.

to govern is to make judgements to … It's like being a judge or being

a CEO, you need to take in all facts.

And then as an independent, you take in all facts on left and right.

You don't worry about the red, the color of the party, you take in facts and

say, "What's best for all Arizonans?"

That's what I bring to the party.

So those are not huge numbers for me to be able to be in a three-party race that

puts me at 39% and, winning to being very, very close to winning, before I

get more than one out of two independent.

So that's why the math makes sense.

It's executable and then polling, you mentioned.

Polling is critical.

So, had an opportunity to talk to former governors so far as

well as, candidates that have been in the race, et cetera, and-

You talked to Ducey at all?

I did.

Dude?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

He's very helpful.

and all of them say, you know, it really, as an independent, especially since we've

got to raise money, as an independent, I'm self-funding all this, right?

So it's been harder because they wanna say, "Well, show me

you can win." I get the math.

Okay, that's a lot more interesting to me all of a sudden.

Yeah.

So-

Yeah.

… Hugh Lytle: where's the name recognition?

I haven't seen a commercial.

I haven't seen you, like, where are you?

Like, you got some signs out now, that's great.

so we're getting ready to hit all of that television, commercials, bus wraps.

You know, I always joke and say, I want, I wanna be Rafi in

town, I wanna be the accident attorney guy like he's everywhere.

but truly build the name and brand recognition and then be able

to show our growth and polling.

That's, I think, very important is that we set our baseline, and that we can show

that we are moving up the polls and no different than the businesses I built,

these things are all based on momentum.

You have to time the momentum, right?

So, as you know in Arizona, a lot of people are gone in the summer so,

you don't have as much opportunity as you do, but you gotta be building

that muscle and building that growth to be able to hit strong in,

September, August, September timeframe.

Well, I'll give you a lot of credit.

I don't, I'm sure you and your team are aware of this, but in the

last election cycle in 2024, the candidates that did the most podcasts

won-

[laughing]

the elections.

Yes, this is 100% true.

That's true.

That's what's changed.

I mean, you know-

The game is different.

The game is totally different, you know?

So the, the media is different.

Yeah.

The delivery mechanism for consumers out there, the public

is different than it used to be.

Totally.

And the math I think is in my favor on this.

For independents, it actually swings way more to hyper local podcast

style events and things like that.

So we really appreciate you taking time out of your crazy schedule, I'm sure.

Well, and I appreciate the opportunity because that is exactly it.

I, I've got a, you know, just a firecracker for a lead, senior advisor

and, and fundraiser and Carrie Martz and Carrie, has done some amazing

things on the marketing side, but she's really big on driving, this, this

online engagement and this ability-

Yeah.

…to connect to people because that is,

that is the whole dynamic.

everybody saw the LA Mayor thing, right?

So that was really exciting.

We've got some of their AI people doing our stuff that's coming out.

you gotta do a blend of what touches an individual across

multiple channels, right?

Yeah.

So that was part of what Doug talked about was that

you need a creative director.

You gotta be thinking across every, what's on YouTube different than LinkedIn, right?

So how do you differentiate those audiences and how do you

get your message across to them-

Yeah.

…in a mass way?

And then traditional television media is not the same as it used

to be when it comes to elections.

Yeah.

And people who are frustrated by the current structure,

the two party structure-

Which is most people.

Most people.

Yeah.

I'm one of them.

I'm one of them.

Right?

So the things that matter to me is, "Who is this person?"

Yeah.

And shows like this and the whole basis of our show, "What's

Your Story?" is like, "Who is Hugh?"

Totally.

And you come on a show like this, you humanize yourself,

get to know a little bit about you and, you know, hopefully people

open their mind and give you a shot.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah, we've got people, we've had people say, "Well, why are

you bringing a politician on? " I'm like, " We're not promoting anybody."

Yeah.

Everyone's got a story.

Everyone's gotta have a story, man.

It's a great

story.

Everyone's got a story.

So-

And I still can't-

care who it is.

Call myself a politician.

My wife and I were at a dinner and a group of people started asking me questions.

They, first, they didn't know I was in politics and so, actually, I need

to do it more and say I'm actually running, but, they started asking me

questions when they figured out it was.

And, when I left, my wife goes, "Oh my God, you sound like a politician."

[everyone laughing] "Oh no!"

you gotta have that.

You gotta have a CTA at the end.

You have a call to action at the end, right?

That's fine.

This is your opportunity to have a call to action.

What do you have coming up?

Yeah.

Where are you gonna soon?

Yeah.

Go ahead talk to people.

Talk about the, yeah, the primary, talk, what's coming up.

Yeah.

So talk about that.

Yeah.

So, we've got a primary in our party, Arizona Independent

Party or No Labels Arizona.

the, booklets will be coming out here soon.

mail-in voting will be coming out here in, mid-June, or June 24th, I believe.

and then basically have a month and then, July 21st, is the primary

date, and, hope to win that primary.

And then, with that primary, we'll then be moving into kind of the next

phase, the aggressive phase of the campaign that says that we are, the

one candidate for the, No Labels Party.

please go to hughlytle.com to get my, I'm updating my website.

You'll be able to see, three big pillars of my campaign which are the

economy, education and healthcare.

Those are three things that have to be fixed in Arizona.

and then, HughForGovernor" on any social media, Follow us, see what we're doing.

we're gonna have a lot of cool stuff coming, some AI parodies, some

things that you might see that, you know, be a little bit different.

hopefully some of this as well.

Yeah.

But, uh-

Absolutely.

… Hugh Lytle: we are, very excited about this next segment of our campaign, which

will be much more kind of public facing.

And oh, maybe one last important thing is that we didn't talk about this,

but, I talk a lot about the vision for Arizona being the knowledge economy,

building on our semiconductors, our advanced manufacturing, on our

data centers and our, I wanna bring AI business, AI software here.

So we have high wage jobs.

We can lead the global economy, honestly, right here from Arizona.

and I'm walking to talk.

So, I've got Hugh AI coming out.

Well, you'll be able to talk to me in a digital twin format just

like we're talking right now.

it will be a trial thing, so please, try to be, polite in your questions,

but, we are, gonna be launching that where you have twenty four seven access

to ask me anything about questions like we ask about today from my

background through policy, et cetera.

And if it was successful and I can win this election, I will bring this into

the governor's office so that we have an opportunity for you to share twenty

four seven with the governor, have a discussion and us be able to use that

data to have real time polling to know what's on your mind, which allows us

to make better decisions as government.

Yeah.

HughAI, that's awesome.

Love it.

I've never seen that before.

Love it.

We have a rule like on social media, we

just don't read the comments.

Yeah.

You're gonna get haters no matter what.

Yeah.

We just don't read them.

Yeah.

Every once in a while we'll get a hater and this guy, he'll,

he'll just put a clown face next to him and be like, "Clown, clown,

clown, it just pisses people off."

[laughing]

Cause you, you can't engage them.

Yeah, you ignore the first thousand.

You're gonna get hated.

You get to get haters.

Yeah, I don't, I don't read 'em.

Just tell Carrie and team, just put a clown face.

He's, he's better at it than me.

Clown face, clown face, clown face.

He's better at it tham me.

All right,

well, and also, yeah, just the funny last thing, my, my

wife always joke because I, I do, like, football, you go understand,

half the people don't like you.

You're not playing well, three quarters of people don't like you.

Yeah.

You're playing really bad, you're down to friends and family, so

I can sleep like a baby with people to say bad things about me.

[laughing]

I got two final questions.

we do rapid fire.

We don't have time for the whole thing.

But, favorite book all time?

Lincoln.

Wow.

Abraham Lincoln.

Okay.

Favorite restaurant in town?

Ooh, that's hard to … I, I-

Where do you go to the most?

probably the Henry.

The Henry.

Yeah.

24th and Camelback, yeah.

Yeah.

Me too.

[laughing] Well, I'm a Steak 44-

How come you haven't taken me there yet?

I'm a Steak 44 and a Masters guy, but we

haven't been … Good spots.

Good spots.

You got to take me there now.

I will.

We will.

All right everybody.

Yeah.

Thanks so much for joining us today on this

episode of What's Your Story.

check out HughLytle.com Follow his campaign, follow him on social

media, follow us on social media.

We're everywhere.

It's great.

Good stuff, man.

Thank you.

We'll see you next time.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.