Despite tons of national money and criticism based on his adherence to fighting illegal immigration in Phoenix, "America's Toughest Sheriff," Sheriff Joe Arpaio easily won re-election Tuesday.
Arpaio took Tuesday's results as a vote of confidence in his office's policies and swore nothing will change.
"In fact, I might even do it more," Arpaio said of his immigration-enforcement policies, which have drawn criticism from across the country.
"The people of this county want their sheriff to continue to fight for them," he said. "I've been doing this for 16 years. I will not change."
But rarely in Arpaio's long career have so many critics pushed for change at the top of the Sheriff's Office.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon got the ball rolling with a speech in March that publicly chastised Arpaio for immigration-enforcement tactics that took sheriff's deputies into neighborhoods throughout the Valley to root out illegal immigrants by conducting traffic stops.
Emboldened by Gordon, Arpaio's critics began speaking out about his police enforcement at County Board of Supervisors meetings, protesting his office space outside the Wells Fargo Building and seizing on the sheriff's spending, special projects and response times for serious crimes in a variety of theaters.
Arpaio withstood it all, brought in nearly $600,000 in campaign donations - a sum unheard of in county races - and promised he would win re-election.
The majority of voters in Maricopa County proved him right.
Arizona's state congress also extended its republican majority. And marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman. Conservatism still kicks ass when it's tried.
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