Dozens of likely fake Twitter accounts are supporting Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's re-election

Richard Ruelas | The Republic | azcentral.com

Show Caption Hide Caption The Gaggle: Family separation at the border and Gov. Ducey's campaign for re-election The politics team talks about family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border and Gov. Ducey's campaign announcement.

Plenty of genuine Arizonans are supporting Gov. Doug Ducey’s bid for a second term as governor. Some not-so-genuine ones, too.

A platoon of Twitter accounts began posting messages in late May and early June. The accounts posted support of Ducey's re-election bid. And little else.

The Republic counted more than two dozen of these questionable accounts.

The Twitter accounts this week began following journalists who posted stories about Ducey's re-election bid. Those reporters started sussing their new followers and shared, via Twitter, their suspicions that they were not real people.

Omg now the fake (I think?) account of Arizona’s own Jelani Sample is in on the #duceybot action! pic.twitter.com/X5gXsVjcuT — Rachel Leingang (@rachelleingang) June 20, 2018

Each account includes a picture that, an online search reveals, belongs to another person. In one case, an account that purports to be an ASU alumnus named Sam Parsons uses a photo of a kitchen designer from New Zealand with the same name. Another purported Ducey backer uses the photo of a Celtic folk singer from Ireland. And another borrows the face of an economic researcher in London.

A Ducey campaign spokesman, Patrick Ptak, said he had fielded many reporter requests about the mystery accounts, but cannot explain it.

“It’s not us,” he said. “We’ve seen them, but it’s not us.”

Most of the activity on the accounts are simple retweets of posts made by Ducey or his supporters.

A few have a sprinkling of personal posts, as if to add legitimacy.

“I think I am going to support Doug Ducey,” wrote an account purportedly chronicling the thoughts of one Daniel Domin, a "politically charged" "outdoors lover" and native of Arizona, according to his Twitter bio.

“While I don't agree with all of his policies, I have seen firsthand the benefits he has brought to AZ: more jobs, less taxes, and affordable education. #SecureAZ.”

The persona of Domin posted this Tuesday, using the hashtag of the Ducey re-election campaign, whose slogan is Secure Arizona's Future.

The profile picture attached to Domin’s account, @DominTanner, appears to match that of Myron Nelson, a licensed mental health counselor in Chicago.

Neither Nelson nor Domin could be reached for comment.

'Some governor I've never heard of'

An account purportedly belonging to a Quentin Jost, with the handle @ChopsticSamurai, retweeted a Ducey post touting economic achievements over his first term.

Jost, or at least someone with access to the account, added the comment: “Just another example of the great work @dougducey is doing for AZ #Ducey2018 #ArizoniansforDucey.” (That is not a typo about the residents of the state, at least not from The Republic.)

Jost's profile says he joined Twitter this month; his first tweet was June 5. Jost’s profile picture appears to match that of a man named Benedict Dellot, who works at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London. Dellot must have been tipped to the doppelganger.

He posted message on Twitter that quoted the biography of his virtual twin, Quentin Jost.

“In other news,” Dellot posted Tuesday, “I’m now a motorcycle-riding, sushi-eating, Arizona-loving supporter of some governor I’ve never heard of. Nice.”

Some of the accounts that popped up this week have since disappeared.

And one has changed its profile picture.

The account @SarahJean09 used to carry a profile picture that was of an actress based in Los Angeles named Sarah Jean Fry.

But sometime Tuesday, it changed to a stock image of a person, whose face can't be made out, gazing at a sunset.

The virtual Sarah Jean did not return a request for comment sent through Twitter.

'I don't do politics on Twitter'

But The Republic was able to reach Sarah Jean Fry, the California actress, breaking the news to her that someone had co-opted her image and part of her name in support of Ducey.

“That’s too bad,” she said during a phone interview. “It’s too bad we can’t focus on the important stuff, and that these things that are supposed to be tools to help that, end up creating negative things instead.”

Fry had no opinion on Arizona politics. But give her time.

She said she recently bought property in Clarkdale and will be moving to Arizona soon.

Though, she likely still won’t be weighing in on the governor’s race.

“I don’t do politics on Twitter,” she said.

READ MORE ON DUCEY'S RE-ELECTION: