Chris Nanos, the sheriff in charge of the Nancy Guthrie investigation, is facing a massive recall drive from furious locals, after the Democrat “embarrassed” the county, The Post can reveal.
Daniel Butierez, a Republican congressional candidate, confirmed that he has already initiated the lengthy recall process.
He said he has 500 volunteers working to collect signatures to oust Nanos from office.
“This is a bipartisan effort. It’s not like we’re trying to get signatures from one party or the other,” Butierez told The Post from his home in Pima County.
“He has been an embarrassment to Tucson and to Pima County with this Nancy Guthrie case,” he said, adding that last week’s allegations that the Sheriff lied under oath about his employment history were the final straw.
“Everyone’s pretty disgusted, Democrats and Republicans,” Butierez added.
Butierez, who is standing against Dem Rep. Adelita Grijalva in November, said he made the decision to begin recall proceedings on Wednesday, after speaking to frustrated rank-and-file Pima County officers.
He said that Pima County deputies had told him they wanted to launch the recall campaign themselves, but were “afraid of repercussions from Sheriff Nanos.”
Police in Pima County “had a unanimous vote of no confidence” in Sheriff Nanos on Friday, Butierez added.
“I decided I’d do it because I’m a congressional candidate, I’m already in the spotlight, and I don’t see Nanos messing with me,” he explained.
Follow The Post’s live updates on Savannah Guthrie’s missing mom
Since getting his serial number for the recall on Thursday, he now has 120 days to acquire the necessary signatures of 25% of the total votes cast in the last Sheriff’s election in 2024 — equal to roughly 120,000 signatures.
But Butierez told The Post he doesn’t think this will be a problem.
“I’m probably going to go for 135,000 signatures,” he said. “Right now, we have almost 500 volunteers who want to get signatures, and five notaries to notarize the pages for everyone.”
If he obtains the required signatures, the Pima County Recorder then has 60 days to verify them against voter registration records.
If successful, Sheriff Nanos will then be notified, at which point he has five days to decide whether to resign or call a Special Recall Election.
Butierez is running the recall campaign alongside his congressional campaign, as he prepares to face Grijalva this November in a rematch of last September’s special election.
The timeline of the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mom:
The Democrat won that race comfortably, securing almost 69% of votes cast, and Butierez admits he faces an uphill task in a historically safe Democratic district.
Despite that, he believes that the size of his platform on social media — where he launched his campaign to recall Nanos — will help him pull off an upset come November.
He recalled a recent conversation with Tucson’s Mayor, Democrat Regina Romero, in which she admitted that she was willing to work with the Republican.
“She goes, ‘You have a huge platform and when you post stuff that the city’s doing wrong, my phone blows up off the hook,’” he recalled.
