Tammy Caputi puts on a Magen Dovid every morning. She told Jewish News last month that people from both parties stop her to thank her for it. "I wear my star loudly and proudly," she said.
This week, someone answered that star with a threat. Caputi, a former Scottsdale councilwoman and the Democratic candidate for the Arizona House in Legislative District 4, said Wednesday that her campaign received explicit death threats, including antisemitic threats against her and her entire family.
One message, according to her campaign: "If you keep running for office, I will come to your house and you will regret it. Watch your back." Another threatened to kill her and her family, and ended by calling her "you dumb Jew."
According to the campaign's Oct. 21 release, the threats came from multiple individuals, and they came in response to campaign advertisements distributed in the community. As the release quotes it, the second message begins mid-sentence, with the word "Or," as if it were finishing a demand the campaign did not publish.
What she said
Caputi said she never expected to worry about the safety of her daughters, her family and the volunteers who believe in her campaign. "This has gone too far," she said in her statement.
"Political disagreements are one thing. Threatening to murder someone and their children is another," she said. "This has crossed a line, and it needs to stop."
She called on officials in both parties to condemn the threats. "I refuse to let hatred and intimidation define our community," she said.
Both messages came in through her campaign website, Caputi told Kol Phoenix on Friday. Her campaign reported them to police, is preserving the original messages for investigators, and says nothing more has arrived since Wednesday.
What police say
Sgt. Allison Sempsis, the Scottsdale Police Department's spokeswoman, told JNS on Thursday that the department was notified of a threat against the Caputi campaign over the weekend, and of another message Wednesday. A report was taken on the first, the investigation is ongoing, and detectives are following leads to find where the threats came from.
Caputi said the FBI is involved as well. No one has been arrested or charged, and no one has publicly claimed the messages.
What she wants the kehillah to know
The threats have already changed how she campaigns. She no longer knocks on doors without other volunteers beside her.
But she wanted the Valley's Jews to hear about something else first. "The outpouring of love, support, and resources has been incredible," she said. "I'm so grateful to belong to a community that cares," one that takes threats to its safety seriously, she said, because "this can never be considered acceptable behavior."
Who she is
Caputi has lived and worked in the Valley for about 25 years. She founded Yale Electric West, a lighting and electrical supply company, in Scottsdale in 2001, and still runs it. Her company supplies materials for freeways, hospitals, airports and water treatment plants around the Valley. She holds an economics degree from Wellesley College and an MBA from Simmons University, and is a fellow of the Flinn-Brown Arizona Center for Civic Leadership.
She served on the Scottsdale City Council from 2021 until early 2025, after three years on the city's Development Review Board. Among the things she told Jewish News she is proudest of from those years is Scottsdale's anti-discrimination ordinance, which passed soon after she took office.
She and her husband, Steve, have three daughters. She is a marathon runner.
And she has been a member of Temple Chai in Phoenix for nearly 25 years, active in its outreach and social justice work. "I'm definitely a participator, not an observer," she told Jewish News.
Why she says she wears the star
Caputi told Jewish News in September that antisemitism has become "almost normalized," and that this terrifies her. Her answer, she said, is to be visible: "When you're a leader, you have to model the behavior that you want other people to follow."
She listed the things that matter most to her for the Jewish community: no tolerance for hate crimes, full funding for security at houses of worship, and support for the Hilton Family Holocaust Education Center in Phoenix.
After months of knocking on doors in the district, she said, the Jewish voters she met on both sides of the aisle wanted the same thing: to feel safe, and to know antisemitism will not be tolerated.
She is not the only one
State Rep. Alma Hernandez of Tucson, who endorsed Caputi, said she too has received death threats for being Jewish, and that she is angry Caputi was targeted "for daring to run and for being a Jew." Then she asked the question nobody has answered yet: "Why are elected officials silent?" Arizona Senate Democrats said Hernandez has taken extensive security measures at her home.
Last week, an envelope with white powder was sent to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes's office, one of hundreds mailed to officials around the country. Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, has also pointed to a Facebook post saying he and Rep. Andy Biggs "should be Kirked." Threats this election season have not stayed on one side.
The race, and what else is out there
Caputi and Karen Gresham, both Democrats, are running against Republican Reps. Matt Gress and Pamela Carter for LD4's two House seats on Nov. 3. It is one of the few truly competitive districts in the state.
Caputi blamed the threats on "false accusations and lies" from her opponents. Asked what she meant, she pointed to false claims about her policy positions, her voting record on the Scottsdale City Council, and her personal life and family, which she said are "raising the temperature and toxicity" of the race and have contributed to people threatening her family. She did not name a person, post or ad. Her campaign has faced questions since early October, first reported by The Arizona Republic, about whether she lives in LD4. She says she has lived in a Scottsdale condo in the district since July 2025 because of family circumstances she has asked be kept private. Her opponents dispute that, and the Arizona Republican Party has asked the Maricopa County Attorney to investigate. Nothing reported so far ties any of that to whoever sent the threats.
Whatever anyone thinks of her politics, the message was about her being a Jew. That is a threat to every family in the kehillah, and police are treating it seriously.
How we reported this: drawn from the Caputi campaign's Oct. 21 press release as posted on its Facebook page; coverage by KJZZ, 12News and JNS; Caputi's written answers to Kol Phoenix on Oct. 23; Scottsdale Police Sgt. Allison Sempsis's statement to JNS; Rep. Alma Hernandez's public post on X; a Sept. 30 profile in Jewish News of Greater Phoenix; the City of Scottsdale; and KJZZ's Oct. 8 report on the residency question. On Oct. 23 we searched X, Facebook and the open web, including comments on the campaign's post, for anyone claiming the messages and found none; Reddit and closed channels were not searched. The threats are quoted as the campaign released them; we have not seen the original messages. The FBI's involvement is as Caputi described it; the bureau has not commented publicly. If you have received threats or know something that could help police, call Scottsdale Police at 480-312-5000. Corrections and additions are welcome at [email protected].