John Echols

While Republican candidate Sandra Livingstone anxiously awaits the results of the 1st Congressional District GOP primary, her top adviser, John Echols, will be 1,500 miles away hobnobbing with the party elite in St. Paul, Minn. at the Republican National Convention.

Echols, a delegate to the RNC from the 1st district, has been running the campaign of former State Department official Sandra Livingstone, who is facing off against Sydney Hay for the Republican slot on the congressional ballot. The conflict means that he's been out of town for the last few days, while the campaign enters its final hours.

When asked if that was a sign that Echols knew which way the race was going to go, he emphatically said it was not.

PRESCOTT -- Wednesday night, residents of the 1st Congressional District gathered to hear Republican candidate Dr. Sandra Livingstone inside her campaign headquarters, which occupy the corner of an office building that overlooks Courthouse Square.

Livingstone, who is challenging Republican Party-backed Syndey Hay and other candidates in the primary, filed her candidacy just before the June 4 deadline, and flew under the radar until her Federal Election Commission report came out, showing she had near-parity with Hay in cash on hand. Her June fundraising came in at $4,725 - well behind Hay's quarterly take of about $95,000 - but she has put up $200,000 of her own money, meaning she is very much in the race from a money perspective.

Around 20 people, mainly senior citizens, showed up for the Livingstone town hall, where they heard her discuss Second Amendment rights, energy policy and her recommendations for bringing the nation's finances under control.