Arizona voters held primaries Tuesday that will determine who will challenge Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and nominees in several competitive U.S. House races.
Republicans narrowly outnumber independents and Democrats in the state, which went for President Trump in 2024 but elected a Democratic governor two years earlier, setting up Republican efforts to flip the governor's office and Democratic efforts to pick up House seats.
Four Republicans sought the GOP nod to face Hobbs, with U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and David Schweikert viewed as the leading contenders; Biggs carries former President Trump's endorsement and backing from Turning Point Action and has portrayed himself as someone who can appeal to independent voters, and polls show him as the front-runner over Schweikert.
In the 1st Congressional District Democrats were deciding between former state lawmaker and emergency medicine physician Amish Shah and former broadcast journalist Marlene Galán-Woods — Shah beat Galán-Woods in the primary two years ago and then lost to Rep. David Schweikert in the general — while the Republican primary pitted former NFL kicker Jay Feely, who has Trump's endorsement, against former state lawmaker Joseph Chaplik.
Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani, first elected in 2022 and reelected in 2024 with 50% of the vote, was unopposed in the primary; Democrat JoAnna Mendoza, a military veteran, was also unopposed, and the two are set to meet in November.
Arizona's top election official, Democrat Adrian Fontes, faced no primary challenge, while two Republicans — state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who participated in lawsuits aimed at overturning the 2020 election and is backed by Turning Point Action, and Gina Swoboda, who became state Republican chairwoman with Trump's support but has stopped short of saying the election was stolen — vied to challenge him.
Biggs' decision to run for governor left his congressional seat open; former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who has Mr. Trump's backing, led early in the GOP contest but a multi-part Arizona Republic investigation published in May alleged years of sexual misconduct and abuse of power, which Lamb's campaign denied; Daniel Keenan has contributed $1.6 million of his own money and a GOP poll backed by his campaign recently showed him with a slim lead.
"I could see a Biggs-Hobbs matchup as a 'tight race,'" and "That is some evidence that when thought leaders — and especially elected officials, public officials, including the president of the United States — when they continue to bang on this drum that there's fraud happening despite no evidence that that is the case, it sticks, and so people's beliefs are really tainted," Francisco Pedraza said, citing Arizona State University research that found one in three Arizona voters are "not that confident" or "not at all confident" that absentee or mail-in ballots will be fairly counted and free of fraud.
Winners of Tuesday's primaries will advance to face opponents in the November general election.