Races for an open Senate seat and four intriguing House seats are on tap Tuesday when Arizona holds congressional primaries.
The election was originally planned for Aug. 6, but was moved up a week as part of a law signed earlier this year that made a series of election administration changes.
The headline race in November is for the Senate, and the primary is expected to cement the contest between Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake, the 2022 gubernatorial nominee and a favorite of former President Donald Trump and his supporters.
Lake has a contested primary, with Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb as the main rival in a three-candidate field. Lake had almost ten times the cash-on-hand as Lamb — $2.1 million to his $263,000 — as of July 10, the last pre-primary report filed with the Federal Election Commission. She is also a constant presence on conservative media.
Gallego, who got united support from Democrats after incumbent independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema opted in March not to run for reelection, had nearly $8.2 million on hand. But outside spending, which has already totaled $6.5 million, will likely be intense in this race, which is rated Tilt Democratic by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.
Open House seats
3rd District: The Gallego Senate bid means his 3rd District House seat is open, with what appears to be a two-way Democratic primary contest for a nomination that essentially will lead to election in November. The district would have backed Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 48 percentage points in 2020 if the current lines were in place, according to Inside Elections.
Former State Sen. Raquel Terán touts endorsements including home-state Sen. Mark Kelly, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and major players in Democratic politics from labor unions to the League of Conservation Voters and Reproductive Freedom for All. She’s raised almost $1.2 million. The bigger fundraiser, however, is Yassamin Ansari, a former city council member in Phoenix, who has brought in closer to $2 million. Ansari has labor endorsements of her own, and is highlighting the backing of Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.
On the union front, for instance, the Arizona Education Association is backing Terán, while the Arizona Federation of Teachers backs Ansari.
8th District: The pending retirement of Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko has prompted a contentious multi-candidate GOP primary, with the winner on a potential glide path to becoming a member of the 119th Congress.
Trump and Lake have endorsed Abe Hamadeh, while Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance now headlines the list of endorsements for Blake Masters, who was the GOP nominee for Senate last cycle. Hamadeh ran for state attorney general in 2022, a race he lost but has continued to litigate, losing multiple court challenges.
Limited available polling has shown either Hamadeh or Masters in the lead, but the six-candidate field lends itself to unpredictability. Among other candidates with substantial name ID is former Rep. Trent Franks, who is running for the seat he vacated when he resigned in 2017 amid a scandal involving offering money to female staffers to carry his children as surrogates.
Masters has spent over $3 million so far, with $3.5 million of his $4 million in receipts coming from candidate loans. Hamadeh has spent $1.2 million, and he’s put in nearly $400,000 of his own money into the contest. Only $43,000 of the $643,000 Franks reported raising came from donors; the rest was from candidate loans.
There’s been plenty of outside spending as well, including from Hamadeh’s brother Waseem Hamadeh and crypto-aligned allies of Masters, whose background is in venture capital.
State assembly Speaker Ben Toma, who has the endorsement of Lesko and outside backers of his own that have put in more than $1 million, has garnered fewer headlines in the primary.
Battleground seats
1st District: Democrats are once again hoping to defeat Rep. David Schweikert, with six Democrats vying for the nomination in a November race rated Tilt Republican.
Andrei Cherny, a former state Democratic chair, and investment banker Conor O’Callaghan have led the way in fundraising, each bringing in more than $2 million as of the July 10 deadline. Of that, $1.1 million of O’Callaghan’s receipts has come from a candidate loan.
Marlene Galan-Woods, a former local news anchor, has raised $1.6 million and has the backing of EMILY’s list, while Amish Shah, a medical doctor and former Arizona state legislator, brought in nearly $1.5 million including candidate loans and contributions of roughly $200,000. Shah’s resume includes time as an on-field doctor for the New York Jets while he was on faculty at New York City’s Mount Sinai hospital.
The limited public polling has found all of those candidates polling in the low double-digits, and none of them prevailing in the primary would be a particular surprise. Also in the race is Andrew Horne, an orthodontist, has loaned his campaign some $1.3 million.
Early voting kicked off July 3, so much of the vote may already be banked — particularly in a Democratic primary.
6th District: There’s less primary drama in the other Arizona district with a race that’s rated Tilt Republican in November. Freshman GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani went into the final days before the primary with $2.7 million in his account, about 100 times the $26,000 reported by his rival in the primary, Kathleen Winn.
Democrat Kirsten Engel, who lost to Ciscomani in 2022 by about 5,200 votes, is set for a rematch. She reported $3.2 million on hand on July 10, some $500,000 more than Ciscomani, after raising more than him both during the second quarter of this year and during the pre-primary period covering the first 10 days of July.
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