After a monthlong break, the 2024 downballot primary season picks up again on Tuesday as voters in Arizona select their party nominees in some of the most important―and ugliest―contests in the nation. In Arizona, like in most states, it takes just a simple plurality to win the primary.
And if it seems like the Grand Canyon State is voting a bit earlier than usual, there's a good reason. While Arizona previously waited until early August to hold its primaries, a new law moved it forward a week to alleviate pressure on elected officials who now expect more frequent recounts due to a separate law passed in 2022.
Polls close at 10 PM ET/7 PM local time in most of the state, though because the Navajo Nation observes daylight saving time, voting will conclude one hour earlier there.
Because election authorities need to verify signatures from mail-in ballots, a large number of votes will likely still need to be counted after Tuesday night, so close races may be unresolved until later in the week. In 2022, for example, about a quarter of the ballots cast in the Republican primary for governor were tabulated after primary day, and it took two days for the Associated Press to call the contest for Kari Lake.
Below, you'll find our guide to all of the top races to watch. When reliable polling is available, we'll tell you about it, but if we don't mention any, it means no recent surveys have been made public.
To help you follow along, you can find an interactive map from Dave's Redistricting App of Arizona's nine congressional districts. You also can find Daily Kos Elections' calculations of the 2020 presidential results for each district, as well as our geographic descriptions of each seat. And you'll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates for primaries that are still to come.
• AZ-Sen (R) (49.4-49.1 Biden): There's little question that Kari Lake, the former Phoenix TV anchor who is still trying to overturn her 2022 loss to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs, will secure the Republican nomination for Senate, but she still has to get past a notable primary foe. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who has his own connections to far-right groups, launched his own effort six months before Lake, but he's raised little money and attracted almost no notable support. An independent poll conducted a week before the primary showed Lake ahead 50-38.
The GOP nominee will face Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who began planning his own campaign against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema even before she announced she was bolting the Democratic Party to become an independent. Sinema, however, ultimately decided to retire, and Gallego has no primary opposition at all.
• AZ-01 (D) (50-49 Biden): Six Democrats are campaigning for the right to take on Republican Rep. David Schweikert in a competitive seat based in northeastern Phoenix and Scottsdale, and there's no obvious front-runner going into Tuesday’s primary.
The two contenders who have brought in the most money are finance executive Conor O'Callaghan, who is self-funding much of his effort, and businessman Andrei Cherny, a former Bill Clinton speechwriter who has his old boss' endorsement. Cherney, who lost the 2012 primary to none other than Kyrsten Sinema in the previous version of the 9th District, is also the only contender who has benefited from major outside spending: Almost $700,000 has been deployed to help him, with the cryptocurrency-aligned Protect Progress representing most of that amount.
The only woman in the race is Marlene Galán-Woods, a former local TV anchor who is the widow of former state Attorney General Grant Woods and would be the state's first Latina member of Congress. Galán-Woods, who, like her late husband, is a former Republican who joined the Democratic Party out of disgust for Donald Trump, is campaigning as a self-proclaimed "moderate."
A super PAC called Turn AZ Blue with ties to Republicans has run ads attacking Galán-Woods in an apparent attempt to meddle in the primary. Because the group does not appear to be in compliance with relevant campaign finance laws, however, it's not clear how much the group is spending.
The only onetime local elected official in the race is Amish Shah, a former state representative who would be the first Indian American to represent Arizona in Congress. The final two Democrats are Andrew Horne, an orthodontist who has self-funded almost all of his campaign, and Kurt Kroemer, a former Arizona regional Red Cross CEO who has significantly less money than any of his five rivals.
• AZ-02 (R) (53-45 Trump): While freshman Rep. Eli Crane was one of the eight Republicans who ended Kevin McCarthy's speakership last year, McCarthy's expensive "revenge tour" has largely bypassed this northeastern Arizona constituency. Crane's primary foe, former Yavapai County Supervisor Jack Smith, has struggled to raise money. It also doesn't help that Smith has the same name as the special counsel appointed to prosecute Trump in the Jan. 6 and classified documents cases.
The winner will go up against former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, who has no opposition in the Democratic primary for this conservative seat.
• AZ-03 (D) (75-24 Biden): Former Phoenix City Councilmember Yassamin Ansari and former state Sen. Raquel Terán are competing in an expensive primary to succeed Senate candidate Ruben Gallego in Arizona's most Democratic House district. A third candidate, pediatrician Duane Wooten, is also on the ballot, but he's attracted little attention.
Each of the main contenders would make history if they prevailed in this seat, which is based in downtown and western Phoenix. Ansari would be the first Iranian American Democrat to serve in Congress (Oklahoma Republican Stephanie Bice became its first Iranian American member following her 2020 win), while Terán would be the first Latina to represent Arizona in the nation's capital.
Both front-runners have benefited from over $2 million in outside spending. Terán has the support of several different organizations, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and progressive Working Families Party. Terán, who is a former state Senate minority leader and state party chair, also has Sen. Mark Kelly's endorsement.
Ansari, for her part, has benefited from heavy spending from Protect Progress. Terán and her allies are hoping to turn that cryptocurrency-aligned super PAC's support into a liability by highlighting its Republican donors. Terán is also arguing that Ansari's backers are "trying to silence" Latinos, who are a majority of the district's residents.
A mid-July poll from Ansari's campaign showed her ahead 41-30, and we haven't seen any more recent numbers.
• AZ-08 (R) (56-43 Trump): Six Republicans are facing off in a truly ugly battle to replace GOP Rep. Debbie Lesko, who announced her retirement in October and later decided to run for a seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
The two contenders who have attracted the most attention are a pair of far-right Republicans who lost statewide races in 2022: venture capitalist Blake Masters, who ran arguably the worst Senate campaign of the cycle, and attorney Abe Hamadeh, who refuses to recognize his tight loss to now-Attorney General Kris Mayes.
While Trump backed Hamadeh last year, the GOP's supreme master announced days before the primary that he's also endorsed Masters. Masters, though, remains the sole candidate who has the support of Trump's running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, while Kari Lake is for Hamadeh.
Masters and his allies have spent the campaign airing Islamophobic commercials against Hamadeh, who grew up in a mixed Muslim-Druze family and now identifies as "non-denominational." (The Druze are an ethnoreligious minority native to the Middle East.) Hamadeh and his backers have hit back with their own attacks on Masters, including the allegation that he lived at a "nudist vegan commune" in college. A crypto-aligned group called Defend American Jobs is helping Masters, while Hamadeh's brother is financing a super PAC to aid him.
State House Speaker Ben Toma, who has Lesko's endorsement, is hoping that the nasty exchange between Masters and Hamadeh, which includes more attacks we couldn't even fit into this preview, has voters looking for a third option. The speaker has emphasized that, unlike those two aforementioned rivals, he lives in the western suburbs of Phoenix. Toma has also benefited from close to $1 million in late spending from a little-known organization called National Interest Action.
The field additionally includes Lesko's immediate predecessor, former Rep. Trent Franks, who resigned in 2017 following a shocking sexual harassment scandal in which he reportedly pushed a pair of aides to serve as surrogate mothers. Franks, who has self-funded almost his entire comeback effort, has been ignored by outside groups.
The final notable name belongs to state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was one of 11 Arizona Republicans indicted in April for serving on a slate of fake electors as part of Donald Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election. Kern, though, has brought in little money and lacks major endorsements. His presence could still be bad news for Toma, however, as the two represent the same voters in the legislature. A little-known candidate named Pat Briody rounds out the field.
A late July internal poll for Masters showed him edging out Hamadeh 23-20. Toma and Franks respectively took 17% and 13%, while Kern grabbed just 5%.
• Maricopa County Sheriff (D & R) (50-48 Biden): Both parties have contested primaries for the seat last won in 2020 by Democrat Paul Penzone, who resigned as sheriff of Arizona's most populous county early this year to take a job in the health insurance industry. Penzone won this office in 2016 by unseating the notorious six-term Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose legacy still looms over both nomination contests.
The Republican majority on the county Board of Supervisors, which was legally obligated to appoint someone from Penzone's party, opted for Russ Skinner―a longtime law enforcement official who switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic one day after Penzone announced his departure. "I'm not tied to my political affiliation," said Skinner, who served under Arpaio before becoming Penzone's top deputy.
Skinner's primary foe is former Phoenix police officer Tyler Kamp, who has reminded Democrats that the incumbent's service coincided with Arpaio's "Tent City" prison. Kamp, though, attracted unwelcome attention weeks before Tuesday’s primary, when ABC15 reported that a 2022 report from the Phoenix Equal Opportunity Department "substantiated" allegations that he sexually harassed a subordinate in 2020 and 2021. Kamp has denied wrongdoing.
On the GOP side, former state Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead has Arpaio's support against two candidates who directly crossed the former sheriff four years ago.
One of those candidates is Jerry Sheridan, a longtime top Arpaio deputy who ended his mentor's 2020 comeback bid by beating him 37-36 in the primary. Sheridan went on to lose to Penzone in a 56-44 landslide as Biden was becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry Maricopa County since Harry Truman in 1948. The final Republican is former law enforcement official Mike Crawford, who took 26% in that primary.
• Maricopa County Attorney (R) (50-48 Biden): The Republican primary to serve as Maricopa County's top prosecutor is a rematch between incumbent Rachel Mitchell and former local prosecutor Gina Godbehere. The winner will face attorney Tamika Wooten, who has the Democratic side to herself
Mitchell, whom the Board of Supervisors appointed in 2022 to fill a vacancy, fended off Godbehere 57-43 later that year. The county GOP, however, censured Mitchell the next year, after she defended Maricopa County from election conspiracy theorist Kari Lake's many lawsuits. Lake, unsurprisingly, is backing Godbehere, who is portraying the incumbent as weak on crime.
• Maricopa County Board of Supervisors: Mainstream Democrats and Republican election deniers are each hoping to take control of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, a five-member body where Republicans have held a majority since 1968. Republicans currently hold a 4-1 majority, and all five seats are on the ballot this year for four-year terms.
Republican Supervisors Clint Hickman and Bill Gates are retiring after spending years on the receiving end of harassment, including death threats, from “big lie” believers who are furious that the two certified the results of the 2020 and 2022 elections. Two more Republicans, Tom Galvin and Jack Sellers, are trying to fend off hard-right primary challengers.
Below is a look at each Republican primary for these four GOP-held seats. The body's only Democrat, Supervisor Steve Gallardo, has no intraparty opposition in his safely blue 5th District around Phoenix.
• District 1 (R) (51-48 Biden): Supervisor Jack Sellers faces GOP primary opposition from Chandler City Councilman Mark Stewart, who has refused to say whether Biden or Hobbs were rightfully elected or if he'd have certified their respective victories.
Democrats almost certainly need to flip this seat to take control of the Board, but such a victory may only be possible if Stewart is the GOP nominee. The Democratic candidate is Tempe City Council member Joel Navarro, who last year predicted that Sellers, whom he said was doing a "wonderful job," wouldn't win renomination.
• District 2 (R) (53-46 Trump): Supervisor Tom Galvin is trying to fend off former state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who sponsored aggressive voting restrictions in Arizona following the 2020 elections and has continued spreading election conspiracy theories this year.
Galvin, though, is hoping that the scandals surrounding his opponent will hinder her campaign for his seat, which includes the cities of Mesa and Scottsdale. A lobbyist in 2016 accused Ugenti-Rita of trying to convince her to take part in a threesome. News 12 also reported just before the primary that Ugenti-Rita falsely listed herself as "unmarried" on financial documents she filed in April 2023, including on a deed trust.
• District 3 (R) (54-45 Biden): Former state Sen. Kate Brophy McGee and attorney Tabatha LaVoie are competing to replace their fellow Republican, retiring Supervisor Bill Gates, in a competitive seat around Phoenix.
Brophy McGee is a relative moderate, while LaVoie, echoing language used by many on the right, warns on her website that Maricopa "cannot continue to raise doubts about the integrity of our elections." (There is no evidence that Maricopa's elections have been anything but free and fair.)
The winner will go up against former Phoenix City Council member Daniel Valenzuela, who lost the 2018 race for mayor to fellow Democrat Kate Gallego but has no intraparty opposition on Tuesday.
• District 4 (R) (57-42 Trump): GOP Rep. Debbie Lesko, who has Trump's endorsement, is the favorite to succeed retiring incumbent Clint Hickman in the region known as the West Valley. The House Freedom Caucus member still has consistently supported her party's most extreme positions, including voting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but her primary foe is somehow even more outspoken about promoting election lies.
That foe is Grand Canyon University professor Bob Branch. Branch narrowly lost his 2018 primary for state superintendent of public institutions, but he continues to claim he really "won" that contest.
• Maricopa County Recorder (R) (50-48 Biden): Stephen Richer, who serves as election administrator for Arizona's largest county, is another Republican who has infuriated the party base by pushing back on lies about the 2020 and 2022 elections, and he faces a difficult primary to keep his job.
Richer's main opponent is state Rep. Justin Heap, who belongs to the state's branch of the Freedom Caucus. While Heap has avoided statements expressing direct support for election denialism, he's promoted legislation supported by conspiracy theorists. The other GOP candidate, software designer Donald Hiatt, has been more overt in spreading election lies.
Richer, for his part, said in June he'd be casting his ballot for President Joe Biden, an admission that came shortly after news broke that a prominent GOP activist told a gathering, "[I]f Stephen Richer walked in this room, I would lynch him." The only Democrat in the race is Tim Stringham, an Army and Navy veteran who said last year that he was already skeptical that Richer would even make it through the primary.
Correction: This piece incorrectly identified former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods as Tom Woods.
