- Rep. Andy Biggs leads primary polls by 30 to 50 points over Rep. David Schweikert and two businessmen.
- Contentious 1st Congressional District Democratic primary features former Republican Marlene Galán-Woods.
- Former Sheriff Mark Lamb faces allegations of sexually suggestive messages that could derail his campaign.
Arizona caught the nation’s attention in 2020 when 10,457 votes sparked election disputes, in 2022 when voters flipped every statewide office blue and in 2024 when it gave President Donald Trump his largest margin of victory of any swing state.
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On Tuesday, Arizona will once again be the center of the political universe.
Party primaries will determine which candidates compete in November, maybe deciding control of Congress, potentially upsetting an incumbent Democratic governor in a difficult environment for Republicans, and testing the limits of Trump’s influence.
The races will reveal much about one of the purplest states in America.
Biggs running with November in mind
In his bid to unseat Gov. Katie Hobbs, Rep. Andy Biggs aims to prove one of the country’s most conservative lawmakers can unite a general electorate. Far ahead in primary polls, he has begun framing himself as a bridge-builder who will transcend partisanship.
“Andy Biggs has already turned his message and attention to the general election,” GOP consultant Chad Heywood told the Deseret News. “He does have a record of governing as the (state) Senate president. … You’ll see him highlight his time in Arizona politics more than his time in D.C.”
Polls put Biggs ahead of his primary challengers by anywhere from 30 percentage points to 50 points. The five-term former chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus faces eight-term U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, and businessmen Ken Miceli and Scott Neely.
Biggs, a graduate of Brigham Young University, has developed the talking points of a peacemaker in his latest campaign, insisting he knows “how to reach across the aisle” and telling the New York Times, “We shouldn’t be at each other’s throat, we should come together.”
That doesn’t mean he has softened on the issues.
His track record includes helping to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, leading attempts to block government spending packages, opposing the certification of Arizona’s 2020 electoral votes and sponsoring federal bans on abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
Biggs has counted on the extensive get-out-the-vote operation of Turning Point Action, founded by conservative organizer Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in Utah. Last year, the group’s COO Tyler Bowyer told the Deseret News Biggs would not have to run to the middle to win.
Turning Point, the reasoning goes, simply needs to use “chase the vote” tactics to convince low-propensity voters to come out in force, like they did for Trump in 2024. The next few months will show how Biggs balances his no-compromise attitude with mass communication.
There is no tension there, Bowyer told the Deseret News on Monday.
Biggs’ focus on addressing affordability and Hobbs’ veto of hundreds of bills — including ones that would have brought Arizona into conformity with Trump’s tax cuts — has demonstrated how fiscal conservatism can have broader appeal, according to Bowyer.
“He’s showcasing that he can meet voters where they are, which is really important no matter what — there’s not very many candidates who can do that,” he said. “When he was Senate president, he was able to bring together Democrats, moderate Republicans, conservative Republicans.”
Hobbs has been framed as one of the most vulnerable Democratic executives in America. It comes down to the math. Republicans hold a 310,000 voter registration advantage in Arizona over Democrats, who come in a distant third behind unaffiliated voters.
But Republicans have squandered this advantage in recent years. Hobbs overcame this kind of spread in 2018. And bold, self-described MAGA candidates like Kari Lake for governor and Blake Masters for Senate in 2022 ceded “red wave” momentum to their Democratic opponents.
Intra-party fights escalate
Schweikert‘s run for governor left an open seat in a district Democrats have been angling to capture for years. Arizona’s 1st Congressional District has been ranked one of the 18 toss-up seats that will decide which party wields a majority in the House of Representatives next term.
Pressure from these heightened stakes has not united Democrats in the Scottsdale area. The leading candidates have turned to calling out the other as an unreliable Democrat as they frame themselves as the best suited to resist Trump’s agenda in Washington, D.C.
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The national party has endorsed Marlene Galán-Woods, pouring more than $2.5 million into the race to promote her story as a former broadcast journalist who ditched her Republican affiliation alongside her husband, the late Arizona attorney general Grant Woods, in protest of Trump.
Galán-Woods faces Democrats’ 2024 nominee, Amish Shah, an ER doctor who claims support from the grassroots. While both candidates hold relatively moderate positions, their rhetoric has hit a new low for Arizona, according to longtime Democratic consultant Stacy Pearson.
Both candidates have tried to rally voters with “enthusiasm to defeat MAGA, Trump-endorsed candidates,” Pearson told the Deseret News. But the winner might struggle to “shake off the mud” and coalesce support after a “really, really, really intense and critical primary,” she said.
Former Arizona Cardinals placekicker Jay Feely is considered the favorite to snag the GOP nomination. He received Trump’s endorsement after the president asked him to drop his bid for Biggs’ Mesa 5th District seat to leave it open for former Sheriff Mark Lamb.
Feely is running against state Rep. Joseph Chaplik and telecommunications executive John Troboug.
If the seat left by Schweikert has become a headache for Democrats, the district abandoned by Biggs has turned into a disaster.
After gaining national recognition with his frequent commentary on border security and his unsuccessful Senate campaign in 2022, Lamb has found himself at the center of swirling allegations about sexual misconduct stemming from an Arizona Republic investigation.
The reporting from May uncovered allegations of a yearslong saga featuring sexually suggestive or explicit messages Lamb allegedly sent to women other than his wife, or to male friends about his wife, through texts and social media. Lamb has strongly denied the allegations.
Despite his solid relationship with GOP voters, the fiasco could prove fatal for Lamb as his opponent, home developer Daniel Keenan, dumps $1.6 million of his own money into advertising the allegations, political strategist Chris Baker told the Deseret News.
“You could not have asked for a worse set of optics when you are running in a primary for Congress,” Baker said. “My guess is the race is going to be a lot closer than I think a lot of people believe it will be. … I think it’s probably pretty close to 50/50 right now.”
While some GOP voters have shown a tolerance for supporting candidates with allegations of adultery, Baker suspects they will carry more weight among the Latter-day Saint-leaning demographic of Mesa, especially with a conservative alternative on the ballot.
Lamb, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has responded by mostly ignoring the allegations. And by leaning heavily on his Trump endorsement — which, in Arizona primaries, remains “undefeated,” according to Heywood.
“The Trump endorsement has kept Lamb from collapsing,” Baker said.
After Tuesday’s primary, voters will see if it will push him across the finish line.
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