An open US Senate seat is at the top of the card on the 2024 Arizona primary preview.
While voters in the Grand Canyon State wait to see if their junior senator will be on the national ticket, their senior senator, Kyrsten Sinema, is retiring. The race to succeed her will get about as much attention as the presidential race in Arizona, but the nominations for Senate as well as several competitive House races will be at stake in Arizona’s July 30 primary.
2024 Arizona Primary Preview: US Senate
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I) is not seeking re-election in 2024, standing down after one term in which she frequently bucked her former party, the Democrats. Speaking of the Democratic Party, that nomination is settled: Congressman Ruben Gallego is the sole candidate standing.
On the Republican side, however, there is a competitive fight. At the top of the pile is Kari Lake, a former local news anchor and the 2022 GOP nominee for governor. Lake lost to Katie Hobbs by about 17,000 votes, and this ardent Trump and MAGA supporter has chosen the Senate race to make her political comeback. Her chief opponent is Mark Lamb, a conservative and the sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona’s third-largest county. Beth Reye, a neuroscientist who calls herself a “Reagan Republican,” is also in the running.
Polling on this race is thin, but Lake has a significant advantage in terms of funding and endorsements. She also has the name recognition from having just run statewide in a prior election. No surprise that Donald Trump is backing his disciple Lake, who should be considered the favorite in this primary.
2024 Arizona Primary Preview: US House
AZ-01
The 1st District of Arizona will be a key race in 2024. Republican incumbent David Schweikert defeated Democrat Jevin Hodge by less than a point in this northeast Maricopa County district in 2022. Hodge is not running again in 2024, but six new Democrats are. Among the field are Andrei Cherny, the former Arizona Democratic Party chair, and Marlene Galán-Woods, who was a television journalist and is the widow of former Arizona attorney general Grant Woods.
AZ-03
Incumbent Ruben Gallego is running for Senate, so the Democrat’s Phoenix-based seat is open. A heavily-Democratic district, the 3rd’s primary will be the most decisive. Three Democrats are seeking this seat in Congress: Yassamin Ansari, a former member of the Phoenix City Council, Duane Wooten, a medical doctor, and Raquel Teran, a former state legislator. Three Republicans are also running.
AZ-06
There are few candidates in this southeastern seat which grazes Tucson, but it is worth mentioning as Republican Juan Ciscomani won by 1.4 points in 2022 over Kirsten Engel. Both are running again, and Engel has no opposition, but Ciscomani does. Kathleen Winn is running against the incumbent in the primary. Like several other candidates on the Arizona ballot, Winn was a television journalist in the past.
AZ-08
Republican incumbent Debbie Lesko is standing down in 2024, opening up a GOP free-for-all in the northern Maricopa County 8th District. The winner of the Republican primary will have a significant advantage in the November election, but this primary features some big and familiar names in Arizona politics.
GOP candidates in the 8th include Blake Masters, US Senate nominee against Mark Kelly in 2022, Abe Hamadeh, 2022 attorney general nominee, Ben Toma, the speaker of the Arizona House, and Trent Franks, a former congressman.
2024 Arizona Primary Preview: State Legislature
All 30 seats in the Arizona Senate and all 60 seats in the Arizona House are up for election in 2024. Republicans claim the smallest of majorities in both chambers: 16 to 14 in the Senate, and 31 to 28 in the House with one vacancy.
Most State Senate races do not feature competitive primaries. 18 contests feature primaries in which there are one or zero candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides.
The Arizona House has a bit more action, but this is also because Arizona’s legislative districts are two-member seats on the House level. Democrats have not held both houses of the Arizona Legislature since the mid-1960s, but they enter this primary needing gains of two in each chamber to do it in 2024.
