2024 Arizona election: Who is running in the 3rd Congressional District?

The 2024 Democratic primary race to replace Rep. Ruben Gallego already is jammed with hopefuls.

Arizona's 3rd Congressional District includes parts of Phoenix, such as south Phoenix, Laveen and Maryvale, and portions of Glendale. It leans heavily Democratic to the point where the Democratic primary election likely will decide who takes the seat in the general election.

Gallego, D-Ariz., is vacating the seat to run for the U.S. Senate in 2024.

Here are the candidates who hope to replace him.

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Ylenia Aguilar

Ylenia Aguilar is a member of the governing board for the Osborn school district. If elected, she would be the first member of Congress from Arizona to have been a formerly undocumented immigrant.

She is a business development manager for Arizona communities at SOURCE Global, a company that provides clean water to various groups through technology such as hydropanels.

Her most important policy issues are healthcare and education.

Aguilar was brought to the United States as an infant from Mexico and gained legal status from her mom, who became documented as a result of the Violence Against Women Act. She would become a U.S. citizen in 2014.

Yassamin Ansari

Yassamin Ansari is the vice mayor of Phoenix and the first Iranian-American elected to political office in Arizona.

Ansari previously worked at the United Nations and Mission 2020, a campaign aimed at tackling climate change quickly.

Housing affordability is a policy priority for Ansari, who advocated for Phoenix's ordinance to prevent housing discrimination based on income.

Hector Jaramillo

Hector Jaramillo is an at-large member of the Glendale Elementary School District Governing Board.

He is a behavior interventionist with the Peoria School District, whose contract ended with the school year.

Jaramillo is positioning himself as the most progressive candidate in the primary. He supports Medicare-for-all and wants to bolster unions.

An important issue for Jaramillo is immigration, a topic which is personal to him. His father was deported when he was a young child and Jaramillo has not been able to see him often as a result. Other major issues include affordable housing and education.

Laura Pastor

Laura Pastor is a member of the Phoenix City Council, a position she was first elected to a decade ago. In that position, she has been critical about how Phoenix managed the eviction of mobile home residents.

She is a former school teacher.

Pastor’s major issues include: health care, economic inequality, water and Social Security.

She is the daughter of late veteran Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., who represented the area in Congress for many years prior to Gallego.

Raquel Terán

Raquel Terán is a former state senator who resigned from her seat in mid-April earlier this year to focus on her congressional bid. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., has endorsed her candidacy.

Immigration is an important issue to Terán. She was one of the organizers against Senate Bill 1070, a controversial 2010 Arizona law that targeted illegal immigrants and was supported by former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Other policy issues important to Terán include: affordable housing, universal health care and abortion rights. She previously worked for Planned Parenthood and is the former chair of the Arizona Democratic Party.

Tara Kavaler is a politics reporter at The Arizona Republic. She can be reached by email at tara.kavaler@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @kavalertara.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Here's who's running in Arizona's 3rd Congressional District