Arizona again to play outsized role in 2024 presidential and Senate races

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Ready or not, it’s now a presidential election year and Arizona is once again one of the few states considered up for grabs by both parties.

Democrats’ recent run of success in Arizona’s federal races will face perhaps their stiffest test in November, when the presidential contest and competitive U.S. Senate and U.S. House races will offer a new measure of the state’s partisan loyalties.

"The control of the presidency, the control of the United States Senate, the control of the United States House of Representatives ... that all is going to be decided, potentially, by a margin of just 10,000 votes in Arizona," said Tony Cani, a longtime Democratic strategist based in Arizona. "All the way down the line, there are competitive races."

President Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 by fewer than 11,000 votes. It was the smallest margin in the country, which would make any incumbent nervous the next time around.

Add to that, a smattering of polls that consistently showed Biden trailing former President Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner, in Arizona.

There’s about nine months before voters start casting their ballots, but if Biden is going to stage a comeback in Arizona, it likely needs to start showing up in public opinion soon.

Border security has again dominated national news and the two-decade run of legislative futility on that front is intact. It is an Arizona-specific issue that tends to energize Republicans and demoralize a swath of potential voters who are young, often Hispanic and prefer Democrats.

Without this group, Biden and other Democrats must lean even more on independents and disaffected Republicans. The young already vote in smaller numbers and independents also vote below their share of registered voters.

Inflation continues to fall back to normal historical levels, but the Phoenix area suffered the worst numbers in the nation for part of the pandemic-era spike in prices. Many Arizonans haven’t forgotten the surge in gas, food and housing prices, and they remain skeptical that the near-term is getting better.

Third-party candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or perhaps former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., could further complicate the path to winning Arizona.

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If that suggests a difficult path for Biden, Republicans know their hold on the state is less than solid.

Arizona played a starring role in Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election and voters could punish him for it.

Arizona Republicans underperformed in statewide races in 2022 and the consensus theory is that their election denialism hurt them. Trump faces four criminal cases outside Arizona and the state’s attorney general is probing the “fake electors” who sought to claim Trump won the state.

All of that could serve as a drag on Trump’s chances, presuming he is the eventual Republican nominee.

Arizona’s U.S. Senate race offers a similarly hazy outlook but for entirely different reasons.

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., hasn’t officially said whether she will seek another six-year term. To qualify for the November ballot, Sinema must gather signatures — more than usual because she’s an independent — and that takes time, money and organizational effort that will clearly show whether she is in or out.

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U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is the only prominent member of his party in the race.

Kari Lake, a former Phoenix TV broadcaster and failed gubernatorial candidate, is widely viewed as the front-runner for the Republicans and she has Trump’s endorsement. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb also is running for the GOP nomination.

If Sinema runs, it would promise a rare three-way race with little precedent in Arizona. Republican Evan Mecham won the three-way 1986 gubernatorial race with less than 40% of the vote. The Democrat got nearly 35% and an independent who previously ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat finished third with 26%.

This year’s Senate race has some different dynamics.

At least for the moment, Sinema seems to be peeling off more support from Republicans than Democrats. Sinema consistently is running in third place well behind Gallego and Lake in polling.

If she decides not to run, it could potentially pit Gallego against Lake, two people sure to be cast as ultra-extremists by their opponents.

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The intrigue continues further down the ballot with Reps. David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani widely seen as two of the most vulnerable sitting House Republicans in the country.

Schweikert has represented Arizona in Congress for more than a decade. But his hold on his current seat, which stretches across northeastern Maricopa County, has grown weaker since redistricting made his seat much more competitive. In 2022, he squeaked out a win against Democrat Jevin Hodge by around 3,000 votes.

Democrats are now chomping at the bit to challenge Schweikert for the seat. The packed primary field includes Marlene Galán-Woods, a former journalist and the widow of former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods; Andrei Cherny, a former Arizona Democratic Party chair; Conor O'Callaghan, who works in finance; Andrew Horne, an orthodontist; Amish Shah, a doctor and a state representative; and Kurt Kroemer, a former nonprofit executive.

Ciscomani faces a similar terrain. The race for his Tucson-area district, which includes much of the southeastern quadrant of the state, is shaping up to be a rematch between Ciscomani and Kirsten Engel, a former state senator who has emerged as the leading Democratic candidate.

Engel lost to Ciscomani in 2022 by a narrow margin of about 5,000 votes.

In other House districts, the action will take place during each party's primary elections. Two frontrunners have emerged in the race to replace Gallego in Arizona's bright-blue 3rd Congressional District, which covers much of southern, western, and downtown Phoenix, as he runs for the Senate: Yassamin Ansari, the Phoenix vice mayor, and Raquel Terán, a former state senator and Arizona Democratic Party chair.

Both self-described progressives, the two profess the same viewpoints on major campaign issues including supporting access to abortion, action to combat climate change, and Medicare for All, though Ansari has cast herself as more moderate on certain policy issues including U.S.-Israeli relations and policing.

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The difference between candidates is even starker in the heated race to replace Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., who represents many of Phoenix's northern and western suburbs in Arizona's 8th Congressional District. In the weeks since Lesko announced that she would retire at the end of her term, more than a dozen candidates entered the race.

Trump recently endorsed Abe Hamadeh, the unsuccessful 2022 candidate for Arizona attorney general, in a blow to the venture capitalist Blake Masters, another major MAGA-aligned candidate in the race.

Lesko herself has endorsed Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, a more traditional conservative Republican. Former U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, who resigned in 2017 amid a scandal involving female staffers in his office, also is running for the seat.

No matter the outcome, Arizonans can expect to be saturated with political content during the upcoming year.

"You won’t be able to watch TV on commercial networks without watching political ad after political ad. Your mailbox will be stuffed," said Doug Cole, a veteran GOP strategist based in Arizona. "Many have predicted that Arizona will have the highest political spending per voter in the United States. So buckle up, voters.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona 2024 election: Presidential, Senate races on the ballot