The race for Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 6 — expected to be one of the most competitive in the nation — is effectively tied in this early fundraising showdown.
Newly released federal campaign finance reports show Democratic former Marine JoAnna Mendoza has caught up to incumbent Republican Congressman Juan Ciscomani, more than doubling his fundraising haul over the last three months.
Between January 1 and March 31, Mendoza raised $2.44 million, while Ciscomani brought in $1.14 million during the same period.
Armed with early endorsements from Arizona heavy hitters like U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, Mendoza has raised $5.31 million since launching her campaign in February 2025. By comparison, Ciscomani — backed by deep political connections in Washington — has brought in $5.13 million.
But as a newcomer, she has been spending more than Ciscomani, attempting to increase her name ID in the community. As such, her campaign is sitting on less cash in the bank than the incumbent — about $3.5 million to his $3.8 million.
Democrats are making a hard push to retake the House this November, and flipping CD6 is critical to their plan.
Mendoza was an early favorite among Democrats, and she was able to clear the field of potential primary competitors well before the primary began to take shape.
A half-dozen Democrats — Mo Goldman, Chris Donat, Aiden Swallow, Johnathan Buma and Samantha Severson among them — tested the waters in CD6 last year. By 2026, they had all exited and rallied behind Mendoza.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee backed her in February, adding her to its “Red to Blue” program — a move that helped open the floodgates to out-of-state donors in the final stretch of the reporting period. They hope that as President Donald Trump’s approval numbers soften, Ciscomani’s close alignment with the White House and House leadership will shift from asset to liability.
The Cook Political Report still rates CD6 as a “toss-up,” giving both parties an even shot at flipping the seat this November. That rating hasn’t budged since last fall, even as national Democrats have zeroed in on the district as a top pickup opportunity.
And for good reason — the district has long been a political ping-pong table.
Democrat Gabrielle Giffords once held the district’s seat, followed by fellow Democrat Ron Barber. Republicans flipped it in 2014 with Martha McSally, before Ann Kirkpatrick reclaimed it for Democrats. Ciscomani won the seat when Kirkpatrick retired in 2022, and held the seat in 2024.
For Mendoza, the money flowed in through standard political channels — small dollar individual contributions accounted for $4.2 million of her campaign war chest, where Ciscomani brought in $3.2 million in individual contributions.
The rest of his haul came from joint-fundraising committees, leadership committees and political action committees. At the moment, Ciscomani has the lead in those circles, but that could change as we grow closer to November and national Democrats invest more heavily in flipping the seat.
All told, Ciscomani brought in more than $365,000 in PAC money in the last quarter and reported $1.8 million in PAC contributions as of the end of March.
By comparison, Mendoza took in nearly $121,000 in PAC contributions last quarter and $363,000 for the cycle.
Both campaigns announced the new reports as a sign of political momentum.
“I’m so humbled by the support our campaign has received as we move forward into the rest of 2026,” Mendoza said. “Our grassroots movement is growing by the day, and as Juan Ciscomani continues to hide from his constituents and lie to our faces, communities across southern Arizona are noticing, and they’re fed-up. Failure is not an option!”
The Ciscomani campaign said they’ve never been more ready for November.
“Juan enters this important stage of the race with significantly more resources than he’s had in any other cycle, a reflection of his work and reputation in the district. Mendoza will need all her money and more to hide her very out-of-touch record on the issues,” campaign spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said.
Editor’s note: We’ve updated the story to reflect accurate numbers for cash on hand for both candidates.
Another whoopsie from the sheriff: The Pima County Sheriff’s Department mistakenly released a convicted sex offender due to what officials are calling an administrative error, Arizona Public Media’s Angela Gervasi reports. The 72-year-old man was released Monday afternoon and detectives took him back into custody on Tuesday morning near downtown Tucson.
Starting the clock: TUSD officials gave more details about the timeline for the plan to shut down schools at the governing board meeting Tuesday evening, Shannon Conner reports for the Arizona Luminaria. The first phase will take about seven months as officials explore which schools could be closed or consolidated. TUSD parents will get their first look at the list in August. Then, officials will present a strategic plan to the governing board in December.
Let the man forage!: After spending nearly a year in immigration detention, Tucson’s “mushroom man” may have just cleared the last hurdle toward getting his freedom, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. Earlier this month, federal prosecutors dropped charges against Hernán Castro, a well-known mushroom forager who was accused of omitting information on his citizenship application. But he remained in ICE custody. He was released from custody on Friday and federal officials said they would take no further action against him.
“It was a wrongful detention, and I’m glad it’s over,” Castro said. “I don't want to talk about that now — I’d like to talk about what I love, which is mushrooms.”
One less thing to worry about: The University of Arizona’s purchase of the beleaguered Ashford University in 2020 won’t cost the UA the $72 million in debt incurred by Ashford students who said they were defrauded, the Arizona Daily Star’s Prerana Sannappanavar reports. U.S. Department of Education officials had been trying to recoup that money, but they sent a letter to the UA (which the Star obtained through a public records request) saying it is “not appropriate” to keep trying to get the money from the UA.
You know what’s always appropriate? Helping out your favorite hard-working local journalists.
Spate of shootings: Law enforcement officers in the Tucson area shot four people in just eight days this month, including two shootings that were fatal, Nick Rommel reports for AZPM. Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz, whose district was the site of all four shootings, called it an “unusual burst of activity,” but said violent crime is down in Tucson and Pima County.
It isn’t easy to get headlines running for Congress when you are the Green Party candidate.
So we appreciate Gary Swing’s sense of humor when people forget about him.
But to be fair, Swing is not actually on the ballot.
He’s a write-in candidate.
He only would have needed 220 signatures from Green Party voters to qualify as a candidate in the primary.
But Arizona law allows candidates to run as write-in candidates and appear on the November ballot if they receive at least as many votes as the number of signatures they would have needed — meaning Swing will need 220 votes in the primary to be an actual candidate on the ballot.
As to the accusation that a Green Party candidate will only serve as a “spoiler” for Democrats, it’s worth noting that even if every single vote for the Green Party candidate had gone to Democratic nominee Kirsten Engel in 2024, she would have come up 63 votes short of Ciscomani.