The race for Tucson Congressman Juan Ciscomani’s seat in Congressional District 6 — expected to be one of the most competitive in the nation — is beginning to pick up speed.
Campaign finance reports shows Marine Corps veteran JoAnna Mendoza raised roughly $950,000 for her campaign war chest during the last three months of last year, compared to the roughly $1,020,000 Ciscomani took in. That’s a difference of about $70,000.
But Ciscomani still has more than double the amount in the bank as Mendoza — $3.15 million in his coffers as of Dec. 31, compared to the roughly $1.54 million Mendoza has stockpiled.
Both had sizable war chests going into the fourth quarter — Ciscomani had $2.4 million in the bank at the end of September, compared to the $950,000 that Mendoza had in her checking account.
As of a month ago, Ciscomani has more than double cash on hand than Mendoza.
That’s largely a reflection that Ciscomani is an incumbent who continues to benefit from his two terms in Congress while Mendoza — a Pinal County native — is still largely a political newcomer as far as CD6 voters were concerned.
Most politicos say it is still early enough that another Democrat could enter the race. Sure, technically. But Mendoza’s fundraising muscle and endorsement list has already elbowed out other would-be Democratic challengers in CD6.
A half-dozen Democrats — Mo Goldman, Chris Donat, Aiden Swallow, Johnathan Buma and Samantha Severson among them — explored a run in CD6 last year. Fast forward to 2026, and all have bowed out in favor of backing Mendoza.
The district has always been politically competitive.
It was Democrat Gabrielle Giffords’ district, then Democrat Ron Barber served for nearly two terms, then Republican Martha McSally controlled the district after winning in 2014, then Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick took it back when McSally ran for Senate, and Ciscomani took over when Kirkpatrick retired.
The Cook Political Report lists CD6 as a “toss-up,” giving equal chances to both parties to win the seat in November midterms.
Political Action Committees continue to back Ciscomani in the CD6 race.
Still, fundraising is only one metric of success in a complicated race.
With no primary challenger and solid name recognition in the district, Ciscomani’s “burn rate” (how much a candidate spends versus takes in each quarter) is significantly lower than Mendoza’s.
His campaign spent about 24% of what it raised in the fourth quarter, compared to the 38% that Mendoza spent during the same period.
That’s not a surprise: Mendoza still needs to put in money early in the campaign cycle to continue to get name recognition, even if she doesn’t have a high-profile Democratic challenger.
While they are neck and neck in terms of raising money this last quarter, the incumbent Ciscomani has the advantage of a deep donor base and existing joint fundraising committees, as well as House leadership groups, which wouldn’t fund candidates that have a primary challenge.
Not to mention, he has built relationships with well-heeled PACs in D.C.
Contributions to the independent Ciscomani Victory Fund PAC, as well as U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Grow the Majority fundraising committee, brought in a combined $1.1 million last year to the Tucson Republican’s campaign.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) encouraged individual donations directly to Ciscomani’s campaign. As of Dec. 31, 2025, the Republican candidate had received roughly $350,000 in donations from AIPAC.
AIPAC encouraged people to donate up to $7,000 to Ciscomani’s campaign.
All told, Ciscomani brought in more than $140,000 in PAC money in the last quarter and reported $1 million in PAC contributions as of the end of the year.
By comparison, Mendoza took in nearly $100,000 in PAC contributions last quarter and $242,000 for the year.
And while Mendoza doesn’t have the level of PAC support that Ciscomani has, she is also benefitting from her ties to some political associations like Hell Cats — a group of four democratic Congressional candidates with military experience.
And she has a close ally in Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly.
With no reelection campaign to run until 2028, Kelly’s latest campaign finance reports show that he donated or raised nearly a half-million for the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates around the state in the last year, including donating $14,000 to Mendoza, and another $14,000 to CD1 candidate Jonathan Nez — two Democrats he has endorsed in key races designed to take control of the U.S. House.
Political heavyweights with deep pockets like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee believe Ciscomani is vulnerable in the next election cycle, but they will not open their wallets until after the Democratic primary this summer.
Which isn’t to say that Democratic groups stopped their ongoing efforts to criticize Ciscomani at every turn, like holding public forums in his district.
In a swing district like CD6, the overall political atmosphere often plays an outsized role in deciding close elections.
Political pollsters expect Democrats to pick up seats in the midterm, and as President Donald Trump’s popularity continues to dip, Ciscomani’s ties to the White House and House leadership could become a liability.
The ICE OUT! protests in Tucson on Friday was one for the record books, as an estimated 6,000 people poured into downtown Tucson, dozens of businesses voluntarily closed and enough teachers called out to force the closure of nearly two dozen schools in Tucson Unified School District.
The protests mirror those across the country as citizens spent Friday (or Saturday) participating in a national strike tied to violent and deadly clashes with immigration enforcement agents in Minnesota.
Thousands of protesters filled streets in downtown Tucson on Friday as part of the ICE OUT! national protests. (Photos by Rebecca Noble / rebeccanoblephoto.com)
The largest local protest took place in downtown Tucson, where locals briefly marched down streets without violence.
On the University of Arizona campus, students demanded that the university leadership take a stand on the ICE sweeps.
Students — especially international students — are concerned that while other Tucson officials have made powerful statements against immigration raids, the UA leadership have been quiet.
Stuck inside: A measles outbreak at immigration detention centers in Florence is raising concerns about how the spread is being managed, as well as worrying families who aren’t getting much information about whether their detained loved ones were exposed, Emily Bregel reports for the the Arizona Daily Star. So far, three measles cases have been reported at the detention centers.
More guards, more bars, more drones?: The Oro Valley Police Department is adding four new drones powered by controversial Flock Safety technology, per Arizona Public Media’s Nick Rommel. The town council approved a deal last week to use $146,000 annually in state money set aside for border-related crime. The new first-responder drones can be piloted remotely to a crime scene, instead of waiting for officers to arrive and then deploying a drone.
All that glitters needs to be sold: The Trump administration’s tariffs are creating unprecedented challenges for vendors at the gem show, KOLD’s Payton May reports. Most of the gems and minerals at the show come from outside the country, but until the tariffs they generally were considered duty-free.
“We are beholden to the importation of goods from overseas simply due to the fact that everything that we deal in, that we work in, is not geologically available in the United States,” American Gem Trade Association Board President Bruce Bridges said.
Quite a milestone: For the first time in a decade, Tucson doesn’t have any new student housing projects in the works, per the Star’s Gabriela Rico. Three projects were canceled or postponed as construction costs rose, enrollment dropped at the University of Arizona and rent prices started to fall.
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It’s all about intent: The Arizona Supreme Court sided with Pima County Attorney Laura Conover on Friday, allowing longer sentences for people who lure minors for sexual exploitation, even if the “minor” is actually an undercover cop, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. Conover and several other state officials argued that a lower court was wrong to require proof that the victim was actually a child. The justices relied on the “spirit and purpose of the statute” and said the defendant “set out to intentionally harm a minor.”
While we were tracking what the ICE squads were doing elsewhere before they set up shop in Tucson and Phoenix, we came across U.S. District Judge Fred Biery’s nearly perfect takedown of the Trump administration.
In his three-page order for the federal government to release Adrian Conejo Arias and his five-year-old son, the Texas federal judge offered the administration a free civics lesson — highlighting passages from the Declaration of Independence, citing the Bible twice, quoting founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and attaching the viral photo of Arias’ son as he was being arrested.
“The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,“ Biery wrote. ”Apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence.”
So why “nearly perfect?”
Biery’s letter is dated “2-31-26.” So the document is both from the future and from a timeline where February has more than 28 days.
Biery will have to re-file his order with the correct date, January 31, 2026.