Election Day is kind of like our Super Bowl.
All the stories we wrote about candidates and campaigns over the past few months were designed to prepare voters to make informed choices at the ballot box.
Tomorrow, we get to see what voters decided to do with all that information, and which direction they want Southern Arizona to take.
But Election Day is a snoozefest for a swath of local voters. They’ll sit out the election without casting a ballot, whether that’s because they’re too busy taking care of their families, they don’t feel like they know enough to vote, they don’t realize an election is happening, or any number of reasons.
Even in November 2024, which had one of the highest turnout in recent memory, nearly a quarter of local voters didn’t cast a ballot.
And a small portion of those nonvoters could have swung several recent elections. In 2022, Attorney General Kris Mayes eked out a win by just 280 votes, and in 2024 Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos won by 481 votes.
Donald Trump was on the ballot back in 2024. And although you could argue this year’s midterms will be a referendum on a president who appears to have cyclosporiasis of the mouth, his name won’t be on the ballot to drum up excitement (or horror) among voters.
Without that sense of urgency, tomorrow’s elections might look a lot more like the other end of the turnout spectrum: the RTA Next election earlier this year, when nearly 68% of local voters didn’t vote.
When you do the math on that election, it comes to 19% of the votes supported RTA Next and 13% opposed it.
All it took to get a $2.67 billion plan approved was convincing just one in five voters.
Showing up matters.
So, for all of you who do vote, we want to give you a big round of applause. It’s really easy to take for granted that people will do their civic duty, but you deserve some recognition for putting in the time to learn about the issues and candidates and then casting your ballot.
We’re not going to turn this into a “support local journalism” pitch, but supporting local journalism — whether that’s paying for it or just reading it — is also a form of civic participation, and we thank you for it.
You are the people who set the political course for Southern Arizona, and to a certain extent the state and the country as a whole.
When the dust settles later this week on the primary election, we’ll have a clearer picture of which candidates and issues will be the focus of the political conversation for the next three months.
So here are a few things we’ll be watching tomorrow night.
The Big Three: Democrats hold three of the most important statewide offices — governor, attorney general and secretary of state — so there aren’t contested Democratic primaries in those races. GOP voters, on the other hand, have some interesting choices to make. Will Republican voters choose the MAGA poster child Alexander Kolodin or the more mainstream Gina Swoboda in the secretary of state race? For attorney general, will onetime Tucson City Council Democrat Rodney Glassman win an election for the first time in two decades, or will GOP voters pick Warren Petersen as their nominee? It looks like U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (who, fun fact, is also a Tucsonan by birth) has all but wrapped up the Republican nomination for governor, which means he’ll face Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in November.
The mudslinging to come: All of those statewide and legislative offices are going to spawn monthslong slugfests that kick off in earnest this week. And, of course, we’re all going to watch the main event of the general elections in Southern Arizona: the knock-down-drag-out contest between Democrat JoAnna Mendoza and Republican Congressman Juan Ciscomani in Congressional District 6.
Who’s going to the Legislature?: Most Southern Arizona legislative districts are dominated by Democratic or Republican voters — meaning the primary is the de facto general election. So we’ll know by Wednesday or Thursday which Democrats are almost certain to represent Legislative Districts 18 (covering the north and east sides of Tucson), LD20 (Flowing Wells, midtown and the south side) and LD21 (stretching from southeast Tucson to Nogales and Bisbee). And we’ll know which Republicans will represent Southern Arizona’s LD19, a conservative stronghold based in Cochise County.
Who’s in the hot races?: But in competitive districts like Oro Valley’s LD17, this week’s election will only decide which Democrats and Republicans advance to a real fight in November. Also keep an eye on LD23, which stretches from Yuma to the southern outskirts of Tucson — Republicans hold a seat in that ostensibly blue district, and four Democrats are battling it out for nominations to two seats.
All politics is local (and global): The town council elections in Marana could be decided this week. As we’ve noted before, those elections aren’t just about the future of what used to be a small farming town. They’re also the front lines of the debate over the role of AI in the global economy. If the anti-data-center candidates win in Marana, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a feature on them in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. And their platform could inspire slates of candidates in other small towns in Southern Arizona where data centers are planned.
How will Oro Valley grow?: The fight for three seats on the Oro Valley Town Council, as well as who will be Oro Valley’s next mayor, may come down to how voters want to see the town expand in coming years. At least two candidates are pushing for the town to adopt policies to build more affordable housing through more density, while their rivals don’t want to see higher density developments in the low density community.
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South Tucson’s newest fight: Voters are deciding whether they want to keep a slate of council members who are trying to build affordable housing or embrace challengers who want to focus on acute economic issues facing the square-mile city. Some of those challenging the incumbents also want to see the return of Flock cameras in the small community, reversing a decision by the current council majority.
Here are the top events this week for those who want a front-row seat to local politics.
The Democrats of Greater Tucson meet virtually today at noon. The guest speaker is Jackie McGuire, who is running for a seat on the Marana Town Council. You must register in advance here.
Pima County Republican Club meets Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. at The Kettle just west of I-10 on 22nd St.
The Tucson City Council meets Tuesday at 1 p.m. inside Tucson City Hall in downtown Tucson. (Agenda/livestream.)
Tuesday is election night. Results start flowing in at 8 p.m.
The Tucson Unified School District Governing Board is holding a special executive session and meets on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at the Duffy Community Center, 5145 E. 5th Street, 85711, in the Multipurpose Room. The agenda will be posted here.
We’re still expecting a special session with the Pima County Board of Supervisors sometime this week to appoint a new Pima County treasurer, probably an online-only meeting.
Did we miss an event? Email Joe to get it on our radar.
Retired Arizona Daily Star and Pulitzer-finalist cartoonist David Fitzsimmons wrote about his seven-year fight to donate four decades of his work to the University of Arizona Library’s Special Collections Archive.
Fitzsimmons wants to give his alma mater “10,000 cartoon originals, a large collection of relevant ephemera, my Arizona-related political mementos, and hundreds of relevant correspondences.”
But his former employer (and ours), Lee Enterprises, won’t let him donate the illustrations that appeared in the Star and hundreds of other publications.
The issue, of course, is money. And the potential that the University of Arizona could potentially charge people to see his works, although Fitzsimmons points out gallery shows at the UA are free.
Fitz, always the gentleman, says people shouldn’t cancel their subscriptions to the Star, but he hopes lawyers with Lee Enterprises will reconsider their stance.
Give ‘em hell, Fitz.1
1 If you are reading this, Fitz, we’re still honored you did a takeover of our sister publication, the Arizona Agenda. Might be time for a takeover of the Tucson Agenda.