Southern Arizona's political chessboard

Inside a Marana elementary school last Friday night, Attorney General Kris Mayes called 2026 the most important election of her life.

Not 2024. Not 2020. Not 2016.

We’re largely unfazed by that kind of political hyperbole. We’ve heard it every election cycle. But Mayes might have a point.

And one reason she might be right is Marana’s Legislative District 17, where Democrats are pouring time, money and attention into flipping Republican-held seats in the Arizona Legislature.

Mayes spoke excitedly last Friday about Democrats taking control of the statehouse and the almost unimaginable prospect of Democratic bills actually getting hearings in legislative committees.

That could change if Democrats take control of the Legislature, giving them the power to set the agenda rather than negotiate with Republicans just to get a hearing.

In order to flip the Legislature, Democrats will have to win three seats in the Senate and four in the House.

And a handful of Southern Arizona legislative districts are key to that strategy.

The fight is playing out on the streets of the sprawling district that covers both Vail and parts of Marana. Political signs line seemingly every street corner, and LD17 residents tell us their mailboxes are overflowing with attack ads against the candidates.

Turning Point has been active in the district, including hiring former Republican senator and known leadfoot Justine Wadsack (who represented LD17 before losing her seat two years ago) to help Republicans win Southern Arizona legislative races.

Republicans have reason to be nervous after Democratic Rep. Kevin Volk won one of the two House seats in 2024, showing for the first time in several cycles that the district is competitive.

Republican Rep. Rachel Keshel currently holds one of the district’s two House seats alongside Volk. Democrat Holly Lyon and Republican John Winchester are also competing for those seats.

If Lyon, who ran for a House seat in 2014 and 2018 in a previous iteration of the district, can pull it off, it’ll inch Democrats one seat closer to control of the House.

Meanwhile, the district’s senate seat is open after Republican Sen. Vince Leach announced his retirement, giving Democrats a better pickup opportunity than they’ve had in years.

Democrat Edgar Soto and Republican Chris King are competing to replace him.

And while King, a moderate Republican who has Leach’s backing, is the odds-on favorite, an upset here would go a long way toward flipping the state Senate.

Republicans have a 10-percentage-point voter registration advantage in the district, but 35% of district voters aren’t registered with either major party.

Democrats are once again trying to defeat Republican Rep. Michele Peña in Legislative District 23 — one of the biggest districts in the state, spanning from Yuma to Goodyear.

Like LD17, the district has one Republican and one Democrat serving in the House, making it one of only a handful of split districts in the state.

But unlike LD17, this district leans solidly Democratic.

Peña’s victory here in 2022 was seen as something of a fluke — she qualified for the ballot as a write-in candidate in the Republican primary — until she won again in 2024 and actually increased her share of the vote.

If Democrats want to take over the House, they’ll almost certainly need to take out Peña.

In the past two election cycles, Peña has been the only Republican running for the two House seats — a tactic known as a “single-shot”: voters get two House votes, so Republicans cast just one — for Peña — while Democrats may split theirs between two candidates. One concentrated vote beats two diluted ones.

But this year, Peña won’t be the only Republican running for the state House in LD23.

She’ll be joined by Republican Gary Garcia Snyder on the ballot, screwing up the strategy that helped her secure her seat in this unlikely district.

Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Mariana Sandoval is trying to keep her seat, and Democrat Emilia Cortez is joining her in an attempt to flip the district fully blue.

If Democrats can pry the seat from Peña, they might have a chance at flipping the state House for the first time in a generation.

Democrats have the registration advantage in the district, but the largest voting bloc — 42% of registered voters in LD23 — is neither Democrats nor Republicans.

At Mayes’ town hall last Friday night, the AG briefly introduced Julia Gusse, an Air Force veteran and former Maricopa City Council member who is asking Democrats to single-shot their vote in Legislative District 16, which is anchored in Casa Grande but stretches from the edges of Tucson to the edges of the Valley.

Gusse is hoping to take out one of the two incumbents, Republican Reps. Chris Lopez and Teresa Martinez.

And a Democrat winning here wouldn’t be without precedent.

Democrat Keith Seaman narrowly won a House seat here in 2022 while relying on the same single-shot strategy that Gusse is now employing. (Seaman lost the seat in the 2024 election, despite running for reelection as a single-shot Democrat.)

Democrat Elaine Aldrete is challenging incumbent Republican TJ Shope in the state Senate race — but that’s a tougher lift, considering Shope has 14 consecutive years of representing the district (and benefits from the Shope name recognition from his father’s years of service as Coolidge mayor, plus the family’s former grocery store in the area).

Republicans have a small registration advantage over the Democrats, 33% versus 27%, but those registered with neither party make up 40% of all voters in LD16.

Whatever happens nationally, these legislative battles will ultimately come down to which voters actually show up.

Given the predictions from some pundits of a Democratic wave, we might see a few surprises in these races.

And Marana could be at the epicenter, considering Democrats anxious to support Congressional District 6 candidate JoAnna Mendoza could also deliver votes for down-ballot Democrats.

Including those trying to flip LD16 and LD17.

Preparing for the worst: The Tohono O’odham Nation is setting up a medical station to assist tribal members who are injured in confrontations with federal contractors, Emily Bregel reports for the Arizona Daily Star. Still, Tohono O’odham officials are urging tribal members to avoid violence as the Trump administration builds a double-layered wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that runs through tribal lands. As part of that effort, contractors are going to rip up thousands of saguaros that are sacred to the Tohono O’odham. During the first Trump administration, contractors transplanted about 100 saguaros and more than half of them didn’t survive.

Sound familiar?: Tech companies are redrawing maps to avoid towns that don’t want data centers, a common tactic that Politico called “corporate cartography.” In one case from an unincorporated area in Iowa, county officials passed new regulations for data centers after Google proposed a 545-acre data center. Google executives weren’t happy, so they lobbied officials in a nearby town to annex the land so the data center could be built with fewer restrictions. That sounds a lot like Project Blue in Pima County, which was one of the examples cited by the Politico reporters, along with projects in Waco, Texas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

More ads incoming: Two Democratic operatives are launching a $4 million ad campaign targeting Republican candidates who support the AI industry, including U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, Politico reports. Ciscomani drew their attention after he backed an unsuccessful effort last year to block states from regulating AI companies. The new ads are going to target support for manipulative chatbots, data centers and, of course, the risk that AI will destroy civilization.

Spotlight on Ciscomani: Meanwhile, Ciscomani’s rival, Democrat JoAnna Mendoza, got some good press from the Guardian, with a bit of Ciscomani-bashing thrown in for good measure, including former Democratic candidate Mo Goldman saying “people in his district have rarely seen him.” Ciscomani had a chance to pop his head up for the Arizona Luminaria’s voter guide, but he “did not respond to four emails, a message sent through his campaign website or a voicemail left with his campaign.”

Beer pong is back on: After the University of Arizona suspended all events hosted by fraternities due to a wide array of misconduct allegations, most fraternities are seeing their suspensions lifted, Helen Rummel reports for the Republic. Five of the 21 fraternities are still in trouble as the university looks into allegations that pledges were forced to eat live goldfish, as well as more severe allegations that are now under criminal investigation. Identity-based sororities and fraternities weren’t affected by the suspension.

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission is the state’s only official, nonpartisan voter education resource — created by Arizona voters for voters.

We publish the voter education guide, host the debates, and break down what’s on your ballot. Not who you should vote for — what you need to know before you do.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway put out one of the best quotes from a local official we’ve seen this year.

He’s under fire from the Arizona Sheriffs’ Association for telling his deputies not to respond to calls from wall contractors complaining about protesters.

But Hathaway clearly doesn’t give a hoot about what the sheriffs’ association or the Border Patrol has to say about him.