You probably know the Democrats running for statewide office, like Gov. Katie Hobbs, Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
As the titles before their names suggest, they’re incumbents who don’t have to deal with much of a primary election campaign.
That’s not the case on the GOP side of the aisle, where candidates are in the middle of heated primary races, complete with mudslinging and big-dollar campaigns, which is why they’re paying for signs to clutter every intersection in Tucson.
To make matters more confusing, many of these candidates already hold public office and are trying to jump to another one, like the Arizona Senate president who is running for attorney general or the two U.S. Congress members who now want to be Arizona’s next governor.
Just a few of the political signs for GOP candidates at the corner of Campbell and Fort Lowell. (We inadvertently also captured a non-political sign for the company owned by the family of Democratic state Rep. Kevin Volk).
Unless you pay close attention to state politics, you might not have heard of Gina Swoboda or Alexander Kolodin.
Either one of them has a decent shot at being in charge of the state’s election system next year, which means they would control the levers of power on everything from the rules at Arizona’s voting centers to how the state would handle a bid for a third term from President Donald Trump.
Do you remember Rodney Glassman’s days as a Tucson City Councilman? How about Warren Petersen? They’re the GOP candidates for state attorney general.
And the race for governor, the crown jewel of state politics, also has two faces that are familiar in Phoenix, but less so south of the Gila River.
Andy Biggs and David Schweikert are trying to replace Hobbs in the governor’s office, which would mean the veto stamp that Democrats have relied on for the past few years would probably gather dust in a drawer.
As for the race for superintendent of public instruction, Tucsonans probably remember when incumbent Tom Horne went after TUSD’s Mexican American Studies program when he was attorney general. But how about Kimberly Yee? She’s the state treasurer who is trying to give Horne the boot this year, but she has little name recognition in the deep blue sea that is Southern Arizona.
Today, we’re gonna help you put some context behind the faces that are plastering signs on your drive to work.
The race to replace Hobbs
If you trust the polling, Biggs is the Trump-endorsed front-runner who is going to trounce Schweikert in the GOP primary for governor by about 30 points.
In other words, the Turning Point crowd is all set to demolish the establishment crowd.
But Republicans can’t celebrate quite yet — Biggs (and Schweikert) still lag behind Hobbs in recent polls.
And, before anyone calls the race two months before the primary election, it’s worth pausing for a moment to look at the choice GOP voters face.
Schweikert describes himself as a “classic free-market conservative” who knows how to win competitive elections.
He relishes the fact that Democrats have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to unseat him from his Scottsdale-based competitive congressional district over the past six years and says these political victories make him the better GOP candidate for the general election.
While he mostly aligns with Trump, he doesn’t mind telling the president when he disagrees with him.
Still, Schweikert squirmed a little and didn’t give a straight answer when 12News’ Brahm Resnik asked him if Trump lost Arizona in 2020.
Schweikert supports ICE, but he doesn’t feel comfortable with how ICE behaved in Minnesota, particularly the killing of two U.S. citizens.
Both candidates know their way around the halls of power. Biggs was a state lawmaker for 14 years and has been in Congress since 2017. Schweikert has been a congressman since 2011 and he served in the Arizona Legislature in the 1990s.
Biggs, who once won the American Family Publishers sweepstakes and took home a $10 million jackpot, is backed by both Trump and Turning Point USA.
He was born in Tucson (although you’d never know it from his campaign materials) and he got his law degree from the University of Arizona.
Biggs’ campaign tagline is “Proven leadership for Arizona. Trump-endorsed,” although he sometimes switches it up and tells voters to “Go Biggs or Go Home.”
Schweikert offers “Bold, unapologetic, conservative leadership for governor.”
One thing they agree on is they don’t like California.
“We have always been rugged individualists, but under this governor we’re not leading the way, except for to go the way of California. We’re following California, for Pete’s sake!” Biggs says in the opening of a campaign ad.
Schweikert has much the same message on his campaign website.
“Do we drift down a path that mirrors the struggles of California, losing what makes us unique?” Schweikert asks. “Or do we return to the principles that built this state we call home? Principles of strength, freedom, and opportunity that have always defined Arizona’s soul. Our time is short. The clock is ticking.”
If you want to know more about Biggs, check out his campaign website and Twitter account. If you are curious about Schweikert, here is his campaign website and Twitter account.
The next election chief
This race has two candidates who are steeped in the details of how Arizona’s elections work.
Swoboda was an election official at the Secretary of State’s Office under both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, and the chair of the Arizona Republican Party.
Kolodin has regularly proposed election-related bills during his two terms in the Arizona House and was sanctioned by the state bar for filing bogus election challenges.
While Kolodin made headlines after the state bar put him on probation for bringing frivolous lawsuits trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, he apparently doesn’t like talking about the 2020 election anymore.
He tried to chastise moderator Ted Simons at last week’s “candidate conversation” for asking him about the 2020 election. Instead, he kept bringing up “Pima County’s radical socialist-endorsed recorder.”
If you want to see the difference between Kolodin and Swoboda, look no further than how they answered the opening question at last week’s event on Arizona PBS: What do Republican voters in Arizona want to see from a secretary of state?
Swoboda: “I think they want a competent administrator who provides transparency, reliability and experience.”
Kolodin: “There’s no question that trust in our elections here in Arizona is at an all-time low, and that’s because Adrian Fontes has not been able to run our elections according to the law. What the voters are looking for is first and foremost someone who knows how to follow the law. They’re looking for more transparency and openness in their elections. They’re looking for them to be run in an honorable fashion that every Arizona voter, regardless of party, can be proud of. They’re not getting that from Adrian Fontes, they will get it from me.”
You can see how Swoboda portrays herself as a pragmatist, while Kolodin leans into election integrity issues (without mentioning that Trump’s election BS might be at least a teensy-weensy bit responsible for why GOP voters don’t trust elections).
Swoboda says she’s the GOP’s only hope for a win in November, and there’s no chance Kolodin could beat Fontes in the general election.
But first she has to win over GOP primary voters, including the Turning Point crowd that doesn’t like her. Kolodin, on the other hand, writes “proudly endorsed by Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action” at the top of the endorsement page on his campaign website.
You can read more about Kolodin on his campaign website and Twitter account. If you want to know more about Swoboda, check out her campaign website and Twitter account. Our sister newsletter, the Arizona Agenda, also wrote up an entertaining and insightful Q&A with Swoboda.
Trying to box out Mayes
Senate President Warren Petersen is looking to trade up and be the state’s next attorney general. With support from Trump and Turning Point USA, Petersen has some early polling on his side. Republican-aligned GrayHouse Polling gave him an early lead in March.
One of the key issues in this race so far is whether they’re actually attorneys.
Petersen is questioning whether Glassman ever practiced law, while Glassman says he works in the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps and points out that Petersen only recently got his law degree.
"We have no evidence that Rodney is practicing law," Petersen told the Arizona Republic, while simultaneously dragging Glassman for a series of failed campaigns, first as a Democrat and then later as a Republican. “What Rodney has been doing is running for office for 15 years.”
Glassman has come a long way since he was a Democratic Tucson City Councilman and progressive challenger to John McCain. His campaign website now features a photo of him standing next to the border wall saying “I’ll work with President Trump to secure the border and keep our families safe.”
Glassman showed up for the Arizona PBS candidate conversation two weeks ago, but Petersen declined the invitation. They’ve both signed on to go head-to-head in a May 28 Clean Elections debate.
“Arizona is in a crazy place right now,” Glassman said in his opening remarks. “As you know, President Trump won Arizona by over five percentage points in 2024, but right now we have what I describe as an insane Democrat attorney general who sued the Trump administration 41 times in the past 16 months and we need an attorney general that’s going to be more focused on protecting Arizonans.”
You can find Peterson’s greatest hits on his campaign website and Twitter account. If you’re interested in Glassman’s positions, check out his campaign website and Twitter account.
Making school choices
Horne has a long history in Arizona politics. He’s been a school board member, an attorney general and now serves as superintendent of public instruction.
He’s also been as scandal-plagued as any state official in recent memory. The FBI investigated him for campaign finance violations and accidentally caught him having an extramarital affair with an employee who he later married, to name our favorite scandal.
Yee is state treasurer and says she’s the first Chinese American Republican in the country to win statewide office. She served in the Arizona Legislature for eight years and worked for two governors and a former state treasurer.
Like Biggs, Petersen and Kolodin, Yee has the backing of Turning Point, as well as support from Freedom Caucus lawmakers like state Sen. Jake Hoffman.
School choice (AKA, school vouchers) is right at the center of the race, even if Horne lately has been trying to pull the focus toward other culture war battles, like opposing CRT, DEI and fighting to “keep boys out of girls’ sports.”
“I’m the only one in statewide elected office fighting for the normal against left-wing craziness,” Horne said in his opening remarks at the May 14 Clean Elections debate.
Horne scored some political points last week when he pointed out Yee served on a DEI-related committee for the National Association of State Treasurers. Yee called Horne a liar, but he shared a link from the association’s website that put her on the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.”
For her part, Yee is focusing on school choice.
“Arizona families deserve an education leader who will not only follow the law, protect school choice and advance academic achievement, but also be able to bring competence, not chaos, to the Department of Education,” Yee said in her opening remarks at the debate, adding that she helped write school choice laws for charter schools in the 1990s.
You can read more about Horne on his campaign website and Twitter account. Yee’s campaign website doesn’t seem to be working, but she is active on her Twitter account.
That’s a quick and dirty guide to the GOP primaries for statewide offices. Next time you’re driving home from work and you see one of the many political signs by the side of the road, you should have a little better idea of who put that sign there.
If you see a name you don’t recognize when you’re driving around, tell us about it in the comments.
Arizona will start mailing out early ballots for the 2026 primary election on June 24, 2026.
Arizona’s future depends on how well we prepare students for the demands of a rapidly evolving economy, and the latest updates to the Arizona Education Progress Meter offer an alarming picture of how far behind we are on many critical metrics.
To focus on the positive, Arizona has now reached a major milestone: a 50% postsecondary attainment rate, meaning half of working-age adults hold a degree, certificate, or other high-value credential. That represents approximately 30,000 additional Arizonans who are now prepared for stronger career opportunities in an economy where more and more jobs require education or training beyond high school.
The updated data also shows improvements in post-high-school enrollment and positive reductions in opportunity youth, demonstrating the impact of years of sustained collaboration and investment across the state.
At the same time, many significant challenges remain, including the need to improve reading and math proficiency rates, stagnant high school graduation outcomes, limited access to high-quality early learning opportunities, all of which need urgent action.
Read Education Forward Arizona’s latest Education Explainer to learn more about what the data means for Arizona’s students, workforce, economy, and long-term competitiveness.
Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it “X,” while also pushing it further into the cesspool, reporters have had weird choices to make.
Should it be called X or Twitter? We’ve referred to it as Twitter, partly because X is just a terrible name and partly to do our bit to mess with Musk.
We had to smile when Republic reporters went after a different aspect of Twitter, which is usually referred to as a social media platform, as they wrote up a debate between Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and GOP rival Kimberly Yee.
“Incumbent Horne’s opening statement on May 14 addressed a spat they had on microblogging website X.com earlier in the week,” the Republic’s Alexandra Hardle and Ray Stern wrote.
Nice! It’s a “microblogging website” from here on out.