Many Arizona primaries are uncontested. Here are some competitive races to watch

With all of the talk about tight races and close calls heading into this year’s election, KJZZ’s political editor Ben Giles is here to tell us: There are not that many races that are actually contested this primary season. And that’s not necessarily a new thing.

Full conversation

LAUREN GILGER: So when we say there aren't that many contested races actually and this is of course notwithstanding really big ones, right? Coming up and after the primaries, what do we mean? Like how many are actually in play?

BEN GILES: Well, the thing to remember is when we talk about contested races, most of the time, I think people are thinking come November, is there going to be a Republican versus a Democrat? Is this going to be this ideological battle at the ballot?

And there aren't that many truly competitive races in November. So because of that, there's some districts where the primary is simply a race to nominate a nominal challenger.

For example, there's three Republicans running in Congressional District 3. None of them stand a chance in November. They're going to lose to whoever the Democratic nominee is in that district. And that's because of redistricting because of the way, the IRC, the Independent Redistricting Commission has drawn districts. There are some very safe R districts and some very safe D districts.

Now, on the flip side, what that means is there are some primaries that are super important because whichever candidate wins, the primary is all but guaranteed to go on to win in November, like that CD3 Democratic primary, which we'll talk about a little bit more later.

That's likely going to decide who the district's next congresswoman is.

GILGER: Right. Right. Because they're are redistricted in that way.OK. So let's talk about some of these contested races heading into the primary, the ones we should all be watching for.

Let's start with CD1, because it's one, there are Democrats lining up to challenge Republican Congressman David Schweikert, right?

GILES: There are so many Democrats lining up that I wrote their names down. So I don't forget anyone.

Andrei Cherny, Marlene Galán-Woods, Andrew Horne, Kurt Kroemer, Conor O’Callaghan and Amish Shah. Six Democrats running to hopefully be the Democrat to finally defeat David Schweikert in November.

Schweikert has won that district in consecutive campaigns, but his margin of victory has been shrinking over time. So there's a hope that this year, one of the six on the Democratic side could advance and take him on.

But this has been a tough primary for the candidates to, you know, really distinguish themselves from one another. For example, they've all made access to reproductive rights a staple of their campaign.

So in one regard, Galán-Woods might have a built in advantage because of that because she's the only woman in the race. It's one woman versus five men in an election year when abortion is very much important to voters. There's a strong tie between female candidates and that issue.

On the flip side, she has been attacked by some of her opponents for her past GOP ties. So it's unclear how much that will matter to voters come July 30th.

GILGER: OK. Let's talk about a similar situation on the other side of the aisle in CD8, where Republicans are lining up to replace outgoing Congresswoman Debbie Lesko in the West Valley. This is a safe Republican district. Who are you watching?

GILES: Whoever wins this GOP primary is likely going to be the next congressman for the West Valley. This appears to be a battle mainly between two failed candidates from 2022. Abe Hamadeh lost the race for attorney general two years ago. Blake Masters lost the race for U.S. Senate in that same election. Both though are, are interesting in that they're, they're carpet baggers when they declared their candidacy. Neither of them actually lived in the district.

Hamadeh lives in Scottsdale. Masters lived in Tucson, has since moved into the district and they've both released internal polling that appears to show they've got the upper hand, which is interesting. Of course, Hamed's polling says he's winning handily. Masters’ polling says I'm winning handily. So take that for a grain of salt. But it'll be interesting to watch those two.

It'll also be interesting to watch some other candidates for the seat like House Speaker Ben Toma. He has real roots in that West Valley district and he was also endorsed by the outgoing Congresswoman Debbie Lesko. Of course, we can't forget about former Congressman Trent Franks running again. Remember this is the guy who asked his congressional aides to help with a surrogate pregnancy and backed out of office from there and now he's back, he's back.

GILGER: All right. So let's move on to CD3. We have two major democratic nominees battling it out to replace Rep. Ruben Gallego, who's of course running to replace outgoing independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a long line here who's in the running.

GILES: So this is a battle between former Democratic Party chair Raquel Terán and former Phoenix Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari. It's another race where it is really tough to distinguish the candidates on the issue. So it feels like this is, this is a bit more of a battle over leadership style.

Terán comes from a long history of Democratic organizing, campaigning. She was leader of the Democratic Party when it had some really big victories and statewide races two years ago.

Ansari is viewed a little bit more as like a, a collaborative candidate of the Phoenix City Council. You've got to work across the aisle a little bit there. That's not something that Democrats and Republicans really do well at the Capitol, and Terán’s other experience is serving at the state Legislature.

GILGER: OK. Let's move on down to the county level races. There are a few interesting races in Maricopa County that are really up for grabs, including for the county board of supervisors.

Yeah. In District 2. I think that is the race to watch. You've got incumbent Supervisor Republican Thomas Galvin trying to fend off a challenge from a former state lawmaker, a one time candidate for the secretary of state's office, Michelle Ugenti-Rita

This has been at least when it comes to Ugenti-Rita’s race, a real mudslinging campaign. If you follow these campaigns on, on X, formerly known as Twitter, this is basically just attack, attack, attack. Galvin, is this in, in her words, this establishment Republican who's not getting anything done.

Ugenti-Rita has kind of leaned into some of the more far right tendencies of the Republican party. She got endorsed by failed secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem recently. That's, those are two kind of odd birds to, to see together. So it's, it's interesting to see how things will play out in D2.

GILGER: OK. Last 30 seconds. Let's talk about another big race. The recorder's race. Maricopa County recorder. Republican Stephen Richer has really made a name for himself as someone, as someone who refused to join the Trump crowd and say that the election was rigged, but he's facing a challenger who will.

GILES: Yeah. Yeah. And, and we saw that play out just over the weekend. There was a candidate forum in Sun City, a heavily Republican area of the Valley. And Richer was asked on stage, was the 2020 election stolen? And Richer has been very, very adamant, very proactive in saying no, these elections are not stolen, they're fair and safe.

His opponent, on the other hand, Republican Justin Heap who comes from the state Legislature has not been as shy about what's the word I'm looking for? Entertaining that aspect of the Republican base. So this is a bit of a battle for, the integrity of elections.