Welcome to the 14th episode of Prickly, a podcast from KJZZ’s Politics Desk. Subscribe here or wherever you get your podcasts, and don’t forget to subscribe to the Prickly newsletter.
With Arizona’s 2026 primary elections just months away, candidates are jockeying for position as they seek their party's nomination in key elections throughout the state, from the race for the governor's office to the contest in one of the most hotly contested congressional races in the country.
Political editor Ben Giles sat down with Camryn Sanchez and Wayne Schutsky to talk more about those races, what the candidates are saying and how the results could impact Arizona’s 2026 general election.
The discussion hones in on a number of statewide races, including governor, secretary of state, attorney general and superintendent of public instruction.
The Politics Desk also breaks down the crowded Republican and Democratic primaries in Congressional District 1, an open seat in the northeast Valley that is considered one of the most competitive districts in the country.
Transcript
BEN GILES: Hello, and welcome to Prickly, a podcast from KJZZ’s politics desk.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Thank you for listening, I’m CAMRYN Sanchez.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: I’m Wayne Schutsky.
BEN GILES: And I’m political editor Ben Giles. It’s that time of year, the time of year to talk about the biggest races in this year’s upcoming primary elections, which in case you forgot, those are happening on July 21 this year. That’s earlier than normal due to recent changes in state law.
We have all of Arizona’s highest-level statewide offices up for reelection from the governor to secretary of state to attorney general, but let’s start at the top of the ticket. Who’s running for governor? Camryn, kick us off, who’s hoping to challenge the incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: She’s gonna be going up against one of two of our state Republican congressmen. Both Andy Biggs and David Schweikert are running and hoping to take her office and they both say that they are the GOP’s best hope for ousting Hobbs.
And what we’ve seen from them so far, at least from Schweikert, is an effort to really discredit Biggs ahead of the primary and paint him as this extreme far-right candidate. But Biggs has taken a more moderate tone from early on in this race. He’s shied away from making more abrasive statements, which is what former MAGA candidate Kari Lake did when she ran against Governor Hobbs. Biggs is also working across the aisle and he’s even acknowledged some Democrats, including Senator Mark Kelly, and here’s some of what he told us during a gaggle with political reporters in March.
ANDY BIGGS: Whether we like it or not, Washington D.C. deals in politics and parties and, and, and that’s why I’m glad Senator Kelly’s working on this and pushing from his side and we’re pushing from our side and I think that that’s where she should have been all along. She didn’t, she never, she never let us work with her on the rural healthcare funds, which is why Arizona in my opinion, that’s why Arizona got less than it should have gotten.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: So there he’s talking about a fund for rural hospitals, which was part of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which was supposed to offset losses in Medicaid funding and Arizona got a little bit less than was expected. Biggs was blaming Hobbs for that even though there were other Democrat-led states which also got the short end of the stick.
BEN GILES: A moderate Andy Biggs might sound like a bit of a surprise to some Arizona voters given his MAGA tendencies, given his unwavering support for President Trump. Is this something of a transformation or is this something that voters are going to be able to buy into?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: I think he’s trying to be both because he has the support of Turning Point, he’s in the Freedom Caucus, he’s been a fan and a supporter of Trump for a long time. So I think in a sense he still has that covered and locked down. But in terms of his public image and just the, the statements that he’s making, going into this race he’s not being a bomb thrower. He’s not being as aggressive as other candidates have been in the past, and that might be because he wants to attract independents when he’s going into the general election.
BEN GILES: Right, right, it’s very different running in an Arizona primary versus running statewide for office when everybody gets to vote.
Wayne, how does the Biggs strategy compare to that of his fellow congressman, Republican David Schweikert, who’s kind of considered a long shot in this race so far?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, so as Camryn mentioned, Schweikert is going squarely at Biggs. So he’s not really pivoting towards the general as Biggs already is, and there’s good reason for that, as you mentioned, Schweikert’s running behind in just about every metric we have at this point, fundraising, he’s well below the other candidates. He’s also trailing in most polls that we’ve seen thus far. So he’s really trying to show why Andy Biggs isn’t the right guy to go out there and win a general election. He’s already run ads accusing Biggs of being too cozy with antisemites and white supremacists. And to put a finer point on that, he told Camryn late last year that he is the only electable candidate on the Republican side and you know, he pointed out that he has a history of winning his congressional races in one of the most competitive districts in Arizona.
DAVID SCHWEIKERT: I’m the only urban suburban Republican who won in 2018. They wiped us out all across the country except for us. Um, is that because the uniqueness of the district and the community being so well educated, being much more entrepreneurial? That’s actually part of it. Um, is it also the rhythm we’ve built of trying to talk to voters, of not pandering to sensationalism but sometimes just grinding out saying look, here’s how we see the math working. And also when you get the math wrong, you come back the next week and say okay, we got another data set.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: It’s also worth noting that in both his legislative and congressional career, Biggs has always run in safe Republican districts. So unlike Schweikert, he, you know, might have experienced a tough primary but then he does not face tough general elections.
BEN GILES: Yeah, Biggs is always, has always been in safe GOP districts in the East Valley, which is a great opportunity for us to transition to another race at the top of the ticket, the attorney general’s race. We have East Valley Republican Senate President Warren Petersen, who replaced Biggs in the Arizona state Senate a decade ago, he is now running for attorney general. Who else is in that race, Camryn?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Petersen is running in the primary against Rodney Glassman, who we call him a perennial candidate because he runs a lot. He’s not been very successful, but he did hold office quite a long time ago. Like Biggs, Petersen really seems to be focusing his attention on the general race, which will be against Democrat Kris Mayes and she is the incumbent. He doesn’t have President Trump’s endorsement but he did get a shout-out from the president recently at a rally here in Phoenix at Dream City Church. So he uses a common line against Mayes, he accuses her of lawfare, that’s something that Republicans say a lot when a case is brought and they think that, you know, it’s a Democrat bringing a case for political reasons. He has criticized her heavily for a long time now and railed against her many lawsuits that she’s filed against the Trump administration. Essentially saying that she is not spending the state’s resources wisely.
And here is a clip of Petersen talking on the Light Beer, Dark Money podcast, which is hosted by Republican consultant Sean Noble.
WARREN PETERSEN: As you guys know, when it comes to law enforcement, which is really what she should be focused on, there’s never enough money. You, you have people that feel, of course, in the community that their crimes are not being prosecuted. And all of those resources, and this is going to be my priority is I’m going to take all of those resources that she’s wasting on political lawfare, on environmental radicalism that she’s involved in. We’re going to do a major realignment, those resources are going to go to where they should be, which is fighting crime, keeping Arizona safe.
BEN GILES: You know, before Petersen got into politics at the state Legislature, he was involved in housing, he was involved in real estate, right? One of the criticisms we’ve heard is is Petersen really qualified to run for attorney general, to be the state’s top prosecutor? What are people saying, Camryn?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: It’s true, he was in developing, he also did go to law school and passed the bar about two years ago. And he’s been a state lawmaker for a long time, I’ve heard him and some of his supporters pitch him as a good leader and say well, you know, you don’t need to have necessarily the most trial experience if you’re a strong leader because this is a higher office, this is a statewide position and we need someone with a strong direction. And he himself has filed actually a lot of lawsuits to defend some state laws, which Mayes will not touch, and sort of use that to bolster his resume.
BEN GILES: Not to split hairs here, but when we say Petersen is filing lawsuits, he has attorneys down at the Legislature filing lawsuits on behalf of Republican lawmakers at the Legislature, not necessarily him taking the lead.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: It’s not necessarily him but he and House Speaker Steve Montenegro have put their name on a lot of briefs, amicus briefs, and they’ve intervened in cases as kind of a unit speaking for the Legislature.
BEN GILES: Gotcha, gotcha. So Wayne, is Senate President Petersen’s lack of an extensive legal resume a liability in this primary?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: It’s been a major attack line so far used by both Rodney Glassman, his Republican opponent, and Kris Mayes. Here’s Glassman speaking to Yavapai County Republicans in March and much like Schweikert, says he’s the only Republican qualified for this job.
RODNEY GLASSMAN: I’m also been a private sector attorney for 20 years, meaning I feed my family, my law school sweetheart that I’ve been married to for 17 years and my daughters by having strangers pay me with their own money to be their lawyer. The reason that matters is because my Republican primary opponent who didn’t come today is 50 years old, I’m 47. He got his law license 25 months ago. He’s never had a client, he’s never prosecuted a case.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: But Glassman has his own liabilities, namely that he’s kind of known as a perennial loser in Arizona political circles, as Camryn alluded to. You know, that one office that he held that Camryn mentioned was Tucson City Council as a Democrat. And since then he’s lost a lot of races, he tried to run as a Democrat against Senator John McCain many years ago and lost and he’s been switching parties, went over to the Republican Party, lost Corporation Commission, primaries for county assessor in Maricopa County and then he lost in the primary the last time the Attorney General’s Office was on the ballot.
BEN GILES: I’m starting to sense a pattern here. We’re talking a lot about Republican primaries coming up this July, but there’s not a lot of Democrats challenging these statewide incumbents, Camryn.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yeah, that’s right, and it’s because in 2022, Democrats had a really good year and if you recall, they got the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office and the secretary of state. So now we have incumbents running without challengers in the Democratic primaries.
BEN GILES: Speaking of secretary of state, we do have a Republican primary for that race as well. Who is in the running to challenge the incumbent Secretary of State Adrian Fontes?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yes, we’ve got lawmaker Alexander Kolodin, who is running against the former Arizona Republican Party Chief Gina Swoboda. So Kolodin is also a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, he has some close Trump allies who have spread conspiracy theories about election security and Kolodin really kind of came to prominence first came onto the scene filing lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results and also COVID mask mandates. Largely unsuccessful, but he has spent time in the Legislature trying to reform or remake Arizona’s election laws and pass measures which could impact or get rid of mail-in voting. So much like President Trump, Kolodin says that these measures are needed to make sure that our elections are free and fair even though there’s been no evidence to prove that there’s widespread election fraud in Arizona. And here’s some of what he had to say at a press conference announcing his candidacy.
ALEXANDER KOLODIN: My campaign is about rebuilding trust in Arizona’s elections. But to rebuild trust requires more than telling people oh you’re so silly, you’re wrong, we’re the experts, trust us. It requires creating a transparent, auditable and verifiable election system so that people can see for themselves how our elections are run. And it requires taking voters seriously. As secretary of state, I will.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: So that sounds like common sense, but it also doesn’t acknowledge the role that his group played in creating distrust in the first place by spreading misinformation.
BEN GILES: And filing a lot of losing lawsuits challenging 2020 election results to be sure. So what about Gina Swoboda, Camryn? She’s also close to Trump, right?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: So that’s a complicated situation because Swoboda is a former election official who also had a job working for Wendy Rogers, who’s a Trump-allied lawmaker in the state Senate. She led a nonprofit which also falsely claimed that 2020 results were not accurate. And back when she was first running for GOP Party chair she was endorsed by Trump just for that role to lead the party. But recently things have changed, she is no longer the party chair, somebody else took over that seat, she didn’t run for it again, she decided to run for a congressional seat but then pivoted. And now she’s running for secretary of state and Trump has not endorsed her for that race. He did give a shout-out to Kolodin recently. And when Swoboda first entered the race, she said that she did not support the federal government telling the state and county officials how they should run elections and that she has concerns about the federal government under Trump trying to take state voter roles. So it does make sense that she will not be seeking his endorsement this time around and here’s what she said in February to Politics Unplugged on Arizona’s Family.
GINA SWOBODA: I’m running as Gina with no endorsement, because I think that’s what the people of Arizona want. I don’t know if the administration will get involved in the secretary of state’s races nationwide again, I would like this to be as nonpartisan as possible.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: And much like Schweikert and Biggs, Swoboda says Kolodin is, let’s say it again, not electable in the general election, and that makes some sense when we look at history. If you look at the last time around when Adrian Fontes, our Democratic secretary of state, first won office, he defeated Mark Finchem, who was another state lawmaker who was very much running in these same circles as Representative Kolodin, you know, very close ally of the president, spreading a lot of misinformation about elections, making unfounded claims about voter fraud and that kind of thing. And at that time Fontes won by a decently wide margin compared to some other very, very close races.
BEN GILES: Yeah, a lot to consider for Republicans in these primaries when they have to decide who do I want to vote for in this race but also who do I think can win the general election in November. Let’s pivot to another race where we have another Freedom Caucus candidate, not a lawmaker but someone supported by the caucus, in fact, Camryn, recruited by the caucus. Tell us about the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction on the Republican side.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yes, so the person hoping to challenge incumbent Tom Horne is Republican Kimberly Yee. And she’s been the State treasurer for a long time but was recruited recently by Senator Hoffman who leads the State Freedom Caucus to run against Horne, and her challenge for him has basically been based on complaints that Horne is too aggressive in regulating people’s purchases in the state’s private school voucher program called the ESA program. And this clip is from the press conference where they announced Yee’s candidacy.
KIMBERLY YEE: There is full government overreach coming out of the Department of Education at the hands of the state superintendent. And that means that he is determining how to administer the ESA program outside of his executive authority. The Arizona Legislature and the governor when they passed this program did not determine that the superintendent would be the one to make all of these decisions, it goes to the legislative branch.
BEN GILES: OK, so Yee and State Senator Jake Hoffman seem to think Horne is doing too much to stop what I guess in accordance with the program are unallowable purchases.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Right, so their argument is that the exact wording of the ESA law does not give Horne the power to stop parents from buying certain things even if it’s like jewelry or golf simulators, which has gotten a lot of negative press.
BEN GILES: Yeah, I think lingerie is one of the other purchases that we’ve heard a lot of headlines about in the last year and a half. Wayne, what does Horne have to say all about this in his defense I guess?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Before I get into that, take a step back, Yee is not your typical Freedom Caucus candidate like someone like Alexander Kolodin who’s running for secretary of state, who’s a member of the caucus, who’s very much aligned with that group. For a long time, Yee was considered to be more in the vein of former Governor Doug Ducey, you know, your more traditional old-school Republican. But um, she did accept this kind of proffer from Senator Hoffman to run with their support and that took a lot of people by surprise, including Superintendent Horne, who kind of said he was taken aback when she sided with Hoffman to make these criticisms against her. So now that she’s termed out as treasurer, you know, she has leaned into this Freedom Caucus criticism and they’re just really going after Horne after his ability to regulate these purchases. But Horne and other moderate Republicans say they’re confused, and here’s what Horne had to say to KTAR about Hoffman and Yee last May right after she made those comments when she jumped into the race.
TOM HORNE: And he’s got this crazy theory that I have to, I have to pay out anything parents ask for without any, making sure that it’s a legitimate education expense or reasonable cost. That’s a, a totally crazy theory because it means I would have paid a five thousand dollar watch, a twenty-four thousand dollar golf simulator, a vasectomy testing kit of all things. Well, I’ve got a list of thirty-five crazy things that people have asked for that we’ve turned down. He says I don’t have the, the authority to turn it down, I’m surprised Kimberly Yee would, would agree to be basically a tin can on Hoffman’s wagging tail.
BEN GILES: A tin can on Hoffman’s wagging tail, that’s quite a soundbite. All right, we have talked a lot so far about Republicans running against Republicans in some pretty bitter sounding primaries. Are we going to ever talk about competitive Democratic primaries, you guys?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Well, as Camryn mentioned, you know, there’s not a lot of them just given the fact that a lot of Democrats won big races last time around so now they’re running unopposed. But in this superintendent race, given we don’t have a Democratic incumbent, we do have a few Democrats running. So they’re both political newcomers so we don’t know a ton about them, but they are Brett Newby, who’s a behavior analyst who works with special needs children and then we have Terry Leyba Ruiz, who’s a former president of Glendale Community College.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: There’s also one high-profile race where we’ve got some packed primaries on both sides, that’s Congressional District 1. We’ve got three Republicans and five Democrats running in a very competitive district, which includes a part of north Phoenix, Scottsdale. On the Democratic side we have a rematch from last year with former journalist Marlene Galan-Woods and former state lawmaker Amish Shah, who won the nomination last time but lost to Schweikert in 2024. Galan-Woods is also the widow of the late former Attorney General Grant Woods and she is a former Republican but also a critic of President Trump. In a video she posted on social media, she pitched herself to local Democrats as a fighter who will stand up to his administration.
MARLENE GALAN-WOODS: I cannot stand by and watch my parents’ sacrifice to reach the American dream slip through our fingers in one generation. I cannot stand by and watch as my Guatemalan daughter is less safe today now than she was a year ago because she has to carry a copy of her passport in her bag as a student at the U of A. Because now apparently in this country it’s okay to racially profile people. So this fight is personal to me, if y’all want a fighter, you’re looking at her.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Shah describes himself as a workhorse candidate and always says that he knocks more doors than just about anybody else. He’s an ER doctor and was known as a moderate lawmaker at the state Legislature who got a lot of bills passed, more than other Democrats because he was willing to work across the aisle. And so he’s leaning into some similar messaging in his campaign and here’s what he said a few months ago on Politics Unplugged on Arizona’s Family.
AMISH SHAH: Over the last nine months people have kind of seen what the other side is able to bring and I have heard a lot of discontent. So here I am again telling people that here are the things that I think are super important from affordability, which you hear all the time, prices are super high, healthcare, of course I’m a physician, I’m an emergency physician, I’m still practicing and I can tell a lot of those people’s stories about how coverage is unaffordable and even when they have it, it’s difficult for them to really obtain healthcare.
BEN GILES: OK Wayne, what about those three Republicans who are running to replace would-be gubernatorial candidate David Schweikert in Congressional District 1?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: On the Republican side we have former kicker Jay Feely, former, you know, he used to play for the Cardinals. We’ve got former state lawmaker Joseph Chaplik, another former Freedom Caucus member, and tech executive John Troba. Feely is probably the frontrunner at this point because he switched out of CD5 to CD1 at Trump’s request and then got the president’s endorsement. He’s also backed by TPUSA, which wanted him out of CD5, so that’s a lot of support in a primary where, you know, President Trump’s opinion carries a lot of weight. And here’s what Feely told the Charlie Kirk show in January just after he switched races to CD1.
JAY FEELY: And it’ll probably be the seat that the Democrats spend the most money in the country trying to go out and flip that. And, and it’s why I decided to move. Ideally you don’t want to move districts, I, you know, I lived in Gilbert, that’s where I originally was running, president asked me to move, then Republican leadership asked me to move, they didn’t feel that we had anybody running for that seat that could hold the seat, that could win it. So they all called me and said, hey Jay, we need you to move into CD1 and run in that district.
BEN GILES: Wayne, do any of these other Republicans given Feely’s endorsements by, you know, a huge political activist organization here in Arizona and the president himself, can either of these other Republicans beat him?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Well, like I said, the Trump endorsement is still something of a golden ticket in these type of primaries so it’s hard to see a path, especially if they have poor fundraising numbers. I will say Chaplik was closely aligned with the Freedom Caucus like we mentioned, which is tight with TPUSA and he still didn’t get that endorsement, they kind of left him out in the cold. So instead he’s trying to lean into the fact that he actually lives in the district versus Feely who’s kind of moving in after being kicked out of that CD5 race. So here’s what Chaplik had to say in a campaign ad.
JOSEPH CHAPLIK: I’m the only candidate elected by the people, trusted, proven and ready to represent you. Want to keep your government small and efficient, your freedom secure and quality of life high? All I need is your vote.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: It is worth noting that some early polling actually shows Chaplik ahead, but there’s still lots of undecided in that race and given Feely’s fairly recent entry, I’d expect to see some of those numbers move, but still kind of unclear where they’ll land.
BEN GILES: Let’s pivot to Congressional District 5, which Wayne you mentioned Trump and Turning Point wanted Feely out of that race, so who’s left in the CD5?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, they wanted him out of that race because they’re backing former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. CD5, as we mentioned when we were talking about Biggs, is a safe GOP district. So that means whoever wins the primary is almost guaranteed to take that seat in the general election. So you could see why you wouldn’t want to waste too many strong candidates or perceived strong candidates on one district because only one can win, so they decided to pivot Feely over to that CD1 and he was happy to oblige. With that Trump endorsement, Lamb is doing what you usually see candidates in safe districts do and he’s really backing the president on each and every issue of the day, whatever that happens to be, you know, he’s got a strong social media presence so he uses it to really get out there and tell all his fans to support the president whether it’s on immigration or here’s a clip of him from March when he visited D.C. to advocate for the SAVE Act.
MARK LAMB: We’re seeing more and more evidence of election fraud across this country. I couldn’t think of a more important time in our history to ensure that the people that are voting in our elections are American citizens. I don’t think that’s asking too much, and we need the Democrats, we need Senate to sign this bill and get the Save America Act through and let’s protect our elections. This is an issue that 80% of the Americans in this country agree with, Republicans and Democrats and independents. I think we owe it to the American people.
BEN GILES: OK so there’s no Jay Feely, there’s no kicker in the race to challenge Mark Lamb. Is there any other Republican who is going for that seat despite Trump having already put his thumb on the scale so to speak?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: There is one more guy, it’s a local homebuilder his name is Daniel Keenan, and like Chaplik he’s also probably considered to be a long shot, but he’s grown up in the district, he pitches himself as a local with strong ties to the community and he says he’s the only one who’s actually been there this whole time for his whole life so he really knows what his constituents want. He also describes himself as MAGA and as a strong Trump supporter, he actually accuses Mark Lamb of not being enough of a Trump supporter and not supporting the president’s claims, which are unsubstantiated and say that elections were marred by fraud. Here’s what he told us.
DANIEL KEENAN: He also testified in front of Congress and said Donald Trump lost the election. So I would tell the voters that I’ve always stood with the president through the good times and the bad times and I won’t abandon him. Yeah, look, he did endorse my opponent, um, but I am confident that I will be getting that endorsement as well, whether that’s before the primary or after the primary.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: We do have to point out here that multiple court cases have challenged the 2020 election results and not shown any widespread fraud that affected the results.
BEN GILES: Well guys, we may have set a new record for our longest Prickly podcast episode yet, but we only just scratched the surface when it comes to Arizona’s upcoming election season.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: And thank you for listening to this episode of the Prickly podcast from KJZZ’s Politics Desk. Tune in to 91.5 to hear our coverage of elections, the ongoing legislative season and more or log on to kjzz.org.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: And please subscribe to the Prickly podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
