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Arizona Republicans reelect Chairwoman Gina Swoboda

Arizona Republicans meet at Dream City Church in Phoenix at the party's annual meeting on Jan. 25, 2025.
Wayne Schutsky/KJZZ
Arizona Republicans meet at Dream City Church in Phoenix at the party's annual meeting on Jan. 25, 2025.

Arizona Republicans overwhelmingly reelected Gina Swoboda to continue as chairwoman of the party months after the GOP scored victories up and down the ballot in the 2024 elections.

Every two years, grassroots members of the state’s political parties gather to elect a new chairperson. Republicans selected former state Treasurer Jeff DeWit in 2023, but Swoboda then took the reins in January 2024 after DeWit resigned when a leaked recording showed him attempting to convince Kari Lake to drop out of the race for U.S. Senate.

Swoboda secured a full two-year term at this year’s meeting, defeating former state lawmaker Corey McGarr 978 to 758.

Swoboda’s reign

Swoboda, who previously worked in the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office from 2018 to 2020 under Republican Michele Reagan and Democrat Katie Hobbs, also works at the state Legislature advising Senate Republicans on elections policy.

Under Swoboda’s leadership, Republicans in Arizona had a largely successful 2024 election, increasing their majorities in the state Legislature and winning two competitive Congressional races. President Donald Trump also won the state by over 5% after losing Arizona to former President Joe Biden in 2020.

Despite those successes, a far-right wing of the party sought to oust Swoboda in favor of McGarr, a one-term Tucson lawmaker who lost his reelection bid to Democratic Rep. Kevin Volk.

“I'm running because two people that I trust and respect, our National Committeewoman Liz Harris and our National Committeeman Jake Hoffman, both came to me independently to say that our current leadership talks the talk but fails to walk the walk,” McGarr said, referencing state Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) and former Rep. Liz Harris, who was expelled from the Arizona House of Representatives in 2023.

McGarr accused Swoboda of failing to invest in winnable legislative races, including Legislative District 9, an East Valley district that has now elected an all-Democratic slate to the state Legislature for two straight elections.

McGarr also said party leadership should have invested more in Republicans who ran in local school board elections, which are nonpartisan in Arizona.

Swoboda’s message to the party faithful was simple.

“Your chair has one job — that's to win,” she said.

Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda speaking with attendees at the Restoring National Confidence Summit at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas on Jan. 29, 2024.
Gage Skidmore/CC by 2.0
Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda speaking with attendees at the Restoring National Confidence Summit at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas on Jan. 29, 2024.

The power struggle

In a presentation to members, she pointed out that the state party dedicated more money to contacting potential voters in 2024 compared to recent cycles and expanded Republican control at the Legislature for the first time in 10 years.

Party Treasurer Elijah Norton said the party spent 71% of its budget on efforts to contact voters.

Before a single vote was cast, that message won over a key stakeholder: President Donald Trump, who endorsed Swoboda to remain chair at a speech in Phoenix in December.

Despite that endorsement, a vocal contingent of supporters continued to oppose Swoboda, including Hoffman, who leads the Legislature’s far-right Freedom Caucus that once counted McGarr as a member.

“I'm not going to comment on the president's endorsement,” Hoffman said before the vote. “What I know is that the state committeemen of the state of Arizona, the grassroots of our party, they are the ones who elect our chairman.”

Hoffman and other critics took issue with Swoboda’s decision to run a coordinated campaign in the state legislative races this year using longtime Republican consultant Chris Baker. In an email to followers, Republican activist Merissa Hamilton called Baker “the swampiest of swamp consultants.”

That campaign allowed the party and candidates to, amongst other benefits, achieve substantially lower costs for campaign mailers, according to the Arizona Capitol Times. But McGarr’s supporters said the effort was an example of new party leadership returning control of the party to so-called “establishment” consultants who fell out of favor with many grassroots Republicans in recent years.

“I'm running for chair because the grassroots has worked 20 years to get rid of the establishment's grip on our party, and I am not content with our current leadership leaving the door wide open for them to come back into power,” McGarr said.

Swoboda, for her part, did not focus on that divisiveness, instead emphasizing the party’s success in 2024 after disappointing losses in key races in 2020 and 2022.

“We were upside down and things looked bleak, and we worked together, and I think that this party is more unified than the entire time I have been a PC and that’s been 10 years,” she said.

And she had some numbers to back that up.

On to 2026

According to her presentation to party members, a number of major Republican donors returned to the fold after party infighting drove them away in recent years, including Jim Click, one of several longtime party donors turned off by the party’s far-right turn in recent years.

Campaign finance records show Click gave the state party no money in 2021, 2022 or most of 2023. Since December 2023, he has contributed $25,000.

That helped Republicans raise around $20 million over the past year after struggling to regain financial stability in recent years under former chairs DeWit and Kelli Ward.

And then there’s the election results. Despite maintaining a significant voter registration in the state, Republicans had lost major races to Democrats over the past two election cycles, ceding the presidential race in 2020 alongside two U.S. Senate seats, governor, attorney general and secretary of state.

Republicans are now banking on Swoboda’s ability to replicate 2024 successes in 2026, when Democrats Gov. Katie Hobbs, Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes will all be up for reelection.

“It's such an important opportunity to select a leader who will not only be a good fundraiser, someone who will bring good candidates to each one of the selected counties, state federal offices, and it's important for someone who can get along with all of the sectors of our party,” Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee said before the vote, though she declined to say which candidate she supported.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The story has been updated to correct state Sen. Jake Hoffman's district.

Wayne Schutsky is a broadcast field correspondent covering Arizona politics on KJZZ. He has over a decade of experience as a journalist reporting on local communities in Arizona and the state Capitol.
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