Arizona Congressman David Schweikert says one of the reasons he’s leaving Congress to run for governor is because federal leaders went back on a budget deal.
Schweikert is known in Congress as “the charts guy.”
He’s one of Congress’ highest-ranking budget experts and frequently urges his colleagues to prioritize cutting down the national debt. So it was surprising when he supported the federal budget bill this year which is projected to increase the debt by $3 trillion over the next decade.
Schweikert, a GOP lawmaker, claimed he made a deal with House leaders to cut into the deficit in the future, and was betrayed.
“I introduced the bills to pay for it. I had a deal, we're going to run it as the next reconciliation. That bill, that promise disappeared. And in many ways, that helped push me over the line saying, I can't save Congress. Maybe I can save Arizona,” Schweikert said.
One of the things Schwikert wanted to prioritize is the shrinking Medicare trust fund. He introduced legislation to target that specifically.
Now, Schweikert hopes his mathematical, economic-focused approach will resonate with Arizonans in the 2026 election.
He’ll face fellow Congressman Andy Biggs and businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson in the GOP primary.
Despite the fact that numbers don’t tend to make headlines, Schweikert said economic issues are the ones which affect people most.
“A lot of times people can't articulate their stress, but they're stressed. And I would argue it's when it's really hard to make your car payment. When you walk into the grocery store and you're taking a look at the ground beef and you cannot believe what it costs,” Schweikert said.
Schweikert has multiple reasons for wanting to leave Congress, where he’s represented his district for nearly 15 years.
For one thing, he has an Arizona-based family, including two young children, and said he’s sick of being gone so much.
“At a certain point, coming home angry every week, I think starts to weigh in your soul,” Schweikert said.
For another, it’s hard to get things done in Congress.
“It's impossible to get anything done. We're too busy lying our a-ses — sorry — lying about the numbers, and it's a pox on both the left and the right,” he said.
Schweikert means that from an economic standpoint.
He’s the chair of the Joint Economic Committee, which advises Congress on economic issues.
Schweikert is also one of the highest-ranking members of the House Ways and Means committee, which is one of the chamber’s most influential committees and is responsible for writing taxes.
He said politicians tend to shirk discussions of “boring” economic issues in favor of splashy drama.
“Politics now is a dopamine hit. We want the anger and the interaction. We don't want intellectual dialogue,” Schweikert said. “I would argue it's one of the crises of modern politics, is they want us to be entertainers, not people presenting policy,” he said.
He believes that congressmen are especially afraid to take on the political risk of talking about the country’s debt.
“We're terrified to tell the truth to our voters, to our contributors, to each other on what happens when you have a country that borrows $6 billion a day, about $70,000 a second,” he said.
Another reason Schweikert has decided it’s time to run for governor now is he had a path a few years ago to move up in Congress — and he got what he wanted.
The 2022 gubernatorial election wrapped up in November of 2022. Schweikert was appointed chair of the Joint Economic Committee and Chairman of the Ways and Means Oversight committee in January of 2023.
He said wearing those hats should have given him enough power to make the “revolutionary difference” the U.S. economy needs — but it didn’t work out that way.
“What happens when you chair the Joint Economic Committee, you have a handful of Ph.D. economists that work for you, you chair Oversight in Ways and Means, you've gotten to the point where you should be allowed, able to make a difference. and the system is so terrified to tell the truth about the math. And this is a pox on Republicans and Democrats. We're intellectually calcified,” he said.
