Despite a significant cash disadvantage and open opposition from party leadership, Phoenix mental health counselor Teri Ann Hourihan won the Arizona No Labels Party’s gubernatorial primary, earning the chance to mount a third-party challenge to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and Republican Andy Biggs in the general election.
With nearly all ballots counted across the state, Hourihan leads Scottsdale healthcare CEO Hugh Lytle by nearly 1,200 votes, or about 12%, in the No Labels primary, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.
Lytle was endorsed by the Arizona No Labels Party, which is led by former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson. He said he wanted to create a political home for independent-minded voters disenchanted by Republicans and Democrats and even attempted to rename it the Arizona Independent Party, before a judge shot down the name change.
In addition to backing from the nascent party, Lytle held a huge cash advantage in the race.
Campaign finance reports show his campaign brought in $2.1 million — most of which came from loans from Lytle himself — and spent over $900,000.
Hourihan, by comparison, raised only $40,242 and spent $36,605.
Despite that advantage, Lytle lost the race and conceded on Wednesday.
“When we launched this campaign, we set out to prove that Arizona is bigger than partisan gridlock and that a pragmatic, problem-solving approach could unite this state. Although this campaign has come to an end, the work of building a stronger Arizona continues,” he wrote on social media.
Hourihan credited her ability to reach out to No Labels voters directly for her victory, saying she personally collected many of the signatures required to qualify for the primary election.
“So I got to speak to thousands of people in Arizona just personally as they signed my (petitions) to get on the ballot, right?” she said. “And then I also reach out individually to people.”
Contender or spoiler?
Since Johnson first re-launched the No Labels in Arizona, he has had to fend off criticism that the party will play little more than a “spoiler” role in upcoming elections, drawing enough votes away from one of the major party candidates to hand the race to their opponent in Arizona, where the last governor’s election was decided by less than 20,000 votes.
“If their answer is, ‘Well, we really should be secret Democrats,’ too bad for them, because that's not who we are,” Johnson said at a press conference last year. He did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Hourihan, too, rejected the spoiler label.
“I’m gonna win, and I’m not a spoiler,” she said.
Hourihan said she was a lifelong Democrat, mostly because her parents were Democrats. She switched to Republican more recently but that didn’t stick.
“When I went to run, I changed to Republican because it fit some of my — I have some conservative values, you know, that fit me,” she said. “But I ran for 30 days, and it did not fit me. I felt like I was pigeonholed into this way of being and acting and saying and doing in just 30 days.”
When asked about her path to victory, Hourihan pointed to Arizona’s voter registration numbers. They show that Arizona’s 46,246 No Labels voters, combined with the nearly 1.5 million independents who don’t align with any party, make up nearly 36% of the electorate.
That’s more than either the Republican or Democratic parties.
And Hourihan thinks she can attract those voters with her platform, which includes addressing Arizona’s water crisis through a mix of conservation and adopting alternative water sources, like desalination.
She has also differentiated herself from Hobbs by saying she supports keeping Arizona’s expanded school voucher program in place while also looking for ways to improve the state’s public school system.
“I'd rather try and fail than not try at all, because I believe that Andy Biggs and Katie Hobbs are very bad for Arizona,” Hourihan said.
But the independent voters who Hourihan is relying on aren’t necessarily all middle-of-the-road moderates.
A 2025 Gallup poll found that more voters across the country than ever are identifying as independents but many still hold onto their previous partisan leanings.
According to the poll, around 47% of respondents still identified as Democrat or Democrat-leaning while 45% identified as Republican or Republican-leaning. Only 10% said they did not lean towards either party.
And no third-party or independent candidate has earned more than 7% of the vote in an Arizona gubernatorial election since 1986, when independent Bill Schulz came in third with 26% of the vote.
Hourihan has other reasons boosting her confidence, though. Namely, her faith.
“I say my slogan is, ‘it's about people and a whole lot of Jesus and grit,’ because it really is a God story for me … a God story says that there's a calling on my life, and I'm gonna win the race,” she said.
Money
Hourihan said she doesn’t need a lot of money to win the general election, pointing to her primary victory, which she accomplished with no paid staff.
She said she has hired some help for the general election, but will continue to rely on connecting individually with voters.
“I'm going out today to connect with people and talk to people, and I think people are tired of the two-party system, and they see the ability to to have an independent person,” Hourihan said.
But replicating her primary campaign in a general election could prove difficult.
There are a total of 4.3 million voters statewide, compared to the 46,246 registered No Labels voters in Arizona.
And less than 10,000 voters participated in the No Labels primary.
During the last governor’s race in 2022, more than 2.5 million voters cast a ballot.
With less than $5,000 left in her campaign account, it is unclear where she will find the resources to reach that much larger group of voters.
A spokesman for Lytle, Hourihan’s well-moneyed primary opponent, did not respond to a request to comment on whether he plans to back her in the general election.
“One, they have not called me, and two, I wouldn't accept any support,” Hourihan said of Johnson and Lytle. “So I've already made that pretty clear.”
Early voting in the general election begins on Oct. 7.
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