Arizona

Katie Hobbs beat Republican Andy Biggs, 55.6% to 42.4%, in a state Donald Trump carried by 5.5 points. Democrats also won the races for attorney general, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction and treasurer, the last two taken from the Republicans. Republicans went in holding six of the state’s nine U.S. House seats. Democrats have now won five: Amish Shah took the First District by 7.0 points, and JoAnna Mendoza beat Republican Juan Ciscomani in the Sixth by 8.1. Republicans have won three, two of them narrowly. Abraham Hamadeh held the Eighth District by 2.4 points and Mark Lamb won the Fifth by 3.4, in districts Trump carried by 15.8 and 19.7.

Set against the 2024 presidential vote, the governor’s race ran 18.7 points more Democratic, from R+5.5 to D+13.2. Hobbs drew 91 votes for every 100 Kamala Harris won here; Biggs drew 62 for every 100 of Trump’s. The votes cast for governor came to 76% of the 2024 presidential total and 101% of the 2022 total.

The move was close to uniform. The Phoenix metro area, which cast 67% of the state’s 2024 vote, moved furthest, 19.7 points, from R+5.2 to D+14.5. The Tucson area, already Democratic, moved least: 15.9 points, to D+31.1. The small towns and rural counties changed sides, from R+13.8 to D+4.9, and the smaller metro areas stayed Republican at R+11.3, down from R+27.5.

Maricopa County, which cast 60% of the state’s votes, went from R+3.5 in 2024 to D+16.3 on 1,539,513 votes. It is one of two counties that changed sides. The other, Yuma County, moved 28.0 points, from R+20.4 to D+7.6. No county moved toward the Republicans. The legislative results show the same reach. Democrats won a state Senate seat in Gilbert’s Legislative District 14, which Republican Warren Petersen carried by more than 20 points in 2024 and Democrat Stephanie Walsh won with 51%, KJZZ reported.¹

In unofficial results the state Senate went from 17 Republicans and 13 Democrats to 20 Democrats and 10 Republicans, and the House from a 33-seat Republican majority to 37 Democrats and 23 Republicans. With Hobbs re-elected, Democrats have their first trifecta in Arizona since 1966; Republicans had held the House for 60 years and the Senate since the early 1990s, the Associated Press reported.² Priya Sundareshan, a Tucson Democrat, was named Senate president-elect and takes the chair in January.³

The new majorities have two limits. A veto override takes two-thirds of the members elected to each house, 20 of 30 senators and 40 of 60 representatives; the Democrats’ Senate seats reach that mark and their House seats do not, and the governor is of their own party.^{4, 5} They do not get the maps. A five-member Independent Redistricting Commission draws congressional and legislative lines under the state constitution, and the Legislature may only make recommendations.⁶ The secretary of state is elected to a four-year term, and Adrian Fontes, the Democratic incumbent, won another.^{7, 8}

Hobbs named affordability, the border, water and public education as her priorities for a second term. “We’ve repealed the tax on rent. We’ve delivered historic tax cuts for Arizona families. But they’re certainly telling us there’s more to do,” she told Arizona’s Family on November 9. She will govern with a lieutenant governor from outside her party: John Giles, a Republican and former mayor of Mesa, takes the newly created office.⁹ Sundareshan listed lower costs, public education, water and rights as the Senate majority’s aims, and Attorney General Kris Mayes said she wants the school voucher program held accountable.^{2, 7}

An Arizona measure becomes law with a majority of the votes cast on it, and one that approves a tax needs sixty percent, under the state constitution.^{10, 11} Voters approved five of the eight on the ballot and rejected three, the Arizona Capitol Times reported.¹² The closest to pass was Proposition 141, at 51.0% yes, which bans state and local taxes on drivers by the mile. The others approved cap local grocery taxes and require a vote to raise them (62.1%), designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations under state law (56.7%), extend the state’s ban on transgender student athletes to private leagues (58.7%) and require voter authorization for new photo traffic enforcement (62.4%).¹³

The three that failed were Proposition 144, which would have required every voter, including those voting by mail, to show government-issued ID and drew 46.7% yes; Proposition 142, which would have tightened restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion programs (40.1%); and Proposition 320, which would have required schools to spend 60% of operating money on classroom instruction (48.1%).¹³

Three judges appointed by former Gov. Doug Ducey were trailing in their retention votes in unofficial results: a Court of Appeals judge and Maricopa County Superior Court Judges Julie Mata and Michael Rassas, though Mata and Rassas met the state judicial performance commission’s standards. Hobbs would appoint the Superior Court replacements from nominating-commission lists.¹⁴ Ballotpedia lists the one Supreme Court justice on the ballot, John Lopez IV, as retained.¹⁵ In Maricopa County, Sebastian Matta, a 19-year-old Democrat, won the race for Clerk of Superior Court with 53% over former state Sen. Jeff Dial and will lead about 670 employees.¹⁶

Republicans kept three U.S. House seats they held, the Fifth, Eighth and Ninth Districts, the first two by 3.4 and 2.4 points. Of the state’s 15 counties, nine still voted Republican for governor, though none moved toward the party from 2024. In the Legislature, Rep. Nick Kupper in District 25 and Sen. Janae Shamp in District 29 moved ahead in later counts after trailing on election night, and House Speaker Steve Montenegro held his District 29 seat; House Republicans later made him their minority leader, the Arizona Capitol Times reported.^{4, 17}

Mark Kelly’s Senate seat will be on the ballot in 2028. He is a Democrat in a state that voted Republican by 5.5 points for president in 2024 and Democratic by 13.2 in this year’s race for governor. Hobbs begins a second four-year term, the length the constitution sets for the governor and the other executive officers.^{8, 9} The next congressional and legislative maps will be the Independent Redistricting Commission’s to draw, whatever the Legislature’s majority is then.⁶

One U.S. House race is not called in our count. Republican Eli Crane leads Democrat Jonathan Nez by 1.0 points in the Second District; Arizona’s Family reported that the Associated Press called the race for Crane on November 9.¹⁸ The Corporation Commission, which regulates utility rates and which Republicans control entirely, had two seats open. Democrats Jonathon Hill and Clara Pratte had the most votes and Republican incumbent Kevin Thompson was third when Arizona’s Family reported on November 6, with results not final.¹⁹ One state House seat in Legislative District 27 goes to an automatic recount between two Republican incumbents, which does not change the party count.²⁰