Sen. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, announced today that he has filed to run for Secretary of State, setting up a primary challenge against Secretary of State Michele Reagan in 2018.

In a news release, Montenegro took jabs at Reagan, whose tenure has been marked by various mishaps, from a missing election procedures manual to a failure to send out publicity pamphlets to some voters during the May 2016 special election. She was also blamed for the long lines during the presidential preference election, although it was decisions made by the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office that caused the fiasco.

“It’s time for our state to have a Secretary of State who is committed to running our state’s elections efficiently and properly. Unfortunately, it’s become clear that the current officeholder is not up to the job,” Montenegro said. “Under her leadership, countless mistakes have been made that have led to erosion in the public’s faith in our election system.”

Democrat Katie Hobbs has announced she will run for the state’s second-highest office as well. Democratic Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton also filed a committee for the position, although the move is meant to ensure he could access campaign funds should he decide to run for a statewide office.

Most recently, Reagan came under fire for a still-unreleased campaign finance website, See The Money, that her office has already spent $500,000 and is now asking for more money to complete.

Montenegro said Reagan doesn’t respect taxpayers, as evidenced by “misprinted ballots to a boondoggle campaign finance website that is overdue and over budget.”

He also said Reagan has a “long and liberal voting record,” while touting himself as a “principled conservative” who has focused on passing tax cuts while in the Legislature.

Reagan told the Arizona Capitol Times she hasn’t seen what Montenegro has to say about her record in office, but said she welcomes anyone to the Secretary of State race.

“I would expect, if he was running for an office, he wouldn’t say nice things,” she said. “This is the way campaigns are. I love a good campaign.”

Montenegro has run into some of his own debacles while in the House, where he served from 2009 to 2016. He was the House Majority Leader in his last years in the chamber.

He had to repay the American Legislative Exchange Council for a scholarship he got from the group to attend its conference in July 2015 in San Diego, California. He had taken a state vehicle to the event (see note below). Montenegro also traveled to the conference with his wife, although people who aren’t employees of the state aren’t supposed to be in state vehicles.

This isn’t the first time Montenegro has eyed the Secretary of State’s Office. He created an exploratory committee to run for the open seat in 2013, but dropped out a few months later after businessman Wil Cardon entered the Republican primary.

Montenegro said at the time that he entered the race at the urging of conservatives who were concerned about the “decidedly narrow, left-of-center” field of Republican candidates, but he was stepping aside for Cardon, his “fellow conservative.”

CORRECTION: The original version of this story stated that in addition to getting a travel stipend from the American Legislative Exchange Council, Montenegro also received “travel reimbursement from the state for using the state vehicle.” That’s incorrect. The House of Representatives paid the Arizona Department of Administration $315 for Montenegro’s six-day utility 4×4 rental and gas to and from San Diego, California, where the ALEC conference was held in July 2015. Montenegro wasn’t reimbursed by the state. Even though the state paid for that trip, Montenegro filled out a form requesting a travel “scholarship” to pay for his travel expenses to the ALEC conference. Then-House GOP spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said that, upon realizing he had been “mistakenly” reimbursed by ALEC, Montenegro “promptly’’ repaid the organization from his own funds, not from House monies. But Sen. Debbie Lesko, ALEC’s Arizona chairwoman, said when she discovered ALEC had reimbursed Montenegro, even though the taxpayers had already paid for his travel, she asked him to return the money, and he did so the next day.