Key Points:

• Democratic and Republican voters chose candidates that align with each party’s values
• Candidates will now have to appeal to a wider range of voters
• Primary winners have varying views on a number of key issues

Arizona voters made their priorities clear in this week’s primary election.

For Republicans, voters chose a slate of congressional and legislative candidates who have wholeheartedly backed President Donald Trump’s agenda on immigration enforcement, tax cuts, election integrity and denialism, school choice, and government efficiency.

Democratic voters mostly elected congressional and legislative incumbents who have opposed Trump’s policies while seeking to protect voter rights, oppose the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts and enact limits on the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program. 

Both parties now have until November to convince voters they have the right candidates to lead the state and the country.

Here’s where some candidates stand on notable issues facing the state:

Election Integrity
Secretary of State nominee Rep. Alex Kolodin has disputed previous election results and has accused incumbent Democrat Adrian Fontes of mismanaging the state’s elections. The other Republican candidates, as well as many congressional and legislative nominees, have also accused the state’s elections of being rife with fraud. 

Some state Republicans also want to speed up ballot counting by moving the state’s early voting deadline, requiring government identification when dropping off mail-in ballots and making Arizona’s election system resemble Florida’s.

Fontes has defended the integrity of the state’s elections and clashed with the federal government this past spring after denying its request to access the state’s voter rolls. He also told the League of Women Voters of Arizona in February that he would “preserve and protect” the state’s election system.

State Democrats have proposed their own measures to ensure voter access, such as requiring counties to use vote centers and moving back to the Permanent Early Voting List. But the Republican majority at the Legislature has opposed many of those proposals.

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts
There are two ballot proposals that will allow voters to decide on the fate of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program. The Protect Education Act is a measure that would implement comprehensive safety checks on facilities, fingerprint cards for tutors and teachers, impose a $150,000 income cap on families, include a provision funneling unused ESA dollars to public schools, require standardized testing, and ban luxury and non-educational purchases.

House Concurrent Resolution 2048 is a measure backed by Republicans. It would prevent the state from confiscating ESA scholarship funds from military families, but it would also nullify any ballot measure that violates its provisions, such as the Protect Education Act. The Legislature passed the ballot proposal on the last day of session after a compromise between Republicans, the Arizona Education Association and school choice groups fell through.

Groundwater management
Republicans and Democrats have been working to find a compromise on a rural groundwater management framework for several years. 

In 2025, Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, and Rep. Chris Mathis, D-Tucson, joined with Gov. Katie Hobbs and a bipartisan group of rural lawmakers to introduce legislation that would have given more local control to rural areas contending with groundwater shortages. The bill, however, never received a committee hearing.

Sen. Tim Dunn, R-Yuma, introduced a bill that year aimed to achieve the same goal, albeit with different groundwater restrictions. But it stalled, and no new measures advanced during this year’s legislative session.

Mathis told the Arizona Capitol Times sister publication, Arizona Legislative Report, earlier this year that he was confident the Legislature could pass a bill if Hobbs was reelected. 

However, any proposal would potentially have to go through Rep. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, who has chaired the House Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee, and has been blamed for blocking potential legislation. 

Griffin is headed back to the Legislature, this time in the Senate, after running unopposed in the Legislative District 19 primary. She won’t face a Democratic challenger in November.

Housing
Democrats and Republicans have pushed measures in recent years to increase the housing supply with hopes of stemming the rising home prices in the state. 

Lawmakers have introduced starter home bills in recent years, which would prohibit cities and towns from requiring specific aesthetic design features in new housing developments. The proposals have received bipartisan support, but the measures have also faced roadblocks, with cities and towns opposing the measure. 

Lawmakers have also targeted short-term rentals, which some have blamed for gobbling up the state’s housing supply.

Rep. Selina Bliss, R-Prescott, introduced a bill that would have allowed local governments to limit maximum occupancy in sleeping areas of a short-term rental property and give cities permission to suspend a short-term rental license if there is a building code violation at a property that presents a serious threat to public health and safety. 

The legislation stalled, but Bliss, who won her primary race in a Republican-leaning district, said in May she wanted to revive the bill next year.

Correction: This story has been corrected to clarify that Rep. Gail Griffin is running for a seat in the state Senate after previously serving in the House.