Key Points

• Legislative District 14 isn’t typically competitive, but the two candidates bring different experiences to the office 

• Mylie Biggs explains her living situation and addresses a comment she made two years ago about women running for office

• Stephanie Walsh highlights her career experience in engineering as a good fit for the Legislature

Legislative District 14 is reliably Republican, making a Democratic upset this November a long shot.

But with the state Senate seat open, voters will have the choice between two candidates with sharply different views and paths to politics: Republican Mylie Biggs, the 26-year-old daughter of GOP gubernatorial candidate Andy Biggs, and Democrat Stephanie Walsh, an engineer and business owner who built a career outside of government.

Biggs grew up watching her father serve in the state Legislature and Congress and has spent the past several years working in grassroots politics. Walsh, meanwhile, built an engineering company, runs a nonprofit and settled in Gilbert with her husband and two children.

The district, which encompasses most of Gilbert, is not considered competitive. Political consultant Barrett Marson said Biggs’ name recognition and the district’s Republican lean make her the clear favorite — leaving Democrats to focus their resources on more competitive races.

“This is a ruby red district in a pretty low-information race with a name that voters have come to know,” Marson said. “Mylie Biggs can start measuring her office for curtains.”

Even so, the race offers voters a choice between a candidate steeped in Arizona politics and another who is pitching professional and community experience as her qualification for office.

Biggs’ politics and family ties

Campaign finance records show Biggs currently lives with her parents, setting up the possibility that a sitting state senator could share a home with the state’s governor. Arizona does not have a governor’s mansion.

The Gilbert address on her candidate nomination papers is the same address listed in other records connected to her father. Andy Biggs’ campaign finance reports list a different address — a UPS Store in Mesa about five miles from the family’s Gilbert home. 

According to the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office, two adjacent properties are owned by Andy and Cynthia Biggs in Gilbert. That address also matches the one Biggs listed on his previous state legislative campaign records. 

Mylie Biggs calls it a “non-issue.”

“I’m going to have my priorities,” she said. “He’s going to have his and a lot of times we’re going to overlap, and maybe sometimes we won’t.”

Andy Biggs’ campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Marson said such a living arrangement would not necessarily be a conflict of interest. He added that many family members serve together in the legislature and across different branches. 

Examples include sisters Alma Hernandez and Consuelo Hernandez, who both serve in the House, and former state lawmakers Athena Salman and Juan Mendez, who were married when they served. Sen. Shawnna Bolick’s husband is a state supreme court justice, along with other lawmakers’ familial relations.

If elected, she said she’d like to work on shrinking government. Biggs also said she believes Democrats and Republicans can find points of similarity in a lot of those issues, such as Fourth Amendment and privacy issues and expediting permitting processes. 

On education, Biggs said she’d protect the Empowerment Scholarship Account program and said there are already good guardrails on it. 

More controversially for Mylie Biggs was this 2024 comment on a podcast: “Honestly, I don’t know if I would vote for any female. I don’t know if a female should be in office.” 

Biggs told the Arizona Capitol Times this week that she was speaking hyperbolically with a friend, but that there are a lot of women in office she respects. She sees Sine Kerr as a mentor, she added. 

“I think being a woman running for office shows the change and the distinction of what I really believe. I could have used better words,” she said, adding she’ll be cautious in the future about how she phrases things. 

She doesn’t plan to debate Walsh because it’s not necessary right now, she said. It’s a departure from her father’s decision that he would debate Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has thus far declined.

Stephanie Walsh is pitching her resume

Democrat Stephanie Walsh is selling herself as an outsider who has built a strong resume outside of politics.

An engineer by trade, she founded and grew Idaho Falls-based Walsh Engineering Services to more than 100 employees. She also secured federal, state and private contracts and leads the Idaho Sustainability and Energy Coalition, a nonprofit organization that helps “businesses and people make informed decisions about energy and improving their economic and environmental sustainability.” She recently sold her engineering firm. 

Walsh is also head of the Idaho Geothermal Action Consortium, an advocacy group supporting the development of geothermal energy resources. 

She plans on stepping down from her leadership roles if she’s elected because the Legislature is a serious job, she said. 

Those experiences have shaped the issues she would prioritize as a legislator: energy, water and education – particularly preparing students for jobs and getting businesses more involved. 

“I’m watching us ignore our energy needs,” she said. “Everybody’s talking about water right now, which is of course extremely important. Energy is going to be the next battle, and so we need to invest more.”

And if Arizona’s water options end up toward desalination, the only way to do that is to produce a lot of energy, she added. 

She and her husband built a house in Gilbert nine years ago and moved with their two kids, now ages 22 and 25. Running for office wasn’t necessarily in her plans, but she made the decision when she found out Biggs was the only candidate running. 

“I felt that having family connections doesn’t necessarily make you qualified to play a role like that. I decided to run primarily because of my experience and how much I believe it helps our district and all of Arizona,” she said. “I felt that my opponent’s age has not given her the opportunity yet to have those kinds of experiences that she’s going to need.” 

She said she loves her district because Gilbert feels more like a community and not a suburb of Phoenix. 

“I love that they have maintained a small town feel wherever they can,” she said. “I love that people are friendly. I think it’s been a fabulous place to call home.”