Key Points:

• Arizona’s pivotal midterm election is entering its final week

• The state’s voters can have a big impact on national politics, and vice versa

• The numbers show an advantage for Democrats, but the margins are likely to be slim

Arizonans will learn in just over a week whether Democrats’ 2022 sweep of three top statewide offices was a fluke or a real sign the state is no longer blood red.

And with all statewide offices and congressional seats up for grabs, the state’s voters have a real chance to decide whether Democrats take control of the Legislature and U.S. House for the last two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.

As voters start returning their mail ballots, Democrats are seeing a surge in returns while Republicans are underperforming, sending in their completed ballots at slower rates.

Nearly 28% of Democrats have already returned their mail ballots, compared to a bit more than 23% of Republicans. Independents, who make up more than a third of all registered voters, appear to be sitting on their ballots, with fewer than 13% mailing them back as of Oct. 24, according to Stealth Analytics.

Nearly 90% of Arizona’s 4.37 million voters use mail-in ballots instead of going to a local polling place.

But that doesn’t guarantee an easy Democratic victory, as those numbers tell only part of the story.

While the percentage of ballots from Republicans lags behind Democrats, the GOP has far more members in Arizona. So even with the slower return, Stealth Analytics said each party has a nearly equal share of the more than 884,000 ballots returned by the end of last week.

And even if those who wait until election day are a minority, the 2022 election showed they tend to skew Republican.

High gas and food prices, an unpopular war being felt at home, and concerns about aggressive federal immigration enforcement efforts are helping Democrats and boosting party leaders’ belief that they can win back not only the U.S. House but possibly also the Senate.

Some are even convinced they can win control of the state Legislature. Democrats haven’t controlled the state Senate since 1990 and haven’t held the House majority since 1966 — a full 60 years.

What the polls say

Polling earlier this month by HighGround, a public affairs and campaign firm that has surveyed Arizona voters for decades, shows a historic shift toward Democrats in Arizona, with as many as 20% of Republicans backing the other party’s candidates. Its polling showed Democrats ahead in all five top statewide offices. 

HighGround President and CEO Chuck Coughlin, now registered as an independent after leaving the GOP in 2018, said the polling results took him aback. Still, he warned that turnout and the GOP’s natural voter-registration advantage could tighten the numbers as Election Day nears. 

“We were all caught a little unaware of how difficult the cycle had become” for Republicans, Coughlin said.

“And there’s really no reason to believe, given the president’s narrative and his tour schedule, that they’re fighting the tactical fight,” he said. “They have a full-on house fire going on, and they see it as well.”

The Democratic Party’s wins in the governors, secretary of state, and attorney general races in 2022 built a firewall against GOP control of all branches of state government, the first time since former Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano resigned to join the Obama Administration in 2009. Although their victories were tiny, polling by HighGround and others shows all three are doing better with voters this year.

Hobbs won by just 17,000 votes in 2022, while Attorney General Kris Mayes won by a historically slim margin of just 280 votes that year. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes bested his opponent by the largest margin of the three top officials, outpolling Republican Mark Finchem — who campaigned on the disproven claim that election fraud led to Joe Biden’s 2020 win — by more than 120,000 votes.

All are seeking re-election in the Nov. 3 general election and face Republican challengers Andy Biggs, Warren Petersen and Alexander Kolodin, respectively. 

National issues top of mind

Samara Klar, a political science professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, agrees that Democrats are poised to do well on Election Day despite the GOP’s voter registration advantage of 34.8% to 28.3%, or 6.5 percentage points. Democrats have added nearly 30,000 registered voters since the August primary, while Republican registration is flat. Independents have also surged, adding more than 37,000 voters.

Those numbers should still put the GOP ahead, but she said independent voters are breaking for the Democrats. Klar credits their campaigns with eschewing liberal politics.

“Democratic campaigns in Arizona have been very disciplined about portraying a centrist moderate ideology, whereas the Republican campaigns in Arizona have not done that,” she said.

“They have moved further to the right side of the spectrum in order, presumably, to appeal to their more conservative base,” Klar said. “But given that a full third of Arizonans identify as independent, it’s really the Democrats’ more moderate strategy that seems to be winning.”

She said that, for the first time in recent election cycles, some Republicans are trying to move somewhat toward the center. But so far it hasn’t persuaded moderate voters.

“There is more of a strategic choice to move away from him, but the candidates themselves are really inextricably tied to Donald Trump,” Klar said.

And the national political mood is hurting the GOP across the board.

“I think actually immigration could have been a really strong issue for them to run on in 2026, if it hadn’t been for what many see as excessive force by ICE,” Klar said. “But it’s been fully overshadowed by the economy,” she said. “Absolutely overshadowed by gas prices, food prices, cost of living, and that is just making it very hard for Republicans to run any kind of winning message.”

Arizona’s effect on Congress

In Congressional District 1, which covers the northeast Phoenix suburbs, former professional football kicker Jay Feely hopes to maintain Republican control of the seat vacated by GOP Rep. David Schwiekert, who made an unsuccessful run for governor in August’s GOP primary. He faces Democrat Amish Shaw, an emergency room physician who previously served in the state House. 

Shaw won the primary despite lacking Democratic Party support. Part of that may be that he is known at the Capitol as a moderate centrist who sometimes crossed over to support GOP bills in the Legislature.

In CD6, encompassing parts of Tucson and all of southeastern Arizona, incumbent Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani is trying to hold the seat against former U.S. Marine drill instructor JoAnna Mendoza. 

Ciscomani touts himself as Washington’s most bipartisan congressman, although his record shows consistent support for Trump’s policies. Mendoza is focusing her messages on lowering consumer costs, job growth, border security and immigration reform

Both races are incredibly tight and hard-fought, Klar said. Although the national picture clearly shows Democrats doing well, she’s not convinced that will carry over in Arizona, from top of the ticket down.

“I think that Arizona is much more competitive than the national picture,” she said.

“I think nationally, Democrats are going to do well,” Klar said. “Seems as though they’ll take over the House. They may take over the Senate.”

But the picture, she said, is different at the state level.

“Arizona specifically is a much, much tighter electorate, and there’s more Republicans in Arizona than there are Democrats,” Klar said. “That is just an indisputable fact, and it’s hard to get around.”