Adelita Grijalva is ready for national politics. On Monday morning, the current Pima County supervisor announced her candidacy to fill the congressional seat left vacant by her late father, Raúl Grijalva.
She will resign her District 5 seat on the board of supervisors to run for the second largest congressional district in Arizona.
She said she did a lot of soul searching, spoke extensively to her three teenage children, and decided she needed to run.
“We had somebody who was unapologetic and unafraid in sharing his progressive values,” Grijalva said of her father.
“In thinking about who else could carry on that set of values for Southern Arizona, that’s when I realized that this was something that I had to do,” Grijalva told Arizona Luminaria.
Tucson’s Raúl Grijalva dies at 77, leaving a legacy of service, action. And a big personality.
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Her father had represented Arizona’s 7th Congressional District since 2003. He was known as a fierce advocate for progressive values and a stalwart defender of the environment and immigrants in Southern Arizona. He was diagnosed with cancer in April 2024 and died on March 13.
Now, his daughter is aiming to follow in his footsteps.
A Tucson resident, Adelita Grijalva has served on the Pima County Board of Supervisors since 2020, representing District 5. She was the first Latina elected to that position, and was chair of the supervisors for two years, ending this January. Before that she served on the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board for 20 years.
Raúl Grijalva also served on the same TUSD governing board and as a Pima County Supervisor. If his daughter is elected to Congress, she will have traced his almost identical career path to Washington.
While Adelita Grijalva said she would focus on education and immigration — two issues for which she has long been an advocate — she said the new Trump administration has made it difficult to respond.
“We’re not living in normal times,” Grijalva said.
She said the current administration is “dismantling our entire democracy,” emphasizing that it’s important “that we can’t sit around and say, well, ‘This too shall pass.’ No. You have to have all of your defenses up.”
In her press release announcing her candidacy, she put it more strongly.
“Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their gang of billionaires are destroying our nation,” she said in the release. “They’re destroying our schools. They’re attacking our most sacred rights. They’re poisoning our environment. But together, we will stop them. This fight starts right here, right now, in southern Arizona.”
Yet she also stressed the importance of working across the aisle. She gave the example of water as a bipartisan concern. Farmers in Pinal County, she said, may lean conservative, but there is common ground in the need for water and labor.
She said that’s why it’s critical for her to step down from her position on the board of supervisors now.
She said she plans to go to Yuma later this week to kick off her listening tour.
“I’m not the smartest one in the room, but I’m going to work the hardest,” Grijalva said.
She added that she wanted to focus on talking “to people who have lived experience that I don’t have.”
She also said she’s stepping down from her position on the county board now so her seat is filled quickly to make sure her district has representation.
The primary congressional election will be held on July 15, and the general election on Sept. 23.
District 7 stretches along the U.S.-México border and includes parts of six counties: Pima, Santa Cruz, Yuma, Cochise, Maricopa and Pinal as well as four sovereign tribal nations: the Cocopah, Pascua Yaqui, Quechan, and Tohono O’odham. The district is 60% Hispanic.
As of January, 40% of voters in this district are registered Democrats, 37% are independents, 21% are Republicans and 2% belong to other political parties..
Other candidates
Grijalva will face dozens of competitors as this job opens up for the first time in more than 20 years.
While many speculated that Tucson Mayor Regina Romero would enter the race, shortly after Raúl Grijalva’s death, she announced she would not be running. Romero will chair Grijalva’s campaign.
And while Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes also expressed initial interest, he announced last week that he would stay in his current role and not run for the congressional seat.
So far, the highest profile candidate Grijalva will face in the Democratic primary is Daniel Hernandez.
Hernandez is a former representative in the Arizona House, serving from 2017 to 2023. Hernandez first entered politics after surviving the mass shooting on Jan. 11 in Tucson while working for former representative Gabrielle Giffords.
In total, 13 people have filed statements of interest to run in the Democratic primary.
They are: Jose Aguilar, Samuel Alegria, Nyles Bauer, David “Bees” Bies, Trista di Genova, Patrick Harris Sr., Daniel Hernandez, Victor Longoria, Jose Malvido Jr., Samantha Severson, Scott Sheldon, Danielle “Dani” Sterbinsky and Stefawna Welch.
On the Republican side, 10 Republicans filed statements of interest, including Daniel Butierez, who ran against Raúl Grijalva in 2024. The Republicans who have filed are: Butierez, William “Bill” Hunter, Carolyn Norris, Michael Rebeiro, Jorge Rivas, Jimmy Rodriguez, Gabriel Tapia, Raul Verdugo, Joe Wells and Steven Willhite.
The Libertarian candidates who have announced their interest are: Alan Aversa and Matthew “Matt” Myers. The one Green party candidate to so far file a statement of interest is Gary Swing. The No Labels party candidate who has filed a statement of interest is Richard Grayson.
The deadline for candidates to enter the race is April 14.
Given the recent death of her father, her decision to leave her longtime county job and run for Congress, as well as the urgent and rapidly changing political times, Grijalva said, she is “very, very sad some of the time.”
But she added, “I’m a mom and an oldest daughter, so I have to keep it together to take care of everybody else.”
She said the seat in Congress right now is “that important.”
“I think I’m the best to do this right now.”
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