In primary voting Tuesday, Arizona Republican voters chose Andy Biggs to face incumbent Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs in the general election while unofficial results showed Republican Tom Horne — running for his fourth term — losing to current Arizona State Treasurer Kimberly Yee for the state school superintendent job.
Teresa Leyba Ruiz won the Democratic primary for school superintendent. Republican candidate Warren Petersen will face Attorney General Kris Mayes. Alexander Kolodin won the Republican primary for secretary of state.
Results
Expected starting after 8 p.m. on Tuesday, July 21. 🗳️ Click here to jump down to results.
Marana Mayor Jon Post maintained his lead over challenger Greg Johnsen in early results, while most of the reform candidates for town council seats fell behind with the exception of Jackie McGuire. As the town debates immigration detention and a massive data center, McGuire is on track to be a new member of the Marana town council. Incumbents in South Tucson maintained their leads. Oro Valley selected a mayor and town council members and Sahuarita chose its town council.
Arizona polls closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday and results began arriving at 8 p.m. Pima County says the first results were from early ballots and later updates include results from Election Day voting. This story will be updated.
School superintendent
PHOENIX — About three dozen supporters chomped on mini chimis and chips, salsa and guacamole as primary election results began to show on the projector in a central Phoenix event space Tuesday night.
Democratic candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Leyba Ruiz took a microphone and blocked the projector.
“I’m going to use my teacher voice,” she said.
Then Ruiz — the only superintendent candidate who is also a certified teacher — told the crowd of her “pretty historic blowout” over challenger Brett Newby. As of 9 p.m., The Associated Press called the race in favor of Ruiz.
In the Republican primary, Kimberly Yee the current Arizona State Treasurer, leads incumbent Tom Horne 55.4% to 44.7% with 46% of votes counted, according to the Associated Press.
“This has been a historical first from the get-go, being the first Latina to run for superintendent and the first to get to all 15 counties in Arizona,” Ruiz told family, friends and supporters. “We are truly a grassroots effort.”
The state superintendent’s job is to enforce the State Board of Education’s policies and create and achieve state standards (think testing) for all Arizona public schools, distribute state education funds to counties, certify teachers, determine the course of study and instruction, budget for school transportation, audit school officials accounts with the auditor general and issue school materials and supplies.
Horne, 81, seeks his fourth term as superintendent and has been instrumental in growing the Empowerment Scholarship Account program here where over 100,000 students (8% of all Arizona students) use taxpayer money to attend the school of their choice. Horne’s current tenure also includes mandating Arizona school districts sign a letter of civil rights compliance with Title IV and a hotline to report teaching critical race theory.
He has sparred with Yee over restrictions on the ESA program.
“Yee is one of the architects of the ESAs,” Ruiz told Arizona Luminaria Tuesday night. “This system was set up to be abused. It’s an attack on the system.”
The next three months will be busy, Ruiz said, as she clutched her turquoise choker necklace and supporters departed the venue. “We will continue to travel the state and talk with a wider audience.”
– Shannon Conner
South Tucson: Incumbents leading in prelimary results
As the first unofficial results for the primary South Tucson election were released, Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela led with 19.68% of votes, followed by Cesar Aguirre with 15.80% of votes, and Brian Flagg with 15.23% of votes. The three candidates are South Tucson City Council members seeking reelection.
The top three candidates with the most votes will be part of the city council for the next four years.
Debbie Fedrico, one of the five candidates pursuing their first election, follows the group of three incumbents with 13.94% of votes.
Results remain unofficial, and additional ballets are expected to be counted throughout the evening.
South Tucson council member candidates held private watch parties with friends and family.
– Bárbara Flores, Somos Tucson
State Senate: Pima County
- State Rep. Alma Hernandez is ahead in unofficial early results for the State Senate seat in District 20. The AP reported she leads former Tucson City Council member Rocque Perez by 7.48 percentage points with an estimated 77.7% of votes counted. Majority-Latino and Democratic-dominated District 20 covers urban areas of Tucson including the University of Arizona, downtown, Flowing Wells, South Tucson, and Drexel Heights, plus part of the Pascua Yaqui nation and the rural Avra Valley area. The seat is open because incumbent Democrat Sally Ann Gonzales is termed out of the state senate and is running for a House seat in this district.
- Chris King has defeated Anthony Dunham to become the GOP nominee in District 17. Republican-leaning District 17 wraps around the Catalina Mountains to include parts of Marana, Oro Valley, Saddlebrooke and Vail. Incumbent Republican Vince Leach is not seeking reelection. King will face Democrat Edgar Soto in the general election.
State House: Pima County
- In the District 19 Republican primary, longtime Republican lawmaker David Gowan and Lupe Diaz have won. Gowan is running for the House seat because he is termed out in the Senate. The two GOP winners will face Democrats Jackie O’Donnell Anderson and Aiden Swallow in the general election
- In the District 20 Democratic primary, Sally Ann Gonzales and incumbent Betty Villegas won. Gonzales is the current senator in the district, and she has reached her term limit in that chamber, so she is seeking a House seat.
- In the District 21 Democratic primary, incumbent Consuelo Hernandez and challenger Miranda Lopez lead in unofficial early results. If Lopez keeps her lead, she will remove incumbent Stephanie Stahl Hamilton. The two winners will face Republican Christopher Kibbey in the general election.
- In the District 23 Democratic primary, incumbent Mariana Sandoval and Emilia Cortez have won. The two winners will face Republicans Gary Garcia Snyder and incumbent Michele Peña in the general election.
Marana
MARANA — As the clock ticked past 8 p.m., the evenings’ emcee, Darrell Bakeman, shouted excitedly: “Our votes are in. Our votes are in. And our candidates for council are all leading!”
Bakeman, a retired nonprofit executive, calls herself a “super volunteer.”
“We got to keep it going, and it’s going to be a long night but it’s not over until the best lady has sung her song,” says Bakeman. For most of the evening, as early vote counts trickled in, the “Marana for the People” reform council candidates — Jackie McGuire, Sue Ritz and Julie Prince — held a small but steady lead over the incumbents. Incumbent Herb Kai was also ahead in unofficial results as voters chose four city council members.
McGuire said she was not surprised by the close vote so far. “I’m pretty confident that we had a good feel for how people in the town felt and what support looked like,” McGuire said. “If nothing else, it absolutely sends a message.”
In the race for mayor, challenger Greg Johnsen was behind incumbent Mayor Jon Post by less than 2%.
While acknowledging the vote could still change, McGuire said if she does take the seat in November, she’s doing so with a clear sense of what voters want. “The data center is a bipartisan issue, infrastructure is a bipartisan issue.”
Ritz reflected on the sheer amount of work it took to knock thousands of doors and meet future voters, especially when running against incumbents. “Nobody knows who you are when you start this process,” Ritz said. “If people want to go in a different direction, they’ll elect us, and if they’re happy with the way it’;’s been going, they’ll keep the incumbents.”
For long-time residents, reform candidates an exciting possibility
Dorothy Green is worried about her Marana water bill, which will be going up 10% year due to operational costs and inflation — and that’s before the town becomes home to a large-scale data center.
That was among the reasons that pushed Green, a 25-year Marana resident, to support the “Marana for the People” reform slate. Green was in attendance at the slate’s election watch party, taking place at a 55+ adult community.
“We have a lot of issues that we must face, that we haven’t faced,” said Green. “For those of us on fixed incomes, it’s a big issue.”
Carol Buuck, who has lived in Marana since the late 1980s, said she would often not vote in local elections if there wasn’t a candidate she was excited about. That changed this year.
“The current council refused to stand up and say: this is not what we wanted,” said Buuck. “They could have put up a fight against it.”
Immigration detention
The air is still outside the now shuttered Marana Community Correctional Treatment Facility, with the sound of tires along an unseen road occasionally breaking the silence. A gathering storm of clouds is the same slate gray as the building.
Now shuttered, the future of the former prison is one of the biggest political issues in Marana. The former prison is slated to become an immigration detention center, and federal procurement orders have shown that the federal government aims to nearly triple the capacity of the building.
While the Town of Marana has not publicly opposed the immigration detention center, the Tucson City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing it.
Mayor Jon Post, who faces a challenger this election, said such a resolution would be “meaningless” and could further divide the community.
Jackie McGuire, one of the candidates running for city council under the “Marana for the People” umbrella, said she would advocate for the company that owns the prison to work with an operator who was not ICE.
“The question is whether having a private prison or a detention center is a good thing for Marana, period,” she said. “From a fiscally conservative and healthy community point of view, the answer should be no,” McGuire said.
Write-in candidate Jackie Craig says she opposes the detention center but didn’t see options for the town to step in.
Craig said she is for immigration enforcement when it is carried out in a “normal, legal way” and doesn’t like to see the detention centers as they are run now, “without timely due process.”
Emails shared with Arizona Luminaria by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona last year, along with a series of documents obtained directly through a public records request, showed communications between Marana town officials and a private prison executive about what permits are required to turn the former state prison into a federal immigration detention facility.
Few legal hurdles remain, one of which is approval for a business license. As of July 20, no business licenses had yet been submitted to the town.
– Yana Kunichoff
Results
Municipal-level elections
State-level elected officials
Arizona Governor
Arizonans will vote a bit differently for governor this year: for the first time, primary winners will choose a lieutenant governor as a running mate for the general election.
The winner of each party’s primary will face incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs in the general election. Hobbs is unopposed in her party’s primary, so Democrats had only one name on their primary ballot.
Arizona Secretary of State
The highest-profile duty of this office is overseeing elections.
The winner of the Republican primary will face incumbent Democrat Adrian Fontes and Green party candidate Duwayne Collier in the general election.
Arizona Attorney General
The winner of the Republican primary will face Kris Mayes — who ran unopposed in her party’s primary — in the general election. Read more about the candidates.
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Read more about the stakes and the candidates.
Arizona Corporation Commission
Arizona State Senate
Republican-leaning District 17 wraps around the Catalina Mountains to include parts of Marana, Oro Valley, Saddlebrooke and Vail. The winner of the GOP primary will face Democrat Edgar Soto — who ran unopposed in the primary — in the general election. Majority-Latino and Democratic-dominated District 20 covers urban areas of Tucson including the University of Arizona, downtown, Flowing Wells, South Tucson, and Drexel Heights, plus part of the Pascua Yaqui nation and the rural Avra Valley area.
Arizona State House
Republican-heavy District 19 is a border district that includes parts of Pima, Cochise, Santa Cruz and Graham counties and all of Greenlee County. Majority-Latino and Democratic-dominated District 20 covers urban areas of Tucson including the University of Arizona, downtown, Flowing Wells, South Tucson, and Drexel Heights, plus part of the Pascua Yaqui nation and the rural Avra Valley area. District 21 is a majority-Latino border district that includes parts of Tucson and Pima, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties.
U.S. House of Representatives
Republican Juan Ciscomani and Democrat JoAnna Mendoza will face off in the general election in District 6 — considered a swing district with a history of close elections. It includes parts of Pima, Pinal, Cochise, Graham and Greenlee counties. They had no primary opponents.
Democrat Adelita Grijalva will be challenged in the general election by Daniel Francis Butierez Sr. in District 7 — which stretches along the U.S.-México border and includes parts of six counties: Pima, Santa Cruz, Yuma, Cochise, Maricopa and Pinal as well as several tribal nations including the Pascua Yaqui and Tohono O’odham. Voters chose Grijalva in a special election in September 2025 to take the seat that was held by her father, the late Raúl Grijalva, for more than two decades. They had no primary opponents.
Morning polling location dispatches
Quiet morning at Sam Lena-South Tucson Library
Voting got off to a slow start Tuesday morning at Sam Lena-South Tucson Library vote center, the only polling location in South Tucson for the city’s primary election.
By 10 a.m., only a handful of voters had stopped by to cast or drop off ballots. Outside the polling place, Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela, who is seeking reelection, greeted residents alongside campaign volunteers.
Valenzuela said the quiet morning was expected.
“I saw a little bit of rush earlier around 8 a.m., but it has slowed down right now,” she said. “I think the majority of our residents in South Tucson vote by mail, I think about 80%. So we have a pretty low turnout from our community in regards to in-person voting.”
The City of South Tucson is entirely within Precinct 47. According to the Pima County Recorder’s Office, the precinct has 2,205 active registered voters.
Among the in-person voters Tuesday morning was Linda Bail, a retired elementary school teacher who moved to South Tucson four years ago. She said housing insecurity and caring for vulnerable residents were top of mind when she filled out her ballot.
“Our community needs to care for everyone, every single person that lives here,” Bail said. “Not just people that can afford a car or a house or even have an address.”
Bail also said she wished it were easier for voters to learn about local candidates before casting their ballots.
“I found it very difficult to determine which of the candidates to vote for,” she said. “We need more opportunities for people to meet candidates and talk about what’s important to our neighborhoods.”
For Bail, voting remains one of the most meaningful ways to influence local government.
“This election means so much to me because I feel it is my most powerful way to say what I want,” she said.
Polls remain open until 7 p.m. Tuesday. Election results are expected to begin posting after polls close.
– Bárbara Flores, Somos Tucson
“My vote does count”
As the heat of the early afternoon set in, a continuous stream of voters entered the Woods Memorial Library in Tucson to cast their votes. Individuals, couples and parents with young children in tow filed into short lines, keeping the polling center busy and active for the afternoon.
Two volunteers with the coalition group Election Protection stood in the parking lot, holding umbrellas for shade, to assist voters with any questions or issues they may run into while trying to vote.
Heather Haley and Nikii Johnston brought their mail-in ballots to the library polling station.
“I will do my mail-in ballot and then walk it in, because I don’t trust the mail, but my experience was great,” Haley said. “This was my first time dropping it off at this actual library, and the staff in there was beautiful.”
Some issues that were important to Haley were affordable housing, an increase in the federal minimum wage and helping the homeless.
For Johnston, housing, immigration and funding for education were big issues that influenced her voting decisions.
“It’s our future,” Johnston said. “And how can we have a future if we can’t educate our young people?”
Emelie Cooper is a lifelong Tucson resident. She became politically engaged after the 2020 presidential election and seeing Arizona’s decision making around environmental issues, education, healthcare and data centers. She’s also been inspired by how elected officials in other states, like New York, are making decisions and engaging younger voters.
“I figured sitting around and not voting isn’t gonna do anything,” Copper said. “So, honestly, the best, most important thing I could do is actually go out and make sure that even though it’s a drop in the ocean, that my vote does count.”
– Summer Williams
“It’s a primary”
At the Knights of Columbus Hall on Tucson Boulevard, voter traffic picked up at lunchtime with about 10 cars in the parking lot — up from about four or five earlier in the morning — poll workers said.
A certified public accountant exited the Hall and said she came out today “because I have my favorites.”
Asked about any particular race, she cited the Superintendent of Public Instruction race.
“May the best man win,” she said. “Notice I said ‘man.’”
Two men are running against two women in that race. Incumbent Tom Horne on the Republican side and first-timer Brett Newby is a Democratic candidate.
Another voter made a beeline for her car as she wiped sweat from her forehead. In the 46% humidity, it was 90 degrees and she was on her way to nudge her brother to vote.
There’s one primary reason she is out today, she said.
“It’s a primary. There’s no particular race that brought me out here,” she said. “But you know what got me out? I just don’t want to be dropped from the voter rolls for the next big election. I know there’s slight chance of that but I’m not leaving anything to chance.
“And we vote all the time, but in this atmosphere you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
At St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church a few miles away, six people sat under a tent for shade in the parking lot.
A tiny fan blew in the center of the tent as the group sat in a semicircle aiming to answer voter questions.
“We’ve had one so far,” a group member said.
The Election Protection group of four included members of the Arizona Faith Network. It worked in shifts today, sharing the shade with two members of Arizona List, a nonprofit backing female candidates who support abortion rights.
The afternoon was quiet (and hot) for the group, who all said they were glad to witness democracy in action and available for people who may have questions.
“I know independents have to request their ballots and that was just a whole mess because a lot of people thought they weren’t allowed to vote,” Arizona List Operations Director Memo Peña said. “They didn’t know they can request a partisan ballot. And the aftermath of that is seemingly just a lot of distrust.”
Since the polls opened at 6 a.m., St. Mark’s poll workers said about 110 people had cycled through.
A voter dropping off his ballot was asked for ID and told his ballot would process more quickly. After producing his ID, the poll worker scanned it and matched the mail-in ballot envelope to the computer info and then the ballot was dropped into the secure blue plastic bin.
– Shannon Conner
Steady stream of voters in Oro Valley
The flow of voters was busy and steady at the Oro Valley Public Library heading into the lunch hour Tuesday.
This picturesque voting location, with the cloud-covered Catalina Mountains in the background, was bustling with activity outside of the mandatory 75-foot perimeter set up around the polling site. In addition to the primary election, voters in Oro Valley will also choose three new council members and a mayor.
Several volunteers took turns directing a constant stream of cars arriving at the library parking lot with voters dropping off their early ballots or voting in person. A town council candidate and a tent set up by conservative voting group Turning Point Action also greeted voters as they approached the polling site.
Oro Valley resident Jaclyn Ghusson had already cast her early ballot, but she was at the public library with her two children, who will be starting school soon. They played a key role in her decision, pointing to issues like school choice and community resources like parks, in choosing who she would vote for.
“We’re really involved in our community and I feel like it’s important for us to have a say in what candidates are going to be on the ballot and what issues are going to be addressed,” Ghusson said. “So, we want to be able to have a voice even in the initial part of the election.”
Lisa Gallegos, another Oro Valley resident, thanked the poll workers at the public library for making her voting experience easy.
“I just hope that everybody can get really, really engaged and involved in our democracy. Because I feel like it’s vitally important right now that everybody thinks critically, and really that’s the action we can take to improve things,” Gallegos said.
– Rafael Carranza
No lines early in downtown and UA area
It was a slow morning at the Armory Park Center, south of downtown Tucson, one of 120 voting centers in Pima County. Poll workers said about 10 people had cast a ballot on Tuesday morning.
Cindy Tuell from Tucson biked to the poll to cast her votes on the Democratic ballot.
She said she was concerned about voting rights and free speech, but added that the administration’s policies and impact to the community also influenced her votes.
“I am concerned about safety in our city, but mostly safety of immigrants and people who are being kidnapped by ICE,” Tuell said.
The day was slowly picking up at the Tucson First United Methodist Church next to the University of Arizona campus.
More than 30 people had cast a ballot at this voting site on Tuesday morning, according to poll workers.
They reported no lines at the poll, and voters said the process to cast a ballot had been fast and easy.
“A lot of people think they’re gonna hit a long line, but you can just walk in and out. It takes less than 10 minutes,” said Ashli Bruwer, a 30-year Tucson resident.
Bruwer added she would like to see improvements to public safety.
– Rafael Carranza
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
