Arizona attorney general voter guide: Where Mayes, Petersen stand

Incumbent Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes is facing Republican challenger Warren Petersen in a race that has drawn an endorsement from President Donald Trump and the attention of local homeowners and realty companies alike.

Mayes’ efforts — as the chief law enforcement officer in Arizona — include challenging mobile home landlords and industries polluting the environment, as well as joining numerous national lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Her challenger in the November general election is offering a markedly different approach.

Petersen currently serves as president of the Arizona State Senate and is promising to work with the Trump administration, and wage a campaign against what he says is Mayes’ politically progressive approach to governing. His efforts as a legislator include bills that limited public pensions for politicians who overspend public funds while in office and required localities to consider personal property rights amid zoning changes.

Voters must choose one of the two candidates to serve as Arizona’s attorney general. To help voters understand each candidates’ perspectives on certain local issues, Arizona Luminaria is providing a guide with key information and sharing their answers to questions the newsroom asked ahead of the election.

What’s at stake

The attorney general is the chief legal and law enforcement officer in the state overseeing what is effectively Arizona’s largest law firm. Attorneys with the office bring and defend lawsuits on behalf of the state, and prepare formal opinions requested by legislators and county attorneys on legal issues.

In her time as attorney general, Mayes has prosecuted consumer fraud cases and intervened in utility rate cases to raise concern about whether customers were paying for data center-related cost increases.

Her predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, also championed consumer protection suits and used some of the resources of his office to look into the Trump administration’s allegations of electoral fraud. Those allegations were unproven. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit backed by Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory.

Additionally, the attorney general is the primary statewide official who can investigate and prosecute election fraud through the office’s Election Integrity Unit. All felony conviction appeals statewide also are handled by the attorney general’s office.

Who are the candidates?

Kris Mayes

Democrat

Campaign Website

Warren Petersen

Republican

Campaign Website

Warren Petersen:
Petersen was first elected as a state legislator in 2012 and has worked as a longtime real estate agent and broker. In his role as state Senate president, Petersen manages about 200 people, he said at the Sep. 23 debate coordinated by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission and the Arizona Media Association. Petersen currently represents District 14, which covers most of Gilbert and parts of Queen Creek in Maricopa County.

“I’m running to keep Arizona safe, free and prosperous. I do not want to allow Arizona to turn into California,” Petersen said during the debate. “What I’m going to do is fight crime, defend the laws in the Constitution, and root out fraud, waste, and corruption. I’m going to restore order and professionalism to the office.”

In 2026, he was subpoenaed in his role as Senate president by the Trump administration as part of its controversial effort to investigate the 2020 election. Petersen said on social media in March that he complied with a federal grand jury subpoena.

Petersen has been endorsed by Trump, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, the Arizona Police Association, a small business political action group and a political action group funded by private prison company GEO Group.

The candidate committee, Friends of Warren Petersen, has raised $1.8 million dollars as of October, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s campaign finance data website.

In July, the Arizona Mirror, citing campaign finance records, reported on $600,000 in donations from a mobile home park operator — that Mayes sued — via Restore Order Arizona, a PAC supporting Petersen.

Voting FAQ

What you need to know to participate in this election.

Key dates
Oct. 23 – Last day to request a mail-in ballot
Oct. 27 – Recommended deadline to mail back your ballot
Nov. 3 – Election Day

In the lawsuit against BoaVida Group, a California-based manufactured home management company, the attorney general’s office claims the company failed to inform residents at Tucson’s Redwood Mobile Home Park that the electrical system in the park was “extremely dangerous, unreliable, and overloaded” after ongoing electricity outages last summer amid a deadly heat wave.

BoaVida has countered those allegations in legal responses, including saying they were falsely sued for violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act.

“The Park’s electrical infrastructure is old and might be considered out of compliance using today’s standards, but considering the Park’s construction in 1962 using the 1959 National Electrical Code as its design reference, there’s nothing that can be considered as poor craftsmanship or out of code compliance for its time,” a March 2026 notice from the company’s legal team said.

Kris Mayes:
Mayes was elected as Arizona attorney general in 2022. At that time, she beat her Republican challenger Abe Hamadeh in a markedly close election.

Mayes is the second woman, and first mother, to hold the role of state attorney general, according to her campaign website.

Before becoming attorney general, Mayes was a Republican elected official on the Arizona Corporation Commission, a professor at ASU’s School of Global Sustainability and a journalist.

“I promised that I would be a lawyer for all of the people of Arizona. No matter who you are, no matter where you live, whether you’re in rural Arizona, urban Arizona, no matter how you worship, no matter what your political party is, and we have followed through on that,” Mayes said in her opening statement of the debate.

Mayes’ campaign group, Kris Mayes for Arizona, has raised $4.6 million as of October, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s campaign finance data website.

Her endorsements include 15 labor groups including the AFL-CIO and Ironworkers Local 75, reproductive rights groups like Emily’s List and environmental groups like the Sierra Club.

She received criticism from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in early 2026, when Mayes questioned federal ICE agents’ local policing.

Mayes raised concerns that Arizona’s “Stand Your Ground” law could lead to confrontations with federal law enforcement officers operating in plain clothes.

“It’s kind of a recipe for disaster,” Mayes told 12News in January. “We have in other states un-uniformed, masked people who can’t be identified as police officers. That is a problem. That’s why it’s so important to have uniforms and to be identified, especially in a state like Arizona.”

Hobbs said Mayes’ “comments were inappropriate and she should retract them.” Republican lawmakers also called for her resignation over the comments.

Where they stand

To help voters differentiate between the candidates, Arizona Luminaria asked each of them key questions.

Democratic candidate Kris Mayes replied to questions by email. Republican candidate Warren Petersen’s campaign answered Luminaria’s questions during our primary election coverage. He did not respond to multiple emails requesting comment for this general election story.

Answers for Mayes are from her campaign’s email responses. To provide voters more insight into Petersen’s perspectives as a candidate, Arizona Luminaria included information from his responses during the debate and his previous responses to the newsroom’s questions during the primary.

The candidates’ responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Manufactured homes are some of the most affordable housing available in Arizona, yet residents have few protections against utility overcharging and frequent outages during extreme summer heat. How would you address this community’s needs in your role as attorney general?

Kris Mayes: “Arizonans are being left in dangerous situations during the summer, particularly mobile home tenants. I sued the owners of Redwood Mobile Home Park in Tucson, for endangering residents related to dangerous and unreliable electrical service that repeatedly left them without air conditioning during extreme heat.

“In addition to safety in extreme heat, utility overcharging is a major problem among mobile home tenants. Landlords often submeter utilities and have been caught abusing the submeter and over charging their residents. My office intervened. We were able to get money back to overcharged residents. And this year, we pushed for changes to the Mobile Home Parks Residential Landlord Tenant Act that would make it easier to stop utility rate abuse and protect Arizonans.

“The private-equity-backed California-owned mobile home owners are hoping for an attorney general who won’t stand up to them.”

Warren Petersen: During the Clean Elections debate, in response to Mayes’ noting Petersen’s PAC contributions from BoaVida, Petersen said: “This is disturbing — a lie from Kris Mayes, someone who should understand campaign finance law is up here saying I accepted money that I did not accept. It went to an independent expenditure that I have no control over.”

(Editor’s note: Political Action Committees, or PACs, are organizations that can’t coordinate with the candidates they support. A candidate could refund money received from a PAC, but does not work directly with the committee, according to officials with the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.)

On consumer protection, Petersen’s campaign told Arizona Luminaria in his response to Luminaria’s questions during the primary election: “Consumer protection is a powerful tool and I intend to use it to actually protect consumers and not advance a political agenda. I have already laid the groundwork on this. Some of the things I will be targeting are AI driven deception, robocalls, romance scams, and predatory schemes.”

This coming election is expected to be a tense one, with President Donald Trump working to limit access to mail-in voting and sharing unfounded claims of voter fraud. How will you, as attorney general, ensure communities maintain trust in the electoral system?

Mayes: “Our elections in Arizona are safe and secure and as the one who enforces our election laws, I will always protect your right to vote. I am working daily to ensure that Arizona voter data stays secure and private. We are defending Arizona’s voter rolls from attempts to steal Arizonans personal data. And we sued and won, protecting vote-by-mail at the U.S. Supreme Court for the nearly 90% of Arizonans who cast their vote in the mail. I have prosecuted both Republicans and Democrats for election fraud because our democracy is more important than any political party.”

Petersen: During the debate, when asked about whether he would look into the integrity of the 2020 election if called personally by President Trump, he said: “Biden won, okay. But I’m actually glad you guys raised this issue, because my opponent thinks everything is OK and we do need to improve. Arizona had one of the slowest election results back in 2024.

In fact, we were last in the country in delivering electoral votes. I worked on legislation, worked with Democrats and Republicans, on speeding up those votes. Some of those bills got signed and some of those bills got vetoed and now we have faster election results. Our voters deserve to feel like their elections are safe and secure and it is our job to make sure that they feel that way.”

Attorney General Kris Mayes has called for a moratorium on new data centers given the concern about water and power use in Arizona. How would you address this issue in your role as attorney general in your next term?

Mayes: “More and more Arizona communities are reaching out to my office about the data center projects cropping up around them.

My office has announced a town hall in Ahwatukee related to a project proposed there. We previously intervened to stop the redacted rate hike hidden in the Project Blue data center agreement.

If there is a data center you’re hearing about that you’re worried about in your community, please let my office know.

We’re also looking at whether nuisance law is a possible avenue to intervene if there’s compelling outreach from residents that the projects are destroying their community’s way of life.”

Petersen: “Kris Mayes would like to eliminate data centers,” he said during the debate. “If you like your tech and your phone and your computer and the stuff you can use that for you probably think data centers are important. There are very valid concerns about data centers.

There are three big issues with data centers. First of all, location. The community, again, should decide a location.

Maybe it is a heavy industrial location or someplace where the community says we’re OK with this. That should be a community decision and they should make sure they are good with that. Power is a concern. And there is a water concern.

Data centers, again, need to be responsible for their water, whether that means recycling it or making sure that they have brought their own water supplies. That is how you deal with the data center situation.”