Election deniers are running for Arizona’s most powerful offices in high-stakes primaries. Here’s what we’re watching

Arizona voters will head to the polls Tuesday in primaries that could help determine whether one of the country’s most important battleground states continues resisting President Donald Trump’s attacks on elections — and whether election deniers move closer to controlling key statewide offices.

Extremist anti-voting candidates are running for the GOP nominations for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, raising the danger that the 2028 elections could be run by officials eager to erect barriers to the polls and undermine a fair vote.

The Grand Canyon state has been a central target of Trump’s election denial campaign for years. After Trump lost Arizona in 2020, the state became one of the epicenters of his false fraud claims and subsequent Republican efforts to undermine confidence in the vote. 

Now, with Arizona again expected to be a major presidential battleground, Trump’s Department of Justice has taken an extraordinary interest in the state’s elections.

DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, led by Harmeet Dhillon, says it will send election monitors to Arizona and five other states during this year’s primaries. The announcement came amid a broader Trump administration push to pressure state election officials over noncitizen voting and voter roll maintenance, despite Arizona already requiring documentary proof of citizenship and photo ID for state elections.

“@CivilRights @TheJusticeDept election monitors are fanning out in Maricopa, Apache, and Pima counties for the Arizona primary today,” Dhillon posted on social media Tuesday morning. “ALL citizens and ONLY citizens should get out and vote in federal races today, feeling confident that the government is here to help!”

The administration also sued Arizona this year to obtain its statewide voter registration database, including sensitive personal information about millions of voters. A Trump-appointed judge dismissed the case, but DOJ has since appealed the ruling.

In March, the Trump administration issued a federal grand jury subpoena for Arizona’s 2020 election materials in an attempt to reopen a vote that Trump conclusively lost and that state officials had already counted, audited and certified years earlier.

The pressure is especially intense in Maricopa County, the state’s largest county and the center of many post-2020 election conspiracy theories. County officials recently settled a monthslong power struggle over who controls key election duties, including handing power to an election denier over early voting and ballot drop boxes.

Against that backdrop, Tuesday’s primaries will decide who moves forward in races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state — three offices that could shape voting access, defend or weaken state election authority and determine how Arizona responds to Trump’s next move to control elections.

Here’s what we’re watching.

Will Arizona Republicans nominate a Trump-backed election denier for governor?

The governor’s race could determine whether Arizona keeps a statewide check on Trump’s voter suppression agenda or elevates one of the Republicans who tried to block certification of the 2020 presidential election.

U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R), the Trump-backed frontrunner in the GOP primary, is expected to face current Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) if he wins Tuesday. 

Hobbs has spent much of her first term vetoing Republican-backed voting restrictions and defending Arizona’s election system against the same fraud lies that have made the state a national target. 

Biggs represents a stark shift.

On Jan. 6, 2021, he objected to counting Electoral College votes from Arizona and five other states that President Joe Biden won. More than five years later, Biggs still refuses to say whether Biden’s victory was legitimate.

If elected governor, Biggs would not directly run Arizona elections — that job belongs largely to the secretary of state and county officials. But he would have major power over the state’s election laws, including whether to sign or veto restrictions on mail-in voting, election administration and certification.

That matters in a state where Trump’s DOJ is already demanding voter data, sending election monitors and reopening fights over 2020. A Biggs governorship could turn Arizona’s top executive office from a bulwark against Trump’s election control agenda into one of its biggest accomplices.

Will Arizona Republicans elevate a key ally of Trump’s 2020 election probe?

Arizona’s attorney general race could decide whether the state keeps fighting Trump’s election interference in court or elects a Republican who has already cooperated with the administration’s effort to revive fights over 2020.

State Senate President Warren Petersen (R), the likely GOP nominee for attorney general, is expected to face Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) if he wins Tuesday. 

Mayes has helped lead Arizona’s legal resistance to Trump’s election policies, including the administration’s push for unredacted voter rolls and its sweeping executive orders seeking more federal control over elections.

Petersen would represent the opposite approach. 

Earlier this year, he received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records tied to the Arizona Senate’s widely discredited 2020 “audit” of Maricopa County, the Republican-led review that failed to uncover evidence changing the outcome of Trump’s loss.

Petersen has also referred Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, escalating the same false and debunked claims about Arizona’s elections that Trump and his allies have pushed for years.

If elected, Petersen would control the state office responsible for defending Arizona’s election laws, challenging federal overreach and deciding whether to fight or help Trump’s DOJ. In a state where the Trump administration is already demanding voter data and relitigating 2020, that could make the attorney general’s office a major threat to free and fair elections.

Will Arizona Republicans put an election denier one step closer to commanding the state’s top election office?

Arizona’s secretary of state race could have the most direct consequences for the state’s voting and elections.

State Rep. Alex Kolodin (R), the likely GOP nominee, is running to unseat Fontes, who has repeatedly fought Trump administration efforts to obtain Arizona’s voter rolls and exert more control over state-run elections.

The secretary of state is Arizona’s chief election official, overseeing statewide election rules and working with county officials who administer the vote. In a presidential battleground still defined by Trump’s lies about 2020, that makes the office especially important.

Kolodin is not just aligned with election deniers. He was one of the attorneys behind the infamous “Kraken” lawsuit in Arizona, which tried to throw out mail-in ballots and block the state’s electors from casting votes for Biden. A federal judge rejected the case, finding it relied on baseless claims, and the State Bar of Arizona later sanctioned Kolodin for his role in election lawsuits.

Kolodin has continued pushing restrictive voting policies as a lawmaker. His Arizona Secure Elections Act would limit mail voting and early ballot drop-offs in a state where most voters cast ballots early and by mail.

If Kolodin is elected in the general election, it would put a virulent election denier in charge of elections in one of the states Trump has targeted most aggressively.