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Rep. Andy Biggs sailed to the Republican nomination for Arizona governor July 21, further solidifying President Donald Trump's nearly perfect record in the 2026 GOP primaries.
Now comes the more difficult task for the five-term conservative firebrand in his quest to defeat Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs: winning over needed independents without straying too far from the White House.
Arizona is one of the most hotly contested swing states in the country, but in several Republican primaries this year the experts have warned Trump-endorsed contenders will have a tougher time in the general election.
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Even some of Biggs' fellow Republicans cast the former House Freedom Caucus chair as too extreme to prevail over Hobbs.
The governor's race had been rated as a "toss-up" by experts, but it's been tilted more in Hobbs' favor given Biggs' polarizing views, including his skepticism President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election.
The Grand Canyon State will also be a roadmap for controlling the U.S. House of Representatives, where at least three Republican-held seats are being targeted by Democrats.
Alex Kolodin, a state representative from Scottsdale, seized the GOP nomination for secretary of state. He's received widespread attention for claiming that U.S. elections, including those in Arizona, are unfair and "rigged."
And in a sign of the Trump administration's intent to spotlight concerns about voter integrity in the key swing state this fall, the Department of Justice sent federal monitors into the state on July 21.
Here are the main takeaways from Tuesday's contest.
Biggs pivots ahead of closely watched governor's race
Like many GOP primary victors this year Biggs benefited from proximity to Trump along with having one of the most conservative voting records on Capitol Hill.
"I hate to lose him from Congress. You know, I'm sort of torn with that," Trump said during a Phoenix rally hosted by Turning Point USA in April. "I hate to lose him, but he'll be a great governor."
That loyalty extended to the five-term congressman voting against certifying the 2020 election results, but as polls showed Biggs easily winning the primary he began to pivot weeks ago in an attempt to win over independents and skeptical Republicans.
In an interview ahead of the July 21 contest, Biggs emphasized working with the late Sen. John McCain on closing an Amber Alert system loophole for Native American tribes. He also cites is another 2018 proposal he co-sponsored with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, now the Democrats' minority leader, to require more reporting from lobbyists.
"I do have a record of of reaching across the aisle and working with people to get important things done," Biggs told USA TODAY.
Hobbs, Democrats plan anti-Trump avalanche ahead of November
The Biggs' campaign said in a strategy memo that it believes Hobbs is "uniquely vulnerable," given the razor-thin margin she won the office in 2022.
But as much as the president and his allies hope they can catapult a swing state Democratic governor out office, forecasters have shifted their predictions from "toss-up" to "leans Democratic."
Biggs' role as a major player in the fake elector scheme in 2020 will likely be re-litigated during this election, which is setting up to be a major referendum on the president, whose unpopular initiatives − such as launching a war with Iran that has driven up gas prices − Biggs has supported.
"I know this race is going to be close no matter what, because Arizona is a swing state," Hobbs, who won by less than one percentage point in 2022, told USA TODAY. "I'm going to earn every vote by showing Arizonans how I'm putting what’s best for the state ahead of partisan politics – lowering costs, securing the border, and bringing good-paying jobs here – and that's how I’ll win this race."
DOJ dispatches federal election monitors
As Arizona voters were flocking to the ballot box, the Trump administration announced it was sending election "monitors" into polling sites in three counties on the lookout for election fraud.
"All citizens and only citizens should get out and vote in federal races today, feeling confident that the government is here to help," Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said in a July 21 post on X.
Christopher Weber, director of the Voter Project at the University of Arizona, described the DOJ's decision to send election monitors into a state during an active primary as "highly unusual."
But Bill Gates, executive director of Arizona State University's Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory, said the practice was "nothing new."
"Their presence has been a routine part of elections under administrations of both parties and has been intended to help ensure compliance with federal voting rights laws," he said.
The Justice Department's decision mirrored one made during the Biden administration when monitors were sent into four counties during the 2024 presidential election. Arizona elections officials told the USA TODAY Network shortly before polls closed that it was "business as usual," and that nothing out of the ordinary had been reported to them.
But the step also comes at a time when Democrats and their allies are increasingly nervous about Trump's demands to overhaul of U.S. elections before the midterms and ongoing false claims about widespread election fraud.
In a prime-time address this month, the president made sweeping, inaccurate allegations about broad vulnerabilities with voting systems. Trump exaggerated the level of interference China made into the 2020 election, but mostly used the speech as a rallying cry for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a robust voting bill that would require proof of citizenship upon registering to vote.
Arizona is the only state that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in local and statewide elections, which it installed through a ballot initiative in 2004. Yet in a July 7 letter to Arizona's secretary of state, Dhillon threatened prosecution to any election official who "knowingly retains noncitizens" on the state's voter rolls.
Democrats flipping Congress runs through Arizona
Each week the president's approval ratings appear to be getting weaker and weaker, with just 36% of Americans approving of his job performance in a new Economist/YouGov poll released this week.
But that doesn't guarantee good fortune for Democrats this fall. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll from July found they have just a 48%-to-45% over Republicans on which party voters favor in the upcoming congressional elections.
If the GOP wants to holds its slim House majority, that will mean defending many battleground seats and three in Arizona are being targeted by Democrats. Chief among them being Arizona's 1st congressional district election to replace Republican David Schweikert, who lost the gubernatorial primary Tuesday to Biggs.
Trump won that district -- covering northeastern Maricopa County -- by three percentage points in 2024, but Biden won it by one and half points in 2020.
The president's choice is Republican Jay Feely, a former NFL Pro Bowl kicker seeking to capitalize on his name ID that helped him defeat former state Rep. Joe Chaplik and businessman John Trobough.
Democrats are choosing between former state legislator Amish Shah and Marlene Galán-Woods, a former TV news anchor endorsed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrat's political arm. But with about 76% of precincts, Shah is leading Galan-Woods by roughly 10 percentage points.
The DCCC also lists Arizona's 6th Congressional District as a possible flip, where it hopes to unseat Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani, whose district Trump carried by less than one percentage point in 2024. JoAnna Mendoza, a Marine Corps veteran, ran unopposed in the Democratic primary for that seat.
Arizona's 2nd District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Eli Crane, is also a Democratic target. Experts are less optimistic about their chances there, given Trump won the area by 15 percentage points two years ago. But political observers point out Democrat Jonathan Nez, a former Navajo Nation president, did outperform former Vice President Kamala Harris in the district.
It is also noteworthy that amid a rising tide of more progressive Democrats defeating longtime incumbents, four-term Rep. Greg Stanton trounced activist Kai Newkirk, who leaned into opposing data centers drawing the ire from big-money AI groups.
2020 election conspiracies re-emerge in Arizona secretary of state race
Arizona's secretary of state will be a critical post in the 2028 presidential race as the chief official responsible for maintaining the voter registration database and overseeing elections.
That fall contest will once again be a proxy war about the 2020 contest, now that Republicans have chosen state Rep. Alex Kolodin, a Scottsdale attorney, as their nominee.
Kolodin was part of a legal team that sought to throw out mail-in ballots and stop Arizona's 11 electors from casting votes for Biden. He was sanctioned in 2023 by the state bar for his role in those suits. As a state legislator he has offered up tighter voting rules, such as abolishing the state's early-voter list.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, the Democratic incumbent, defeated Republican Mark Finchem, a prominent Trump support who denied Biden's win, by more than 4 percentage points in 2022.
During that race, Fontes ran as outspoken "democracy defender," and has criticized Trump's ongoing fixation on that election six years ago while resisting the administration's multiple efforts to obtain Arizona's voter rolls.
Contributing: Josh Meyer, Ronald J. Hansen, Drew Pittock
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arizona Republicans nominate MAGA stalwarts: 5 primary takeaways
