Nine Senate candidates and eight running for House seats will not even face token opposition in the upcoming primary or general elections.
For them, the election is already over.
Pending any legal challenges to their nominating paperwork or a write-in challenger, those 17 candidates are pretty much already guaranteed to become lawmakers. Only three of those candidates are completely new to the Legislature.
The 2016 election has the most uncontested legislative races in at least the past decade.
Tom Collins, executive director of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission, said the uptick in uncontested races is likely due to a variety of factors, including tactical decisions from the two major political parties and that many candidates (wrongfully, he says) don’t see Clean Elections funding as a viable option anymore.
In the 30-member Senate, the nine unopposed candidates are either running for re-election or are moving from the House to the Senate in their districts.
And in the 60-member House, where voters pick two representatives from each district, eight candidates in four districts won’t face any competition in the primary or general elections.
Democratic House hopeful Jesus Rubalcava of Gila Bend, a first-time legislative candidate who faces no opposition in either the primary or general elections, said he didn’t expect winning a seat in the Arizona House to be so easy.
Information from Arizona Capitol Times
