By Arizona Agenda
It’s a critical election year for Republicans, who are looking to take back the three most powerful statewide offices — governor, secretary of state and attorney general — after Democrats won all of them in 2022.
The result has been a series of testy, competitive GOP primaries in which Republican voters will largely decide between near-right candidates or right-wing hardliners. Sending the latter into the general election would put the party on course to follow the same strategy it did in 2022, which failed, even amid expectations of a red wave.
The most dynamic of these case studies may very well be the battle over the GOP nod for the Secretary of State’s Office between Rep. Alex Kolodin and former Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda. Whoever wins will take on Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes.
The secretary of state, in addition to being the state’s top elections officer, manages business registrations, issues notary public commissions, processes campaign finance reports and oversees the state’s lobbyist registration system.
