The Democratic Party believes its candidates have a shot at taking control of the Arizona State Capitol in the 2026 midterm elections.
Last week, the party’s campaign arm for state legislatures included Arizona in a list of states whose legislatures it hopes to flip. The party plans to invest $50 million in these races.
Arizona was a lower-priority target for Democrats in previous election cycles. It joins swing states like Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania on the 2026 list.
Republicans narrowly control both chambers of Arizona’s state legislature. The GOP has a four-seat advantage in the Arizona State Senate and a six-seat advantage in the Arizona House of Representatives. Democrats haven’t controlled either chamber since the early 1990s.
While Republicans’ advantage in the Senate has remained fairly constant for the last decade, Democrats have chipped away at their majority in the House. Republicans clawed back a slightly larger margin in 2024’s high-turnout election.
That year, Kevin Volk was the only Democrat to flip a Republican-held seat in either chamber, winning a House race in the 17th legislative district. In an interview, the lawmaker said candidates seeking to replicate his win must listen to voters and relentlessly focus on their concerns.
“The people who will decide this election in Arizona and across the country are not interested in social media hits and the same old partisan talking points, and the hyperpartisanship we’re seeing today,” he said. “They want to know that someone is actually dedicated to solving problems for them.”
In his Tucson-area district, Volk said voters were focused on public education funding, economic growth, water and border security.
North of Tucson, both parties have recently notched wins in the 16th legislative district, which includes many suburbanizing areas in Pinal County. Jennifer Hilsbos, who chairs the county’s Democratic Party, said her organization got more funds than expected from the national party this year.
Hilsbos said Pinal County Democrats use the money to recruit and train homegrown organizers, rather than hiring out-of-state political consultants. She said the county party’s agenda is rooted in working-class economic concerns, like creating career opportunities for local graduates and opposing federal Medicaid cuts.
“If you work forty hours a week, you should be able to afford a house, you should not be struggling, you should not be needing to rely on benefit programs from the federal government,” she said.
A November poll of Arizonans by Emerson College found that the economy has overtaken immigration as voters’ top concern since November 2024, with 54% of voters disapproving of President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy.
But Sean Noble, a longtime Arizona GOP operative, told AZPM News he doesn’t believe Arizona Democrats offer anything substantial to voters.
To keep control of the state legislature, he wrote in a text message, Republicans must “continue to point out that Democrats are out of touch from working families and offer no actual solutions to everyday problems.”
In a memo accompanying their announcement, the Democratic Party compared the upcoming 2026 midterms with the 2010 midterms, when the grassroots Tea Party movement and the national GOP’s Project REDMAP campaign helped flip twenty state legislative chambers to Republican control.
Noble contested that analysis on two fronts. He pointed out that the margin by which registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats in Arizona has grown since 2010. He also said Obamacare was a major factor in 2010’s election results.
“The national Democrats in 2010 pushed through a very unpopular health care bill that damaged their brand from top to bottom,” he wrote.
Noble denied that Republicans’ centerpiece 2025 budget legislation, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will have a similar effect. The legislation cut Medicaid funding and created several new tax deductions aimed at middle-class and working-class voters.
“The tax cuts will have positive economic impact by (November) of next year. It will only get more popular, not less,” he wrote.
