What you need to know about midterm elections: 1-seat swing in Arizona could change Congress

Ronald J. Hansen | The Republic | azcentral.com

Show Caption Hide Caption Arizona elections: Immigration and family separations Immigration is a big topic leading into elections. Here's what you need to know about the Trump administration's policy and the family separations.

Arizona is expected to help determine control of the U.S. Senate in this year's congressional midterm elections, but the state will likely play a smaller role in deciding who controls the U.S. House of Representatives.

Two of Arizona's nine House seats will change because there's no incumbent running for them, but, with political analysts predicting a strong year for Democrats, only one is expected to change parties.

Moving from a 5-4 Republican majority to a 5-4 Democratic one may seem like small change at a time when both the House and Senate seem up for grabs and the public seems politically supercharged. But truly competitive races are hard to find across the country, numbering roughly 50 out of 435 House seats.

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Democrats need to win a net 24 seats currently held by Republicans to take over the House and two Senate races to claim that chamber.

Arizona designed three House districts to be reasonably competitive. This year, it also has two other races in usually reliably Republican districts that may be worth watching.

Here's how the battle for control of Congress is shaping up in Arizona.

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Tucson is a key battleground

The Tucson-based 2nd Congressional District is one of the most competitive House districts in the country, in part because it has almost the same number of Democrats and Republicans.

"Arizona 2 has been one of the premier swing seats in the country for the last several cycles," said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, which analyzes and handicaps congressional races. "We see a small Democratic edge, but Republicans are hopeful they can still make a go of it."

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In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton carried the district over Republican Donald Trump by 5 percentage points even as the same voters re-elected Republican Martha McSally to the House by 14 percentage points.

With McSally now running for the Senate, it ensures the district will have its third different representative since former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in a near-fatal 2011 assassination attempt.

There are 11 people in the August primary vying for the two major-party nominations, though there are clear front-runners on each side.

Ann Kirkpatrick, a former three-term congresswoman from northeastern Arizona who has relocated to Tucson, has the support of the Democratic Party’s national leaders and has held a commanding fundraising advantage over her six Democratic opponents.

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Her rivals have cast Kirkpatrick as a political opportunist from northern Arizona who doesn't relate to her new district. That includes Matt Heinz, the party's 2016 nominee, whose residence is just outside the district, too.

Lea Marquez Peterson, the CEO of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, has easily collected more money than her three other GOP challengers.

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How likely is Arizona's 2nd District to flip to the Democrats? If recent history is any guide, it's a near-certainty.

According to Scott Crass, a political historian, the last time the president's party won an open House seat held by his party in a district that last voted for the other party's presidential nominee was in Iowa in 1990. In at least 20 cases since then, the president's party has lost such House races.

"Lea Marquez Peterson is a good candidate, but she's up against a pretty big historical obstacle," said David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C.

"As an open seat won by Hillary Clinton, it represents some of the lowest hanging fruit on the map for Democrats," Kondik said. "Arizona 2 is close to being a must-win seat, because if they're not winning there, it might be indicative of a broader problem across the map."

Up north, contrasting styles

On paper, Arizona's 1st Congressional District should be a tempting target for Republicans.

The district that runs from the Utah border to the outskirts of Tucson is largely rural and has changed its representative four times since 2006. Voters there collectively went for Trump in 2016.

And yet, Republicans have lost in this district three times in a row, each time after nominating candidates who failed to connect with voters.

"Republicans have had trouble in their primaries in that district, and the primary is so late that it's hard for the eventual nominee to get it together," Kondik said.

Here's who is running for Congress in Arizona's 1st District Here's what you need to know about Arizona's CD 1 race. Tom O'Halleran, Tiffany Shedd, Wendy Rogers and Steve Smith are running for the seat.

U.S. Rep. Tom O'Halleran, a Democrat, is favored to win a second term. He has voted with Trump's preferred positions about half the time but hasn't spared Trump criticism during his more-controversial flare-ups.

Republican chances in the race could hinge on who emerges from the party's primary next month.

Tiffany Shedd, a Pinal County lawyer and golf-course owner, talks about gun rights and the need for ethical leaders in Washington. She also promises to "work tirelessly" with Trump on issues such as border security, but her loyalty to the president isn't the centerpiece of her campaign.

By contrast, Wendy Rogers, a perennial candidate who finished third in the GOP primary two years ago, can't praise Trump enough. She is hawkish about border security and reliably defends Trump at every turn.

Steve Smith, a state senator from Maricopa, has piled up endorsements from conservatives such as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. He has made combating illegal immigration the cornerstone of his campaign.

Rogers outraised Shedd and Smith in the most recent quarter, but none of them can keep pace with O'Halleran, who, with no primary challenger, has already put away $1.1 million in cash to protect his seat.

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In a cycle in which Democrats are expected to make gains across the map, O'Halleran is seen as the favorite, Wasserman said, adding that the Republican majority will consume most of the party's money spent in House races, leaving GOP candidates trying to unseat Democrats few resources.

"Republicans are going to have to spend so much money defending their own seats, they're not going to have that much left to go on offense," he said.

New names, same result?

Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is the only person who has represented Arizona's 9th Congressional District, which was created in 2012 and runs from north-central Phoenix through Tempe and Gilbert.

The district is considered competitive and Sinema has sided with Republicans more than nearly every Democrat in the House. But her dominance in the district and a wider shift of college-educated voters to Democrats has many seeing it as more blue than purple.

"It's every demographic that has shifted away from the Republican Party. It was crafted supposedly as a swing district, but it voted for Hillary Clinton by 14 points," Wasserman said.

Greg Stanton resigns as mayor of Phoenix to run for Congress Greg Stanton resigned as mayor of Phoenix on May 29, 2018. Thelda Williams now serves as the interim mayor. Stanton plans to run for Congress.

Former Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton is trying to hold the seat for Democrats as Sinema makes a run at the U.S. Senate. He could face the GOP's most formidable candidate in the district in Steve Ferrara, a radiologist who has served in the Navy, the Veterans Administration Hospital system and as a Capitol Hill policy staffer.

Unlike many Republicans who prefer talking about other issues, Ferrara is casting himself as a health-care expert and can talk at length about his diagnosis of the system's problems. First, though, he has to get past Dave Giles, the 2016 GOP nominee, who lost to Sinema by 22 percentage points.

Stanton is pitching himself as the mayor who helped steer the city out of the Great Recession and attract better-paying jobs, especially in the technology sector.

RELATED: Greg Stanton resigns as Phoenix mayor

As in other races, Democrats have a financial advantage at the outset.

Stanton had $1.2 million in cash at the end of June and no competition for his party's nomination. Ferrara had $735,000 in cash, enough to mount a serious challenge.

GOP strongholds on watch

Apart from Arizona's usual three competitive House races, there are two other districts that potentially could become competitive this year.

One in the West Valley already provided Republicans with a scare, and another in the northeast Valley is the kind of district where Democrats nationally have performed better than usual.

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In April, Democrat Hiral Tipirneni came within 5 percentage points of Republican Debbie Lesko in a special election to fill the 8th Congressional District seat vacated by disgraced former U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., after he faced sexual-harassment complaints from staffers.

Both women could face off again in November.

That district covers the West Valley, from New River south to Goodyear and from Peoria west past the Sun cities.

Republicans have a 17 percentage point registration advantage and voters haven't voted for a Democrat since 1980, which makes Tipirneni's performance in April more remarkable.

Between April and June, Tipirneni easily outraised Lesko, $283,000 to $131,000. Lesko's primary opponent, Sandra Dowling, a former Maricopa County education executive, hasn't filed a publicly available campaign-finance report, a sign that she is operating on a shoestring budget.

Sabato sees Lesko as safe to win a full term in November; Inside Elections, another nonpartisan outlet, also thinks she is likely to do so.

Still, if enough GOP voters desert the party in November, Tipirneni could make it close again.

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Across the Valley, U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican, faces a tougher-than-usual re-election campaign for his Scottsdale-based 6th Congressional District.

The district's relatively high share of college-educated, suburban voters makes it attractive to Democrats, who have made inroads with those demographics nationally. Trump carried the district by 10 percentage points in 2016, half the margin GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney claimed there in 2012.

And Schweikert faces a House Ethics Committee investigation for alleged misspending, casting a personal cloud over his bid for a fifth term.

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Heather Ross, a nurse practitioner and Arizona State University professor, has raised the most money for Democrats in that race, but she remains well behind Schweikert. She is facing competition from Anita Malik, who works in technology and communications, and lawyer Garrick McFadden.

Wasserman said Democrats have a chance at Schweikert's seat, but that's largely because of his weakness rather than their candidates' strength.

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"Schweikert and Lesko are favored," Kondik said. "It's possible if the Democratic wave gets big enough, one or both of them could be in a very competitive race. Arizona in general seems like a place where Democrats are making up some ground."