In Arizona, there are more independent and third-party voters than there are Democrats or Republicans.
One little-known, wealthy political outsider is trying to take advantage of that fact to mount a gubernatorial campaign outside of the two-party system.
While Gov. Katie Hobbs is running for reelection on the Democratic ticket and U.S. Reps. David Schweikert and Andy Biggs are duking it out for the GOP nomination, wealthy entrepreneur Hugh Lytle has quietly emerged as the most notable Independent candidate in the race.1
No one (besides Lytle) thinks he can win.
But by tapping into Arizona voters' independent streak as a member of the newly formed “Arizona Independent Party,” politicos on both sides worry he could confuse voters, for either of them, and spoil what’s expected to be a tight election.
Lytle at a press conference decrying an effort by lawmakers to change his party’s new name.
GOP Sen. T.J. Shope and an array of other politicians in both parties want to stop him.
Or, at least, they want to stop him and anyone else from running as an “Independent Party” candidate.
They argue the name will confuse voters since being an “independent” and a member of an “Arizona Independent Party” are two very different things.
Shope sponsored SB1609, which prohibits parties from using names like “Independent.” It passed unanimously in the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee last week, one of the rare bills that both sides agree on.
“We have an entity that is most definitely a political party that is trying to co-opt the name ‘Independent,’” Shope said during the hearing. “I frankly don’t care what political parties call themselves, but I don’t believe that we ought to be confusing people.”
Lytle’s campaign and the party have criticized the effort as an attempt by the two major political parties to maintain their bifurcated power.
“This bill is a gift because it proves our point that the two-party system is more interested in protecting their monopoly than problem solving,” Arizona Independent Party Chair and former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson said in a written statement.
But Shope isn’t alone in thinking the name is a bit shady.
Shortly after Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes approved the name change in October, the Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission sued Fontes, arguing that the name would be confusing to voters. (Fontes said he had no choice but to approve the name, as no laws currently prohibit it.)
Hobbs’ Chief Legal Officer Kori Lorick wrote to Fontes in November that the name change “invites chaos,” indicating that Hobbs may be willing to sign the bill.
In Arizona, independent voters (which are technically called “party not designated” voters, though only the nerdiest of political nerds know that) have the option to vote in either Democratic or Republican primaries. However, anyone registered with the Arizona Independent Party will lose that ability and can only choose from among that party’s candidates in a primary.
The Arizona Independent Party grew out of the failed “No Labels Party” and changed its name seemingly in an attempt to attract Arizona’s huge pool of independent voters.
As of January 2026, there were almost 1.5 million independents registered in Arizona. That’s about even with Republican voters and more than the Democratic Party’s 1.2 million voters.
Within a few months, the Arizona Independent Party has signed up more than 41,000 people to join their ranks.
Whether all those voters realize that they signed up for a party is debatable.
Meet Hugh
Lytle came to Arizona in the 1980s to play quarterback for Arizona State University, and his campaign leans partly on that claim to fame.
But he never actually played a game, as KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky noted. He broke his collarbone during the team's final pre-season scrimmage in 1984.
After college, he founded three health care companies, selling one for $450 million in 2006. He has claimed that one of his companies, Equality Health, serves more than 750,000 low-income patients in various states, and about 300,000 Arizonans on Medicaid.
Like many a wealthy entrepreneur, Lytle is coincidentally the son of another one. His father, Ben Lytle, founded Anthem, which has since changed its name to Elevance Health and is now the second-largest health insurance company in the world.
The Independent candidate casts himself as a “disrupter” and an “innovator” who says he can “change the face of government” in Arizona.
Quixotic? Sure. But he also raises some good points — that contemporary politics have been reduced to a mind-numbing squabble between two sides that rarely cooperate and listen to each other, and that if two parties continue their duopoly, our biggest problems will continue to go unsolved.
Like other business-centric politicians of recent years, Lytle has cast himself as the Guy Who Can Get Stuff Done.
His focus is on safe, centrist issues like housing affordability, elevated health care costs, ICE raids, the brewing crisis in public schools and reductions to Arizona’s water supply.
In many ways, he sounds a lot like Hobbs.
But his website doesn’t contain much in the way of detailed policy positions — and a few of the issues he expounds on are a bit more niche.
Beyond lowering health care costs, he also wants to promote youth sports and creating a “MentorCorps” to “inspire and educate the next generation of entrepreneurs.” As of a few weeks ago, the website also listed a proposal to create a “state sponsored AI University that provides an amazing education for just $99 per semester,” according to the Wayback Machine.
Considering that his campaign has deleted that proposal, he seems to have backpedaled — at least for now — on that one. But he’s quite interested in artificial intelligence. His website advertises a “Hugh AI” chatbot to answer voters’ questions.
But it hasn’t been finished yet.
“Be among the first to try the app. Sign up to be notified when it’s ready to download,” the website reads.
But, can he win?
Lytle seems to think so.
In a press release, he pointed to the high number of independent or third-party voters as evidence that an Independent Party candidate can win.
That assumption is simply absurd. Independents don’t necessarily show up for an Independent or third-party candidates for various reasons. For one, Independent or independent candidates have little shot of winning. But independent voters, especially in Arizona, aren’t necessarily moderate — they cover the full spectrum, from too right-wing for the Republican Party to progressive leftists.
What they have in common is that they eschew party politics.
Political strategists generally agree that the most Lytle can do is pull tens of thousands of votes from the two main candidates.
Considering Hobbs only vanquished GOP candidate Kari Lake in the last election by about 17,000 votes, it could be enough to swing the election.
Realistically, the question isn’t “Can he win?”
It’s “How will Lytle impact the race? And will he take more votes from Hobbs or the Republican nominee?”
The takes are varied.
“My thought is that Lytle has the potential to tap into an aspirational element of the electorate,” Republican-turned-independent politico Chuck Couglin told us. “Let’s say for predictive sake that Lytle can get 5-10% of the vote. I assume that comes off of potential Hobbs voters.”
Democratic consultant Stacy Pearson doesn’t think Lytle’s campaign will make it harder for Hobbs to attract independents, arguing that Hobbs’ middle-of-the-road governance hasn’t turned off the crossover voters who supported her.
“Hobbs has stayed in the lane people elected her to be in. She’s been very moderate,” she said.
Pearson also thinks that some voters might view the Arizona Independent Party name saga as a sneaky, opportunistic attempt to swipe votes — and that it could come back to bite him.
And if lawmakers pass the ban on “Independent” in party names and Hobbs signs it — or if the courts strike the name — Lytle could lose the attractive flag.
But if Lytle’s party gets to keep its name, it will almost certainly be a boon for him. In part, that’s because running as a lowercase independent would be a lot harder.
Lytle would only need 1,771 voter signatures to qualify for the ballot under the Arizona Independent Party banner. If he were to run as an actual independent, his campaign would need to tally more than 44,000 — far higher than the 6,700 required for Democrats and 7,500 for Democrats.
It’s an example of how the cards are stacked against political candidates who aren’t affiliated with a major party — and the origins of the requirement are openly partisan. In 2015, Republican and then-Rep. JD Mesnard sponsored a bill upping the signatures needed for third party and independent candidates because he was upset that libertarians were costing Republicans elections.
Democrats have a disadvantage when it comes to registration, meaning Hobbs will need to attract more independents than the Republican will to win.
But conventional wisdom would have it that Democrats also have momentum nationally as Americans have grown increasingly dissatisfied with Trump and Republicans.
The Republican nominee to challenge Hobbs also matters immensely.
While the race between Biggs and Schweikert is far from decided, Biggs seems to have emerged as the primary favorite given his closeness to President Donald Trump and MAGA bona fides.
And most Republicans who have trashed Lake seem to think that if Lytle keeps the title of Independent, Biggs has a better shot of becoming Arizona's next governor.
“Republicans will, for the most part, come home because Andy Biggs isn’t as objectionable as Kari Lake, who was her own brand of idiocy,” GOP consultant Barrett Marson told us. “I think Lytle — under the Independent label — will hurt Katie Hobbs. Hugh Lytle could cost Katie Hobbs the election.”
Consider the messenger: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said federal officials assured him that ICE agents would not show up at voting locations in Arizona, but he still isn’t convinced, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports. Elections officials were on a call with officials from various federal agencies, including Heather Honey, an election denier who now holds a senior role at the Department of Homeland Security.
“I’m not relieved at all, because the guarantee that there would be no ICE at polling places came from Heather Honey, so I’m not sure we can depend on that,” Fontes said.
Rock the vote: A former candidate for Apache County superintendent is suing ex-County Attorney Michael Whiting over claims Whiting and two employees stalked and bullied him to force him out of the 2024 race, KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez reports. Fernie Madrid was running against Whiting’s wife, and alleges that Whiting and company threw rocks at his house and mailed him threatening letters. Whiting is no longer in office after he was removed for misusing public funds, but his wife and co-defendant, Joy Whiting, is still the county schools superintendent.
Unseen tragedy: While Democratic U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego was accusing the Trump administration of making Americans “sicker, poorer and less secure” outside the Capitol during the State of the Union speech, Democratic U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari’s guest was sharing the heart-rending story of her partner, Arbella “Yari” Marquez, who suffers from leukemia and has been in immigration detention in Eloy for months. Marquez has lost 70 pounds while in detention and now vomits blood regularly, John Washington reports for LOOKOUT.
Who counts as people?: GOP lawmakers pushed a bill through the Arizona Senate that would mean only U.S. citizens would be counted in the next census, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. At least Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman isn’t beating around the bush. He says it will allow officials to make legislative districts that give more power to Republicans.
Texting tax: Arizona lawmakers don’t agree on much — but they do agree you should stop scrolling and driving. A bipartisan push would raise the fine for a second distracted-driving offense to $400, the Republic’s Ray Stern reports. First-time offenders would still face fines of $75 to $150 — but repeat violators could pay steep fees for holding a phone “with any part of the person’s body.”
During the hours-long floor sessions that come with crossover week at the Arizona Capitol, lawmakers tend to treat the official chambers more like a hotel lobby — they wander in and out of it.
Most votes on amendments happen through standard voice votes: a quick shout of “aye” or “nay,” and the chair calls it without an official count.
But on the spicier bills, anyone can yell “division” to force a standing vote where everyone has to go on the record (vertically).
It’s one of the most exciting parts of floor votes: Pages bolt through the halls in attempts to herd lawmakers back into the room to vote.
This week, the House introduced a new twist: a prerecorded track blares an alarm sound while a recording of House reader Steve Matt declares, “Division has been called. Members, please return to the floor.” (You can watch the new division announcement here.)
While using the House’s resident Shakespearean actor’s talents to create a glorified fire alarm feels like a waste, at least it’s getting lawmakers back in their seats.
1 Lytle is technically not alone in seeking the Independent Party nomination for governor — would-be candidates Teri Hourihan and Alan White have also filed statements of interest to run on the new party’s platform.