This week marks the midway point for this year’s Arizona Citizens Clean Elections legislative debates program.1
Across Arizona’s 30 legislative districts, we’ll have moderated 13 debates, with 15 to go (and two that canceled so far).2
Some of those debates have been true exchanges of ideas — the kind of showdowns that give you insight into who your future lawmakers are as people, how they think and what kinds of policies they’d support.
But in too many cases, candidates have blown off their duty to stand before voters and answer questions about their vision and the issues.
The tally as of Wednesday night.
So far this debate season, 63 Republican and Democratic legislative candidates have been invited to debates. About two-thirds of those candidates (43, to be exact) have shown up.
And as Republicans across the state drag Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs for refusing to stand on the same stage as her Republican opponent, Andy Biggs, it’s worth noting that further down the ballot, Republicans are the worst offenders when it comes to blowing off the public.
Half of the GOP legislative candidates that have been invited to debates didn’t bother to attend.
When both parties are represented on the stage, it’s almost always a vibrant, engaging debate — the kind of discussion that could sway a voter one way or the other.
It’s also heartening to see that behind the scenes, the vast majority of candidates who show up actually get along before the livestream starts, and they keep their disagreement civil during the debates. That’s a refreshing contrast with the behavior you see on the upper echelon of the political landscape.
But debates lose some of their value when they turn into an interview with the moderator. A Q&A session can be interesting, but it doesn’t really do the job of informing voters of their options.
So kudos to all you candidates who showed up!
The only way to win a debate is by showing up.
And if you’re a candidate still weighing whether it’s worth your time, consider that research consistently shows that voters interpret debate participation as a signal of openness, accountability and readiness to govern — especially in down-ballot races.
As for you voters who haven’t yet tuned in to your statewide, congressional and legislative debates: Do it! You can learn a lot about your politicians by watching even just a few minutes.
Debates are truly the best resource available for a citizen who wants to vote informed. And it sure beats scouring candidates’ websites for their prepared talking points or voting based on gut feeling about a name.
Plus, one of these candidates is going to get elected. Don’t you wanna know a little about them?
If you’re not sure which legislative and congressional district you live in, here’s a nifty little tool to get you started.
And if you need help keeping track of all of Arizona’s debates this election season, we built you a Google calendar that you can check out or add to your own calendar.
And as always, you can watch all past and future debates on the Clean Elections YouTube channel.
School’s back in session: Kimberly Yee wants the Attorney General’s Office to investigate her opponent in the race to be Arizona’s next superintendent of public instruction. Yee, who defeated incumbent superintendent Tom Horne in the July GOP primary, claims that her opponent, Democrat Dr. Teresa Leyba Ruiz, is violating state law when she campaigns in classrooms as part of her “Arizona Classroom Conversation” tour, per KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky. Leyba Ruiz says she’s visited classrooms in all 15 counties as part of her tour. A spokesperson for Leyba Ruiz’s campaign told Schutsky that the complaint is a political hit job.
The ICE treatment: In the first three months of the year, ICE detainees in midtown Phoenix were being held for double the amount of time the agency said it holds prisoners, Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports for the Mirror. The data obtained from ICE by the Deportation Data Project showed that the average length of stay for detainees at the facility in 2026 is 20 hours — which is troubling since the facility does not have beds or offer medical services — while in 2022 and 2023 it was nine hours.
Owl see you in court!: The San Carlos Apache Tribe and a pair of Southern Arizona conservation organizations are following through on their threat to sue the federal government over its approval of a mine exploration project in the Galiuro Mountains northeast of Tucson, our sister ‘sletter, the Tucson Agenda reports. The plaintiffs allege that the federal government ignored the presence of a threatened owl species and other sensitive wildlife, violating the Endangered Species Act and other laws.
Become a paid subscriber and help us keep our threatened owl mascot, the Agendowl, thriving.
In a bit of a rush, are we?: As Attorney General Kris Mayes is moving to speed up an execution of a man on death row, the attorney defending the man is accusing Mayes of rushing for political purposes since she’s up for reelection, the Republic’s Ray Stern reports. Ernesto Martinez, who was convicted of murdering a state trooper, has sat on death row for almost 30 years and is working on a case he hopes will take him off death row. Mayes asked the Arizona Supreme Court to set an “emergency” execution date.
“The only emergency appears to be her reelection campaign,” Martinez’s attorney John Mills told the Republic.
The view from Wall Street: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board celebrated Arizona’s incredible plummet in the number of people receiving food stamps thanks to President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” and Arizona’s strict implementation of the new rules that went along with the bill. As we’ve previously noted, Arizona had by far the biggest drop of any state. The Journal says 53.8% of Arizona food stamp recipients were kicked off this year.
“The regrettable reality is that food stamps are fungible, giving addicts more money to spend on drugs,” the Journal’s editorial board writes.
This week, President Donald Trump endorsed GOP attorney general nominee and Senate President Warren Petersen on Truth Social.
And the Republican Attorneys General Association account pointed to the endorsement and proclaimed that “President Trump has made it clear!”
It’s a point worth noting, since Trump was not so clear when he gave a very strange “bank shot” endorsement to Petersen’s GOP primary opponent, Republican perennial candidate Rodney Glassman by retweeting former Sen. Sonny Borrelli’s endorsement of Glassman.
Yes, this time, Trump has made it clear!
It’s a statement so full of awe that it’s worthy of the exclamation point at its termination.
1 Full disclosure: We’re moderating the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission’s legislative debates this year, and we get paid for that work. But we get paid whether it’s a 30-minute one-on-one or a two-hour, eight-candidate extravaganza. So candidates blowing off debates is actually great for our workload.
2 After tonight, legislative debates will be on a hiatus for the next two weeks. They’ll start back up on September 18. And while we’re roughly halfway through the ~30 legislative debates, most of the statewide and federal debates — and debates in some of Arizona’s most competitive legislative districts — are coming up over the next month. See our calendar or the Clean Elections website for dates.