Now that candidates have filed their signatures, we’ve entered a brief interlude before the primaries truly get underway.
It’s challenge season.
Until the end of business on April 6, anyone can dispute a candidate's nomination signatures to attempt to knock the candidate off the ballot. By law, the appropriate superior court has to make a ruling within 10 days of the challenge — though the Arizona Supreme Court has previously allowed for cases that go beyond that deadline to be considered valid.
The Secretary of State’s Office keeps track of these challenges on its website.
So far, only one has been filed — which we’ll get to in just a moment.
During the last cycle in 2024, there were 21 challenges filed. In 12 of those cases, the candidate being challenged was removed from the ballot or withdrew before that happened.
Two years earlier, just as many candidates were nixed or withdrew from the race — even though there were 30 challenges.
This year, political law attorney Kory Langhofer of Statecraft PLLC expects the number of challenges to trend downward yet again. He cited an increase in use of the online E-Qual system, which allows candidates to solicit signatures online and rarely results in an invalid signature.
And while the general rule of thumb for ballot measures is that about 30% of signatures may be declared invalid, Langhofer explained that figure is only about 15% for candidates.
Based on case law, candidates don’t need voters to write their address on a petition, nor does the date of the signature need to be filled out — the signatures still count as long as the voters are registered in the district. If it were for a ballot measure, leaving either of these fields blank would disqualify a signature.1
“Candidates have a compliance standard that’s relatively forgiving. Ballot measures have strict compliance, which is relatively unforgiving,” Langhofer said. “It’s better to be a candidate than a ballot measure, that’s for sure.”
Langhofer said challengers will be looking for three things:
Duplicate signatures (voters who sign the same petition twice — or sign multiple petitions for multiple candidates for the same office —are the most common reason signatures are thrown out)
Signatures from people who aren’t registered to vote
Signatures from people who don't live in the district the candidate is running to represent
Or, there’s the slim possibility that a candidate could have completely forged signatures, as was the case back in 2024 with former Republican Rep. Austin Smith, the then-Turning Point USA employee and "election integrity warrior” who faked the John Hancock of many voters, including at least one dead person.
Right now, only a handful of candidates find themselves in a precarious position under that 15% mark — and most of them are challengers or first-time candidates. There are a few current lawmakers cutting it close, including a few notable Democrats: Reps. Aaron Márquez and Chris Mathis, candidate for public schools chief Dr. Michael Butts, and none other than Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. Republican U.S. Rep. Eli Crane is also just below the 15% mark and could potentially see a challenge to his candidacy.
There are also a handful of candidates who are above the 15% watermark but still close enough to be within range of a challenge — including GOP Sen. Wendy Rogers (17.5%) and Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes (17.9%).
Here’s a full list of the 26 candidates with signature counts that are higher than the required minimum total by just 18% or less. Ten of them are a mere 10% or less above the minimum. (Though the Secretary of State's Office couldn't immediately tell us what portion of candidates’ signatures came from the E-Qual system, and are therefore pretty much bulletproof.)
So far, the only challenge filed is a lawsuit against GOP Rep. Walt Blackman by Steve Slaton — a primary challenger to Blackman last cycle who lost after records suggested that Slaton was lying about his military service during the Vietnam War.
The beef probably got more heated between the two after Blackman — a former U.S. Army tank commander in the Iraq War — sponsored a bill to increase the penalties for stolen valor.
In a phone call, Slaton told us that he maintains his original claims of serving as a combat veteran in Vietnam, though records show he was stationed in Korea, and that he’s working on getting the record straight with Secretary of War/Defense Pete Hegseth.
Earlier this year, Blackman filed a defamation case against Slaton for claiming that Blackman had actually been caught lying about the details of the Bronze Star he was awarded. That case is pending.
But Blackman isn’t even one of the 30 candidates with a relatively low signature count. So why is Slaton challenging him?
Slaton, a Show Low-based owner of a Trump merch store, said that his lawsuit against Blackman wasn’t related to signatures, but rather, for past campaign finance violations that Blackman committed. Arizona law notes that candidates can be challenged for “failure to fully pay fines” and penalties, along with a host of other reasons.
“If you’ve got fines and penalties, and you’re not filing your campaign finance (reports), you can get kicked off the ballot,” Slaton said. “If they’re not going to enforce the campaign finance law, then get rid of the law!”
Blackman’s campaign finance reports have been late several times, earning him some fines. But they appear to be up to date.
And the law that Slaton references says that candidates who have racked up more than $1,000 in unpaid fines shall not be allowed to run. As far as we can tell, Blackman only has $200 in unpaid fines.
Blackman was unavailable to answer questions yesterday at the Capitol.
While a hearing in the case was scheduled for Thursday at Maricopa County Superior Court, Judge Scott Blaney recused himself. Both parties are waiting for a new judge to be assigned.
But for the next week, we’ll be keeping an eye on any more challenges filed against candidates.
You’re just realizing this now?: Democrats have been losing the voter registration battle to Republicans for the better part of a decade, but now they’re trying something new: Actually persuading voters to register as Democrats, the Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small reports. The go-to strategy for Democrats has been to farm out registration work to nonprofits, but those nonprofits can’t legally steer new voters to the Democratic Party because they’re supposed to be nonpartisan. Republicans, on the other hand, are explicitly partisan with their registration efforts, which helped the GOP add 100,000 new voters in Arizona from 2020 to 2024, while the Dems lost 107,000. The question we’re wondering about now is: How many of those new Republicans were registered by nonprofits hired by the Democratic Party?
The Strait of Your Moves: The spike in gas prices that followed the Trump administration’s attack on Iran is hitting the Arizona governor’s race, as well as state budget talks, Stacey Barchenger reports for the Republic. To deal with the higher prices, Gov. Katie Hobbs asked for a waiver of strict requirements for fuel blends and she said she’s willing to waive the gas tax (which funds basically all the road maintenance in Arizona). But a tax holiday needs approval from state lawmakers, and that could be tricky since GOP leadership and Hobbs already locked horns over the state budget. In the race for the governor’s office, Hobbs’ GOP rival, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, said her efforts were too little too late, and he brought up a bill Hobbs supported as a legislator in 2018 that would have raised the state gas tax. The fact that Hobbs is taking heat for Trump bombing Iran didn’t sit well with her spokesman Christian Slater.
Lettuce out of limbo: Farmers near Yuma grow a huge amount of leafy greens, and they need Colorado River water to do it. They’ve had senior rights to that water for a long time, but they’re still worried after negotiations over the river’s future stalled out and the federal government took the lead, per Adam Klepp at ABC15. And they’re not just worried about Colorado or Utah getting more water than Arizona. They’re also keeping an eye out for any agreement that would give cities priority over agriculture.
One way or the other: A federal judge made waves last month when she stripped Arizona’s control over healthcare in the prison system. Judge Roslyn Silver said she would appoint a receiver to oversee healthcare, but the scope of the receiver’s authority wasn’t established. Now, she’s considering two competing proposals: one from state prison officials and another from the advocates who brought the lawsuit nearly 15 years ago, Kiera Riley reports for the Capitol Times. Her decision could be delayed, though, now that Arizona officials are appealing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
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ICE incoming: The Flagstaff City Council is about to get the first big test of its new directive to move with caution when ICE requests to use city property, the Arizona Daily Sun reports. ICE officials want their agents to be able to use a city-owned space, which prompted Flagstaff officials to make good on their promise to city residents to alert them whenever ICE tries to make inroads. The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office also said it was aware of ICE’s request, but didn’t know anything other than ICE might want to use office space.
Today is Nicole’s birthday!2
And that seems like as good a reason as any to ask you for money and throw in a discount.
It’s also a good excuse to tell you about our new reporter discount links.
All of our reporters’ business cards now include a QR code to a discounted subscription link.
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The race to be Arizona’s next governor looked a little like the Iowa State Fair during a presidential election yesterday.
In place of chowing down on deep-fried Oreos or corn dogs, Gov. Katie Hobbs took a jab at U.S. Rep Andy Biggs, who’s trying to unseat her this year, by eating a taco on camera.
Biggs mentioned on a podcast that he didn’t like eating tacos on camera, which Hobbs saw as an opportunity to exclaim “What?!?” and take a big bite out of a taco.
The silly gambit might not bode well for voters who want a serious debate about the big issues, but it does raise an important question: What else can we get the candidates to eat on camera?
1 Republican lawmakers have consistently made it more difficult for initiatives to qualify for the ballot than candidates in a bunch of different ways, including by barring initiatives from paying petition circulators on a per-signature basis, saying that leads to fraud. Candidate still pay per signature.
2 Nicole took the week off to spend some time with her mom, who’s visiting Arizona. So we hope she doesn’t actually read this.
3 In fact, any button in today’s edition will go to Nicole’s discount link.
4 We cannot actually guarantee that she will use her bonus to buy her mom lunch.