The comeback kids

The Globe-based cattle rancher attributes the defeat to Rogers securing President Donald Trump’s endorsement and outspending him in the primary. But Cook believes his odds are better now that he’s running to return to the House.

Republican Rep. Walt Blackman is seeking reelection, but the district’s second House seat opened when GOP Rep. David Marshall resigned earlier this year to become Navajo County recorder.

Both Blackman and Marshall are based in Snowflake, a small town on LD7’s far eastern edge. In a sprawling district spanning parts of four counties, Cook argues that clustering lawmakers in one corner has left large swaths of LD7 without adequate representation. Not to mention, there are open questions about whether Rogers lives in the district at all.

When it became clear Marshall was leaving and opening up a House seat, Cook said his phone "wouldn’t stop ringing.”

To reclaim his old House seat alongside incumbent Blackman, Cook has to defeat challengers Andrew Costanzo and Barby Ingle in the GOP primary. LD7 has more than twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats, so the four-way primary could effectively decide both House seats.

According to Cook, his former colleagues are ready for his return.

For three years, she worked at the Bureau of Reclamation to ensure tribes were consulted on Colorado River policy, until Trump returned to office and Elon Musk DOGE’d the job out of existence.

Anticipating that her federal job was at risk, Peshlakai applied to the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, where she’s now studying environmental and tribal law. But losing that job — and watching the administration test the limits of power — pushed her to seek her old seat again.

She’s now challenging current Democratic Rep. Myron Tsosie for LD6’s Senate seat. Tsosie volunteered for Peshlakai’s campaign in 2015, she said, but she’s not happy with his attendance record and his votes with Republicans.

Peshlakai’s comeback bid is an all-Democratic family affair. Her mother, incumbent Rep. Mae Peshlakai, is seeking reelection, while her aunt, Angela Maloney, is running for the open House seat vacated by Tsosie.

Ian Teller, an Indigenous civic advocate, is challenging the family slate for one of the district’s House seats.

After one Senate term, Kern gave up the seat to run for Congress. He finished fifth in the seven-way Republican primary for CD8, and GOP Sen. Kevin Payne moved over from the House to take Kern's seat.

While the duo previously complimented each other in the press, they’re now publicly disparaging each other for control of the Senate spot.

Kern was the only comeback candidate who did not respond to our interview request. But he addressed his return during a Clean Elections debate that became a solo Q&A after Payne declined to attend.

Kern pushed back on Payne’s claim, which he submitted in the primary election voter guide, that Kern’s running because he “misses being in elected office.”

Trump isn’t lending Kern his endorsement this time, so Kern is coming up with his own credentials. His campaign sent out a mailer falsely calling Kern a “certified peace officer,” per the Republic.

Kern left a volunteer deputy position in Tombstone in 2019. Before that, the El Mirage Police Department fired him from a code enforcement job after he lost a tablet and lied about paying the department back for it. The episode landed him on the Brady list, which flags law-enforcement personnel with credibility problems that may need to be disclosed in criminal cases.

Marsh still runs regularly, often to the mountain preserve where her son’s ashes are scattered. He died from an accidental overdose in 2020, and one of Marsh’s major achievements at the Capitol was getting a law passed that legalized fentanyl testing strips.

When she left her LD4 Senate seat, Marsh moved into a smaller home in north-central Phoenix’s LD5, closer to the preserve where her son’s ashes are.

Then, longtime Democratic Sen. Lela Alston announced she would retire after 34 years at the Capitol — and asked Marsh to run for her seat.

Marsh doesn’t face a primary challenger, so she has a strong shot at replacing Alston in the Democratic-leaning district — a welcome change from the last election cycle, when she faced a smear campaign to oust her from the toss-up LD4.

That pressure now shifts to former Democratic Rep. Aaron Lieberman, who is challenging Werner for the LD4 Senate seat.

Lieberman said he entered the competitive LD4 Senate race after Marsh moved away and local Democrats asked him to step in. He represented much of the now-redrawn district during his three years in the House, and Lieberman believes that familiarity with voters will help him make a triumphant return.

He is also more optimistic about what he could accomplish this time. Lieberman believes Democrats could win the Senate majority or force a 15-15 tie, creating “an opportunity to kind of move the state to the middle.”

So, who won?: It looks like the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Recorder Justin Heap finally reached an agreement and now both sides are touting their wins, Stephanie Murray reports for the Republic. Heap previously had his 12-point plan approved by the Arizona Supreme Court, which was considered a major defeat for the board, but Heap walked back certain parts in the final stages. Now, both Heap’s office and the board will oversee early ballot tabulations, which Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo said is because Heap’s staff “has no clue on what they’re doing” and “didn’t want that responsibility.” Supervisor Thomas Galvin called the agreement “an off-ramp from this highway to hell that we have been on.”

A convenient election promo: State Treasurer Kimberly Yee is still relishing her legal win against 12News, which allowed her to withhold detailed transaction information in the state’s school voucher program. Now she’s rubbing it in the face of her rival in the GOP primary, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, who settled his own lawsuit with 12News and agreed to provide detailed info.

Fontes locks horns with DOJ: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is prepared to duke it out with Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice after the DOJ sent a letter threatening state officials to only allow citizens to cast a ballot, which is already illegal, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Trump is preparing to drop an announcement today about elections and Fontes is prepared to fight in court to ensure federal officials don't meddle in state elections.

FEMA closes door on Globe relief: The Federal Emergency Management Agency denied the City of Globe’s appeal for federal aid after a disastrous flood killed three people and the agency rejected the original request in December, Alexis Cortez and Steven Sarabia report for AZFamily. FEMA officials said the flood, which caused $96 million in damage, was not severe enough for a “major disaster declaration.”

They fixed the comma: An Arizona firefighter was denied health insurance coverage for his cancer recovery because of a grammar mistake in state law, Fischer reports. The man, who was diagnosed with non-respiratory adenocarcinoma, was not covered because state law lists the presumed conditions for firefighters as “adenocarcinoma or mesothelioma of the respiratory tract.” His insurer claimed the phrase, without a comma before “or”, meant that his condition wasn’t covered. He eventually got coverage, and the law was revised in a state Senate bill to now list each covered condition, rather than a long list in a single sentence.

Republican Congressman Abe Hamadeh has recently been under scrutiny for strange behavior with his staff.

He got his interns to do a weird, glammed up photoshoot.

And reporting revealed he lives and takes vacation with a top aide who’s now managing his reelection campaign.

But on Tuesday, he got roasted by Arizona Twitter for a hilarious error.

In a video he posted, Hamadeh touted his support for the Sunshine Protection Act — a bill that aims to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

Well, that’s true. But in saying that “America should be a little bit more like Arizona,” Hamadeh seems to be confused.

Arizona never observes daylight saving time. The bill would make Arizona a little more like the rest of America.

Plenty of people, like Goodyear Councilman Trey Terry, pointed out the lack of very basic knowledge.

Perhaps Hamadeh should spend less time with his staff on photoshoots and vacations and more time understanding simple facts about Arizona.