Amish Shah takes Democrat primary, while Maricopa County recorder is ousted.
PHOENIX—Kari Lake, Rep. Ruben Gallego, Abe Hamadeh, and other prominent politicians were a focus of attention during Arizona’s primaries on July 30.
Lake won her Republican primary race for U.S. Senate and will face Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego in November.
Hamadeh beat Masters for the GOP nomination in the 8th District for the open U.S. House seat, and he will go up against Gregory Whitten, who ran unopposed in the Democrat primary.
The results of other consequential primary races could have downstream effects in November, when Democrats and Republicans fight for control of the House.
Arizona’s 1st District
Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), a seven-term incumbent from the Fountain Hills suburb of Phoenix, won the Republican primary with 62.7 percent of the vote. He defeated opponents Kimberly George and Robert Backie.
In the Democratic primary, former state Rep. Amish Shah won, though the highly competitive race was not called until late on Aug. 1.
Shah, a physician who was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2019, ran against six other candidates, including former Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Andrei Cherny, Marlene Galán-Woods, and Conor O’Callaghan.
Irish-born Conor O’Callaghan has a background on Wall Street, while Galan-Woods is a former Republican and the widow of Grant Woods, who served as the state’s attorney general.
With 99 percent of the vote counted, Shah had secured 23.5 percent of it. Cherny came in second, with 21.3 percent, while Galan-Woods came in a close third with 21.2 percent of the vote. O’Callaghan came in fourth with 18.5 percent. With 12.3 percent of the vote, orthodontist Andrew Horne came in fifth.
In an interview with The Epoch Times earlier this year, Horne described his state’s electorate as more libertarian than in other places, tracing a maverick tendency back to the late Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater.
“That’s Arizona politics,” he said.
Arizona’s 6th District
Well south of the 1st, Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) triumphed in his district’s Republican primary, fending off a challenge from marketer Kathleen Winn, who positioned herself as a conservative alternative.
Ciscomani won with 59.2 percent to 40.8 percent for Winn.
Democrat Kirsten Engel, the law professor that Ciscomani edged out in 2022, won her uncontested primary.
“I very, very narrowly lost to him last time,” she told The Epoch Times at a Tucson Democrat canvassing event on July 28.
The district will be closely watched in the general election.
Heap Beats Richer
Maricopa County Recorder incumbent Stephen Richer lost in a Republican primary race against state Rep. Justin Heap and information technology expert Don Hiatt.
Heap won, while Richer placed second. The state legislator won 43,3 percent of the vote, Richer 34.7 percent, and Hiatt with 22 percent.
Both Hiatt and Heap ran against the record and statements of Richer.
Richer is known for defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election and he has said he plans to vote for President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election.
