There's been, um, a bit of action at the top of the ticket the last few weeks. But the 2024 election is not just about the White House, and this week we've got primaries in both Arizona and Tennessee reminding us that there is plenty of political drama to watch downballot as well. Here are the key congressional races to watch this week in the Grand Canyon and Volunteer states.
Races to watch: Senate; 1st, 3rd and 8th congressional districts
Polls close: 10 p.m. Eastern
The big-ticket race to watch in Arizona is the GOP primary for Senate. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who was elected as a Democrat back in 2018, left the party to become an independent in 2022, causing her financial support to plummet. Instead of running for reelection, the senator decided earlier this year to bow out of what was shaping up to be a heated, three-way race against a Democratic and Republican candidate. That left Rep. Ruben Gallego, of Arizona's 3rd District, running as the Democratic nominee, and a showdown between two far-right candidates for the GOP nomination.
The current front-runner in that Republican race is Kari Lake, the outspoken former TV anchor and 2022 GOP nominee for Arizona governor (who narrowly lost to Gov. Katie Hobbs). A major supporter of former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, Lake has the endorsement of both Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, along with a slew of MAGA members of Congress. She also has a sizable fundraising advantage: Her campaign has raised over $10 million, five times that of her next-closest opponent, Mark Lamb. Lamb, the sheriff of Pinal County and another proponent of the stolen election narrative, has benefited from some not-insignificant outside support in this race over the last few weeks, but has been consistently polling behind Lake, so it appears this race is hers to lose.
Arizona's only high-profile primary contest in a seat expected to be highly competitive this fall comes in the 1st District. In 2022, Republican Rep. David Schweikert only won reelection here by less than 1 percentage point, which has made him a top target for Democrats in the lone purple-tinged seat in the Phoenix area. Yet it's difficult to handicap the crowded Democratic primary race, which has five different contenders who've raised more than $1 million. Businessman Andrei Cherny leads with $2.5 million, former TV news anchor Marlene Galán-Woods has attracted $1.6 million and former state Rep. Amish Shah has raised $1.5 million. Two other contenders, investment banker Conor O'Callaghan ($2.1 million raised) and orthodontist Andrew Horne ($1.5 million), have each self-funded more than half of their campaigns.
In an effort to appeal to primary voters, Cherny has played up his Democratic bona fides, including an endorsement from Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. Both Cherny and O'Callaghan have criticized Shah for allegedly voting for Trump in Arizona's 2016 presidential primary and Galán-Woods for her past Republican ties. Galán-Woods, who left the GOP after Trump's election in 2016, has stressed her support for abortion rights and claims that her views haven't changed but that the GOP's values have. She also has endorsements from state Attorney General Kris Mayes, EMILYs List and the state AFL-CIO. Shah has played up his legislative record and will hope that voters will be more familiar with him from his time representing a seat that covers part of this district. O'Callaghan, meanwhile, has focused on protecting abortion rights, while Horne has highlighted his support for gun safety laws and abortion rights.
Some degree of Republican meddling may affect this race, though. Turn AZ Blue PAC has run ads criticizing Galán-Woods, but, despite its name, the group appears to have GOP ties and may have violated campaign finance rules by not properly filing with the FEC. Still, such attacks could matter: Three different surveys conducted in June each found a close race with all five candidates polling between 7 percent and 18 percent. For his part, Cherny will hope that a last-minute $400,000 ad buy from pro-cryptocurrency group Protect Progress may propel him to a narrow win in a contest where there hasn't been much outside spending.
Over in Phoenix's 3rd District, Gallego's run for Senate has left an open seat up for grabs, and a competitive Democratic primary has emerged. The two front-runners are Raquel Terán, a former state senator and recent state party leader, and Yassamin Ansari, a city council member and the former vice Mayor of Phoenix. This majority Latino district is a democratic stronghold — it went 75 percent for Biden in 2020, Gallego has held the seat since 2014, and before that it was represented by Ed Pastor, Arizona's first Hispanic member of Congress, for two decades.
As such, the Democratic primary has turned into a battle of the progressives. Terán certainly has the bona fides: Along with representing the region in both the state House and Senate, she got her start in politics as a community organizer and immigrant rights activist. During her time in the Senate, she sponsored bills to protect immigrant rights, lower health care costs and ensure clean water. Teràn also led efforts to unseat two controversial right-wing Arizona figures: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and state Sen. Russell Pearce. She has the endorsement of several prominent progressives, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
But Ansari is giving Terán a real run for her money — literally. The 32-year-old, who was first elected in 2020 as the youngest person ever elected to Phoenix City Council, has had a fundraising advantage throughout the primary campaign. Though Terán has closed the gap somewhat, Ansari still leads the fundraising race: She's raised $1.9 million to Terán's $1.2 million. Terán has tried to attack Ansari's war chest by saying she was backed by GOP-affiliated donors, while Ansari attributed much of her support to the Iranian-American community (she is the first Iranian American elected to public office in the state). Ultimately, there is not a lot of political daylight between the two when it comes to issues, so this race may come down to local name recognition and dollars spent. Polls put these two neck and neck for the primary, which will likely determine who becomes the next member of Congress for this deep blue district.
Lastly, the Republican race in the Grand Canyon State's 8th District in the wealthy Phoenix suburbs has also been heating up. Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko decided not to seek reelection, citing a desire to spend more time with family, and opting instead to run for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. That left this comfortably red district (it went for Trump by a 14-point margin in 2020) up for grabs, and prompted a six-candidate race for the GOP nomination, the winner of which will be heavily favored to win in November.
Among the top contenders are Blake Masters, the 2022 Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona who lost to Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly by 5 percentage points. Masters, a Stanford grad venture capitalist who's worked closely with businessman and GOP megadonor Peter Thiel, is a 2020 election denier who also has the fundraising edge, with more than $4 million in his war chest. Meanwhile, Abe Hamadeh, the GOP's 2022 nominee for Arizona attorney general, is also a strong contender. Hamadeh has raised a respectable $1.4 million. A fellow election denier, he made three legal challenges to his own 2022 loss in the AG race, all of which were rejected. He's been polling pretty close to Masters, and when it comes to the issues, the two are fairly closely aligned.
So who has the advantage of Trump's endorsement? Despite endorsing Hamadeh back in December, the former president posted on Truth Social on the weekend that, actually, he endorses both Hamadeh and Masters. This is a pretty good way for Trump to be able to say he endorsed the winner, but doesn't really give either candidate an edge. Masters does have the endorsement of Vance, but it was given last year, long before Vance was tapped to be the vice presidential candidate.
Also in the running is Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, a slightly more mainstream Republican who has Lesko's endorsement and is in his third term representing the district in the state legislature. Former Rep. Trent Franks, who left office after a scandal where he tried to convince aides to be a surrogate for him and his wife, is also seeking a comeback. And there were at one point two (!) candidates who were at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol in the running, though one, the "QAnon Shaman," never made the ballot, and the other is unlikely to have much of a shot in this crowded, competitive race for a near-guaranteed seat in Congress.
Races to watch: 5th Congressional District
Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern
The Volunteer state is a fascinating political landscape in many ways … but on Thursday there's really only one high-profile race to watch in Tennessee's primaries. Rep. Andy Ogles is a Freedom Caucus member and one of the most obstructionist members of Congress (he recently filed articles of impeachment against Vice President Kamala Harris), who has seen his fair share of scandals during his first term in office. Now he's being challenged by Nashville Metro Council member Courtney Johnston in the state's 5th District.
Ideologically, the two candidates are pretty closely aligned. Johnston has focused her campaign on a promise to crack down on undocumented migration, which she has dubbed "Biden's border invasion." This has been a key issue for Ogles as well: He introduced the "Sending Evading Non-Documented Threats Home Especially Migrants Biden Accepted Carelessly and Knowingly Act" — or the "SEND THEM BACK Act," truly a master class in backronyms (the bill didn't go anywhere). They've also both been focused on inflation and the cost of living. But Johnston has criticized Ogles for not being effective on these issues, calling him a "do-nothing Republican" who "gets nothing done," and accusing him of being more focused on getting attention than lawmaking.
Johnston's campaign has narrowly outraised Ogles's — she's raised $784,799 to his $722,437 as of the most recent filings with the Federal Election Commission — and has attracted donations from influential Tennessee GOPers including former U.S. Sens. Bill Frist and Bob Corker and former Gov. Bill Haslam, along with Nashville-area business owners like Nashville SC pro soccer team owner John Ingram. But along with being the incumbent, Ogles has the coveted Trump endorsement, as well as backing from the Koch brothers' PAC. It'll be worth keeping an eye on this race to see if voters give Ogles a second chance.