GOP primed to make another pickup in state House races, expanding their majority

The floor of the Arizona house of Representatives in April 2024. Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

Republicans on Thursday took the lead in a hotly contested northeast Phoenix race for the state House of Representatives, setting the stage for the GOP to increase their majority by two seats when lawmakers return to the Capitol in January.

After ballots were tallied Thursday, Pamela Carter surged past Kelli Butler, a Democrat who had been clinging to a 150-vote lead for the second House seat in Legislative District 4. The race was led by Matt Gress, a Republican who handily won reelection in the swing district.

Butler, a former legislator, was aiming to hold on to the seat that Democrat Laura Terech won in 2022. She now trails Carter, a first-time candidate, by more than 1,100 votes. Republicans were already poised to pick up one House seat, and a Carter victory would give the GOP 33 seats in the 60-member chamber.

Democrats were ambitious in 2024, aiming to knock Republicans from power in the House after nearly 60 years of uninterrupted GOP control. District 4 may ultimately serve as an example of how their aggressive strategy backfired — leaving them not only without a majority, but with fewer seats.

Historically, when Democrats targeted seats in Republican-leaning districts — like District 4 — they fielded a single candidate for House races, even though there were two seats on the ballot. The strategy, known as single-shotting, is an election mathematics trick: The goal for a single-shot candidate is to get core supporters to cast only one vote in the race and persuade others to split their votes between the candidate and an opponent. Doing so maximizes the candidate’s own numbers and dilutes the opponents’ numbers.

That’s how Terech won her seat in District 4, where Republicans hold a 13-percentage-point registration advantage. But this year, Democrats ran two candidates: Butler and Karen Gresham. 

Without the advantage of the single-shot, both Democrats now find themselves on the outside looking in.

The same thing happened to Democrats in Legislative District 13, which runs from Chandler to Sun Lakes in the East Valley. One of the two House seats had been held by Democrats in the district, and its predecessor before the 2021 redistricting, for several election cycles because of the single-shot strategy.

But this year, the only path to a majority for Democrats required capturing both seats in some Republican districts where they already held one seat. In District 13, Brandy Reese and Nicholas Gonzales are both out of the running, meaning Democrats will lose the seat currently held by Jennifer Pawlik. 

The success of the single-shot can be seen in north Phoenix’s Legislative District 2, where Republicans hold a 9-percentage-point voter registration edge. Democrat Stephanie Simacek is leading the two Republican candidates, incumbent Justin Wilmeth and Ari Daniel Bradshaw.

But whether it ultimately pays off for Simacek remains to be seen: She is only leading Wilmeth by about 400 votes, and Bradshaw is just 700 votes behind her.

And Republicans are on the precipice of adding a third new seat to their tally this year. In west Mesa’s Legislative District 9, where Democrats won both seats in 2022, Lorena Austin seems likely to win reelection. But her seatmate, Seth Blattman, might not be so lucky. The two GOP candidates, Kylie Barber and Mary Ann Mendoza, are separated by about 30 votes, and Barber is fewer than 100 votes behind Blattman.

In state Senate contests, there were no lead changes, but Republicans solidified their leads in two battleground races. 

In District 2, Sen. Shawnna Bolick expanded her lead over Democratic challenger Rep. Judy Schwiebert from 1,900 votes to more than 3,000. And in District 4, Republican Carine Werner doubled her lead to 3,200 in her bid to oust Sen. Christine Marsh, the Democratic incumbent.

And GOP hopeful Robert Scantlebury made up some ground on Democratic Sen. Eva Burch in District 9, cutting her lead from 1,600 votes to about 1,300.

The bright spot Thursday for Democrats in Senate races was in southern Arizona’s Legislative District 17, which runs from Marana and Oro Valley to eastern Tucson, where Democratic newcomer John McLean expanded his lead over Republican Vince Leach, a former legislator, from 760 votes to more than 1,300.