Breaking Down the Out of State Money at Play in Arizona’s 7 th Congressional District

On July 15, Congressional candidate Adelita Grijalva won the Democratic primary in Arizona’s 7th by a landslide. It was expected that the daughter of the late CD7 Congressman Raul Grijalva would easily win the special election to fill her father’s empty seat. However, there were moments when it seemed her two main contenders were gaining some ground.

Daniel Hernandez, a former State Rep and member of the well-known, politically active Hernandez family (his two sisters Alma and Consuelo currently serve in the State House) ran as a business-friendly moderate Democrat. On the other end of the spectrum, 25-year-old Deja Foxx, an influencer and professional speaker from Tucson, ran as the populist progressive option. 

Foxx and Hernandez finished with 20% and 14% percent of the vote respectively. While Grijalva blew them out of the water with 62% of the vote. Even though the election resulted quite predictably, the lack of competitiveness in the race did not dissuade PACs and special interest groups from getting involved – and much of that money came from outside of the state. A total of $1.1 million of PAC money was spent in this off-year, special, primary election.

Among the largest spenders in the race were the democratic socialist Working Families Party (WFP), and the radical environmental group League of Conservation Voters (LCV). For these two left-wing heavyweights, this was not their first rodeo in Arizona politics. Just last year they spent large sums in the race for the Arizona Corporation Commission in an effort to secure the election of the Democratic candidates; a total of $707,350 (WFP) and $1,168,970 (LCV through Chispa AZ) respectively.