Highlights
- Secretary of State candidate Alexander Kolodin told supporters early ballot drops left Republicans at R+1.2, far below the R+10 margin he said is needed to sweep the executive branch.
- Warren Petersen, the GOP attorney general nominee, warned that roughly a third of registered Republicans have not yet voted and that independent voters are leaning left this cycle.
- More than 1.4 million Arizona ballots had already been returned as of Oct. 28, with Democrats casting a higher share of their total registration than Republicans.
- Polling published this week showed GOP governor candidate Andy Biggs trailing incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs by 12 points, with Kolodin and Petersen each down 11 points in their races.
Arizona Republican statewide candidates privately acknowledged last week that early ballot returns are running well below the margin they believe is necessary to win the executive branch, according to a recording of a virtual rally call obtained by the Arizona Mirror.
Alexander Kolodin, a state lawmaker running for Arizona Secretary of State, told participants on the call that the party needed to reach R+10 in early ballots to sweep statewide offices. "I have to say, after we had a gangbusters start to the week, the drops today were quite less than I was hoping for," Kolodin said. "Now, we can still get to an R+10, which is what we need in order to sweep the executive branch. But today's drops, they're not going to get us there."
Warren Petersen, the GOP attorney general nominee, put the current Republican advantage at R+1.2 and told supporters that Democrats were front-loading their early vote effectively. He urged attendees to use the Numinar app and a Turning Point USA app to identify contacts who had not yet cast ballots, saying the goal was to reach every Republican in supporters' phones before Election Day. Petersen said roughly a third of registered Republicans were unlikely to vote without a personal nudge, and that some races could be decided by hundreds of votes.
The call also included Andy Biggs and Sine Kerr, running for governor and lieutenant governor respectively, and Jay Feely, the Republican candidate in Congressional District 1, which the Mirror described as Arizona's most competitive district. Biggs told supporters the race would be close but winnable if Republicans turned out their voters before and on Election Day.
According to early ballot tracking by Democratic political consultant Sam Almy cited in the Mirror's reporting, more than 1.4 million Arizona voters had returned ballots as of Oct. 28. Republicans held a 16,600-ballot edge over Democrats in raw returns, but 43% of total Democratic registrants had already voted compared to 36% of Republicans. Just 22% of independents and minor-party voters had voted early.
Final voter registration figures gave Republicans a nearly 300,000-voter edge over Democrats statewide, but Petersen cautioned that advantage is meaningless if those voters stay home.
Polling published earlier this week showed Biggs trailing Gov. Katie Hobbs by 12 percentage points, with Kolodin down 11 points to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Petersen trailing Attorney General Kris Mayes by 11 points. The Phoenix New Times also reported on the call.
Election Day is Nov. 3.
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- azmirror.com retrieved 30/10/2026 00:11
Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 30/10/2026 00:11. Every claim traces to a source.
