Arizona State Senate elections, 2026

2026 Arizona Senate Elections
Primary	Pending
General	November 3, 2026

2026 Elections
Choose a chamber below:

Elections for the Arizona State Senate will take place in 2026. The general election is on November 3, 2026.

The Arizona State Senate is one of 88 state legislative chambers with elections in 2026. There are 99 chambers throughout the country.

Party control

See also: Partisan composition of state senates and State government trifectas

Party	As of March 2025
	Democratic Party	13
	Republican Party	17
	Other	0
	Vacancies	0
Total	30

Candidates

Note: The following list includes official candidates only. Ballotpedia defines official candidates as people who:

• Register with a federal or state campaign finance agency before the candidate filing deadline
• Appear on candidate lists released by government election agencies

This list will be updated after the candidate filing deadline has passed and the official list of candidates becomes available. Please contact us if you notice an official candidate missing from the list or the inclusion of a candidate who withdrew.

Primary

General election

Voting information

See also: Voting in Arizona

Ballotpedia will publish the dates and deadlines related to this election as they are made available.

Competitiveness

This section will be updated with information about the competitiveness of state legislative elections in Arizona. For more information about Ballotpedia's Competitiveness Analysis of state legislative elections, please click here.

Process to become a candidate

See also: Ballot access requirements for political candidates in Arizona

See statutes: Title 16, Chapter 3 of the Arizona Revised Statutes

Candidates in Arizona can access the ballot as political party candidates, independent candidates, or write-in candidates. Before any candidate can accept contributions, make expenditures, distribute campaign literature, or circulate petitions, he or she must file a "Political Committee Statement of Organization" or a "$500 Threshold Exemption Statement." All candidates file with the Arizona Secretary of State.^[1]

Political party candidates

Political party candidates are nominated in primary elections. If no candidate is nominated at the primary election for a specific office, no candidate for that office can appear on the general election ballot for that political party.^[2][3]

A political party candidate must file his or her nomination documents during the candidate filing period, which begins 120 days before the primary and ends 90 days before the primary. At the time of filing, a candidate must be a qualified voter residing in the geographic area represented by the office being sought. The following documents must be filed in order to gain ballot access:^[4]

• a financial disclosure statement
• an affidavit affirming that the candidate will be eligible to hold office if elected
• a nomination paper including the following information:
  • candidate’s residence address
  • name of the party with which the candidate is affiliated
  • office the candidate seeks, with district or precinct, if applicable
  • the candidate’s name as the candidate wishes it to appear on the ballot
  • date of the primary and corresponding general election
• a nomination petition

Nomination petitions must be signed by qualified electors who are eligible to vote for the office the candidate is seeking. A qualified signer may be a "registered member of the party from which the candidate is seeking nomination," a "registered member of a political party that is not entitled to continued representation on the ballot," or an independent. To calculate the number of petition signatures needed, the voter registration totals as of March 1 of the year of the election must be used. Signature requirements vary according to the office being sought. See the table below for further details.^[5][6]

Formulas for determining signature requirements for political party candidates
Office sought	Minimum signatures required	Maximum signatures allowed
United States Senator or state executive office	At least one-fourth of 1 percent of the total number of qualified signers**	No more than 10 percent of the total number of qualified signers
United States Representative	At least one-half of 1 percent of the total number of qualified signers in the district the candidate seeks to represent	No more than 10 percent of the total number of qualified signers in the district the candidate seeks to represent
State legislative office	At least one-half of 1 percent of the total number of qualified signers in the district the candidate seeks to represent	No more than 3 percent of the total number of qualified signers in the district the candidate seeks to represent
**Note: In July 2014, the Arizona Secretary of State announced that the state would no longer enforce a requirement that signatures come from at least three counties in the state. The decision was made following a lawsuit filed by the Arizona Public Integrity Alliance and four Maricopa County voters. The suit alleged that this requirement violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by "impermissibly diluting the value of signatures from citizens in more populous counties and increasing the value of signatures from citizens in less populous counties."[7]

Newly qualified political party candidates

A candidate of a newly qualified political party must file the same documents at the same time as other political party candidates. Petition signature requirements are different for newly qualified political party candidates. A candidate of a new political party must file signatures equal to at least one-tenth of 1 percent of the total votes cast for the winning presidential or gubernatorial candidate at the last general election in the district the candidate seeks to represent.^[5]

For example, in 2012, 1,233,654 votes were cast for Mitt Romney, the winning presidential candidate in Arizona, meaning that new party candidates seeking state executive office in 2014 needed to collect 1,234 signatures on their qualifying petitions.^[8]

Independent candidates

A candidate may not run as an independent if he or she is representing a party that failed to qualify for the primary election. Additionally, a candidate cannot run as an independent if he or she tried and failed to qualify as a political party candidate in the primary.^[9]

An independent candidate must be nominated by petition to run in the general election. The nomination petition must be filed with the financial disclosure statement during the candidate filing period, which begins 120 days before the primary election and ends 90 days before the primary election.^[9]

An independent candidate's nomination petition must be signed by registered voters eligible to vote for the office the candidate is seeking. The number of signatures required on the petition is equal to at least 3 percent of all registered voters who are not affiliated with a recognized political party in the district the candidate seeks to represent. Signature requirement figures should be calculated using voter registration data from March 1 of the year of the election. Though the number of signatures required to gain ballot access as an independent is related to the number of registered voters who are not affiliated with recognized political parties, the affiliation of those signing the petitions does not matter as long as they have not already signed a political party candidate's petition.^[9]

Write-in candidates

A candidate may not file as a write-in if any of the following are true:^[10]

• The candidate ran in the primary election and failed to get elected.
• The candidate did not file enough signatures to be allowed ballot access when previously filing for primary ballot access.
• The candidate filed nomination petitions to run in the general election but did not submit enough valid signatures to gain ballot access.

Write-in votes will not be counted unless the write-in candidate files a nomination paper and financial disclosure form no later than 5 p.m. on the 40th day before the election in which the candidate intends to run. The nomination paper must include the following information:^[10]

• the candidate's name and signature
• the candidate's residence address or description of place of residence and post office address
• the candidate's age
• the length of time the candidate has been a resident of the state
• the candidate's date of birth

Qualifications

See also: State legislature candidate requirements by state

Article 4, Part 2, Section 2 of the Arizona Constitution states: "No person shall be a member of the Legislature unless he shall be a citizen of the United States at the time of his election, nor unless he shall be at least twenty-five years of age, and shall have been a resident of Arizona at least three years and of the county from which he is elected at least one year before his election."

Salaries and per diem

See also: Comparison of state legislative salaries

State legislative salaries, 2024[11]
Salary	Per diem
$24,000/year	For legislators residing within Maricopa County: $35/day. For legislators residing outside of Maricopa County: $251.66.

When sworn in

See also: When state legislators assume office after a general election

Arizona legislators assume office on the first day of the session after they are elected. Each regular session begins on the second Monday in January.^[12]

Arizona political history

Trifectas

A state government trifecta is a term that describes single-party government, when one political party holds the governor's office and has majorities in both chambers of the legislature in a state government.

Arizona Party Control: 1992-2025
No Democratic trifectas  •  Twenty-two years of Republican trifectas
Scroll left and right on the table below to view more years.

Presidential politics in Arizona

2024

See also: Presidential election, 2024

2020

See also: Presidential election, 2020

2016

See also: Presidential election, 2016

Arizona presidential election results (1900-2024)

• 9 Democratic wins
• 20 Republican wins

Redistricting following the 2020 census

On January 24, 2022, Arizona enacted new legislative maps after the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission transmitted its finalized plans to the secretary of state.^[13] The commission initially voted to finalize and certify the legislative map plan on Jan. 21.^[14] The commission's nonpartisan chairwoman, Erika Neuberg, joined the two Republican members—David Mehl and Douglas York—voting in favor of the map. The commission's two Democratic members—Shereen Lerner and Derrick Watchman—were opposed.^[15] This map took effect for Arizona's 2022 legislative elections.

See also

Arizona	State Legislative Elections	News and Analysis
Arizona State Executive Offices Arizona State Legislature Arizona Courts	2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 Arizona elections: 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015	Party control of state government State government trifectas Partisan composition of state legislatures Partisan composition of state senates Partisan composition of state houses

External links

• Arizona State Senate

Footnotes