Buckle Up Phoenix and Scottsdale: Soon You Will Not Be Able to Escape the LD4 Senate Race

By Vanessa Rogers

Legislative District 4 voters are about to learn what it feels like to be a battleground. The money pouring into this Senate race already signals a fall onslaught of mailers, TV spots and digital ads that will be impossible to avoid.

The Money Is Already Absurd

Incumbent Republican Sen. Carine Werner started the year with $272,939 already banked. She added another $110,000 in the first quarter alone. Her war chest now sits at $414,402, with only about $66,000 spent so far. That means most of her firepower is still loaded.

Carine Werner

Democratic challenger Aaron Lieberman is no slouch either. He has already raised $157,000 in his bid to flip the seat back after Werner unseated former Sen. Christine Marsh in 2024. Lieberman knows LD4 well. He previously served in the Legislature and ran for governor in 2022. He is not walking into this race short on name recognition or ambition, and he is well known for being a prolific fundraiser, so much so that his $157K somehow seems on the light end for him.

Aaron Lieberman

Add up both campaigns and residents are looking at well over half a million dollars chasing one state Senate seat. That kind of money does not sit quietly in a bank account. It becomes commercials. It becomes postcards. It becomes the same 30-second ad playing four times during the show on Hulu that you’re trying to watch.

Where LD4 Actually Sits

For anyone confused about whether this fight lands on their doorstep, LD4 covers Paradise Valley, the Arcadia and Biltmore neighborhoods of Phoenix, north-central Phoenix, and central and north Scottsdale, including Old Town. Roughly, think Camelback Road as the southern edge, Loop 101 wrapping the north and east, and State Route 51 marking the west. If you live in that box, you are the audience this money is built for.

Congress Piles On

But here is where it turns into a genuine mess. David Schweikert vacated Arizona’s 1st Congressional District to run for governor, and that seat now overlaps much of the same north Scottsdale and Phoenix territory as LD4. The result is a wide open, crowded primary on both sides. Democrat Jonathan Treble has already topped $1 million raised. Republicans Gina Swoboda and Scottsdale’s own John Trobough are in the mix, along with familiar names on the Democratic side, all of whom are fundraising well and have already dumped a fortune into winning the primary, with two candidates poised to spend an even larger fortune before November.

Joseph Chaplik

Even former state Rep. Joseph Chaplik is juggling his own CD1 fundraising while writing checks to Scottsdale council candidates. Everybody is raising money from everybody, for multiple races, at the same time.

For residents who sit inside both LD4 and CD1, this fall will feel like a siege. Every mailbox, every commercial break, every digital scroll will carry a candidate’s face. Buckle up. November is a long way off, and the money has only just started moving.