The Scottsdale and PV Legislative Districts. Photo Credit: Scottsdale Independent
We love to be a bastion of information for our Scottsdale and Paradise Valley readers specifically, as we are one of you. We have already spoken to who will be on your ballot as it concerns the upcoming Scottsdale City Council elections as well as the Paradise Valley Town Mayor elections. However you will also have legislative seats to vote on, and you may not even know who you can vote for.
That said, in all likelihood your vote for the primary will probably matter most, and unless you live in south Scottsdale, your vote for GOP primary is the one that matters.
There will be three legislative districts that cover these two cities: LDs 3, 4 and 8. We’ll start with the only relatively competitive district of the three, which is LD4. It encompassed much of Scottsdale as well as Paradise Valley. The House race is a competitive one on the GOP side, with former House Rep. and PV Town Councilwoman Maria Syms in the fray along with five other competitors compared to just one for the Democrats as part of their “single shot” strategy to pick off one of the two House seats. The Senate side pins incumbents Christine Marsh against Nancy Barto; while Marsh has proven herself a strong candidate and perhaps more in line with the average voter in-district, in what should be a difficult year for Democrats any advantage has to be given to the GOP.
District 3 includes north Scottsdale in with Cave Creek and Fountain Hills, making it a deep shade of crimson. The only interesting action is in the GOP primary, as former three-term Representative Darin Mitchell is making a comeback and taking on Joseph Chaplik, who won his first term last cycle, as is Alexander Kolodin, attorney for the Cyber Ninja’s (a title that hopefully he aims to hide). The Senate side holds a potentially interesting primary however: longtime stalwart John Kavanagh faces a challenge from Jen Dubauskas, who at the time of writing has already raised nearly $187,000, a full $150,000 more than the incumbent. Perhaps it won’t be interesting, if the money race is any indicator…
As for the new LD8, it is essentially the old LD24, with much of south Scottsdale attached to Tempe in a strong blue district. All three Democratic incumbents (all Tempe-based) are in the new district, leading one to believe that the real race will again be restricted to the primary.
LD4 is the only district with a potentially interesting general election, but even that is held afloat by the Dems’ single-shot strategy as well as Christine Marsh’s strong candidacy and may well be an easy GOP sweep. Everything else should be won and lost in the primaries, and at least in LD3 those provide some potentially good opportunities to pop a bag of popcorn and watch.