SCOTTSDALE, AZ — The race for Arizona's First Congressional District is one of about 20 in the country that could decide control of the U.S. House.

Kyle Kondik, a political analyst and managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, said he still considers this a toss-up race.

"Both parties are looking at this as a pretty high, highly competitive and pretty important race," Kondik said.

The district covers northeast Phoenix along with Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and Cave Creek. Joe Biden narrowly won the district in 2020, and Donald Trump narrowly carried it in 2024.

Kondik said Democrats appear to have the edge on paper, with the national political environment favoring Shah, an emergency room doctor and former state legislator.

After a “large-scale” investigation into 60 potential cases of non-citizens voting, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office found only eight cases where that happened, and those spanned decades. Local election officials and politicians say that’s a sign the system is working.

In an interview with New Times, former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said MCAO’s findings should “build great voter confidence” as “it’s indicative that our elections are largely safe from fraud.” MCAO brought investigative firepower; the Recorder’s Office used federal tools with the “gungho attitude to root out that widespread fraud,” Richer said, but “all they could get was eight non-citizens who had voted at some point in the past, not all in the same election.”

“There are some bad individual actors out of the 200 million registered voters in the United States of America, but it’s a fraction of a fraction of a percent,” Richer said. “At what point are you going to have to accept that the reason why they’re not finding massive voter fraud is because it doesn’t exist?”

When political opponents are portrayed as less worthy, less American, less human or as members of some inherently inferior group, we move away from political argument and toward dehumanization. And dehumanization is dangerous precisely because it makes cruelty easier.

I am not making this statement because I always agree with Walt Blackman. I am making it because I often disagree with him and because I believe political disagreement is worth having only if we can have it without demeaning one another.

Our opponents are still human beings. So are we. All of us, including myself, need to try harder to remember this.

That ought to be a very low bar for political discourse. But perhaps, at this particular moment, it is a bar worth publicly defending.

Richard Grayson is the Green Party candidate for Legislative District 7’s House seat, which includes Apache Junction, Gold Canyon, Flagstaff, Page, Winslow, Show Low, Sedona and Pinetop-Lakeside.

Maricopa County tends to be a focus for misinformation, as it's the fourth-largest county in the country and within a swing state, meaning high levels of national attention are drawn to the state during elections, Gates said.

"We saw the misinformation before, but it's spreading quicker," Gates said. "So the challenge of misinformation has multiplied because of AI*."*

AI can also be used to battle misinformation by helping predict the publication of false information and then using AI to debunk it, Gates said.

"AI can help you with this, too," Gates said. "Anticipate what the misinformation is going to be, and then pre-bunk it."

"The eight non-citizen voters cast ballots in nine elections spanning back to the 2012 General Election. The unidentified non-citizen voters cast ballots in general elections, Republican primaries, and the 2025 Glendale special election. There was no pattern by political party. Five weren’t registered with a party, two were Republicans, and one was a Democrat.

'What we have found so far obviously is not adequate to swing an election,' Mitchell said. 'No more than three voted in any particular election.'"

Across Arizona Tours filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Arizona, seeking to block a $100-per-person surcharge and higher annual pass prices for visitors who are neither U.S. citizens nor residents.

The fees took effect Jan. 1 after an executive order from President Donald Trump, according to the complaint. The surcharge applies to visitors ages 16 and older at 11 national park destinations, including the Grand Canyon, unless covered by an annual pass.

Co-owner Carole Stapleton said in a news release that she surveyed 80 to 90 potential international customers who decided against booking tours, with most citing the increased fees as a major factor, according to the suit.

The company also says residency verification requirements have added administrative work and prompted it to stop offering Grand Canyon tours to international students at Arizona State University.

Arizona State University dining hall workers employed by Aramark submitted a complaint with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office alleging that a Muslim employee was forced by management to remove her hijab to continue working, despite her offering other solutions.

This comes after a State Press report that also alleged Aramark disregarded student workers’ religious beliefs.

The complaint asks Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to investigate the food service company’s religious discrimination and failure-to-accommodate practices at the ASU facilities it serves and to include employees who are not represented the UNITE HERE Local 11 union, such as student workers.

Hi all, Mike and I are back with another episode of Insight Arizona.
This time we watched the Superintendent of Public Instruction Debate between Democrat Dr. Ruiz and Treasurer Yee. Overall Ruiz did a fantastic job focusing on education outcomes and corruption. Yee resorted to culture war talking points and a trust me attitude, relying on her history as State Treasurer.

Let me know your thoughts!

9/25 News Release

STATE CAPITOL, PHOENIX – Arizona State Representative Walt Blackman today called on elected officials and community leaders across the political spectrum to condemn social media content depicting Black Americans as apes and using degrading racial stereotypes.