Daily Archives: March 14, 2025

By Jim Ellis — Friday, March 14, 2025

House

Veteran Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Tucson) sadly passed away yesterday, succumbing to lung cancer. He is the second House member within the past 10 days to lose his life. Just after President Donald Trump’s Address to Congress on March 5, Texas Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) suddenly died.

Rep. Grijalva was first elected to the House in 2002 after serving on the Pima County Board of Supervisors and the Tucson Unified School District. He rose to chair the House Resources Committee when the Democrats held the majority. In total, Grijalva served a combined 45 years in public office.

Just prior to the 2024 election, Rep. Grijalva announced that his next term would end his legislative career as he would not seek re-election in 2026.

Due to the Congressman’s death, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) will schedule a special election in the state’s 7th District. Since the congressional vacancy has occurred more than six months before the next general election, Gov. Hobbs must call the replacement election within 72 hours of the seat becoming vacant. In accordance with Arizona election law, the special primary must occur no earlier than 120 days and no later than 133 days after the vacancy occurred.

Therefore, by Monday, Gov. Hobbs must set the schedule for the primary election sometime between July 11 and July 24, which will most likely be Tuesday, July 15. The special general then must be scheduled no fewer than 70 days after the primary and no more than 80 days. This means the seat will remain vacant until a winner is sworn into office after either a Sept. 23 or Sept. 30 special general election.

Because Rep. Grijalva had previously announced his retirement, potential candidates were already beginning to organize campaigns to run for the open seat. Therefore, most, if not all, of these individuals will participate in the ensuing special election.

At the top of the list is the late Congressman’s daughter, Adelita Grijalva (D), a current Pima County Supervisor. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez form the underpinnings of what is expected to be a crowded Democratic field.

All of the definitive action will be in the Democratic primary since AZ-7 heavily favors the party. The FiveThirtyEight data organization rates the seat as D+27. The Dave’s Redistricting App statisticians calculate a 65.5D – 32.3R partisan lean. The Down Ballot political blog prognosticators rank AZ-7 as the 89th-safest seat in the House Democratic Conference.

Arizona’s 7th CD stretches almost the width of Arizona along the Mexican border from Yuma on the west through to the towns of Douglas and Pirtleville east of Tucson. The district touches parts of six counties. It is anchored in Pima County and contains all of Santa Cruz County, large portions of Yuma and Cochise counties and slivers of Maricopa and Pinal counties.

The district, which contains most of the city of Tucson, is heavily minority. The voting age population consists of 55.5 percent Hispanic voting eligible individuals, 32.9 percent Anglo, 5.8 percent Native American, 4.9 percent Black, and three percent Asian.

Rep. Grijalva was born in Pima County on Feb. 19, 1948. He was 77 years old.