Mayes doubles down on fake electors

Mayes' loss at the Arizona Supreme Court, which rejected her appeal and forced her back to a grand jury to get a new indictment, guarantees the controversial case will stay in the spotlight for months at least.

Both of her GOP opponents, Rodney Glassman and Warren Petersen, have said they would drop the case if they are elected in November. They see it as a politically driven targeting of Mayes' opponents. Mayes has said she is defending Arizonans' votes, and that nothing is more important.

"I don't think that there is anything more important than standing up for American democracy and making sure that no one illegally tries to undermine it," Mayes said in a December interview. Her office declined to comment on her decision June 4 to continue the case.

Though Mayes had previously acknowledged the prosecution's drain on her staff resources — it took 13 days to present to a grand jury the first time and relies on an enormous mountain of records — she has made clear she will fight this legal battle to the end.

Political insiders split over the effect of keeping the case, which stems from an election nearly six years ago, in the spotlight. Voters have ranked affordability and inflation higher on their list of concerns, and returned President Donald Trump to the White House two years ago despite his continued claims he won in 2020.

“The president of the United States has not moved on from 2020, and so the attorney general in Arizona — where there was an undeniable attempt to overturn the results of an election — should also not move on," said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic consultant based in Arizona.

Pearson cited Trump's executive order on mail-in voting, his push to redraw congressional district maps, and his support of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require voter identification nationally and that opponents fear would disenfranchise voters. More recently, Trump proposed a roughly $2 billion "anti-weaponization" fund that has put his own party in a bind. Though the Trump administration has walked away from the fund idea, Democrats have sought to make it a sore point in the midterm election.

"The wolf is at the door," Pearson said. Pearson is working on a ballot measure this year to write Arizona's vote by mail and voter identification laws into the state Constitution.

"The Trump administration is not backing down from its attempts to change the rules, so I think attorney general Mayes is taking a very smart approach," she said.

Republican consultant Constantin Querard said continuing the case could reassure Mayes' base of her priorities, but for swing voters in November, her pursuit could seem too partisan. And, he noted, it hasn't yet reached any conclusion.

"That's part of politics these days, everybody wants a fighter, most people don't stop to check to see if you actually win," Querard said. Querard has previously worked for both Petersen and Glassman in the past. His consulting firm was paid less than $2,500 by Petersen's campaign in 2025 for polling and voter contact. But Querard has not worked for the campaign since, according to Querard and state campaign finance records.

Starting over keeps the topic alive throughout her reelection campaign, and that could also come with a financial benefit, he said.

The day of the Supreme Court's decision, Mayes' campaign sent out a fundraising plea targeting her GOP opponents as Trump loyalists and "2020 election deniers."

Mayes may be taking a risk, said Arizona consultant Chuck Coughlin. Coughlin was a longtime Republican but now is not affiliated with either party. She will be focusing on an issue that dates to an election three cycles ago, and one in which she has to explain several court setbacks, he said.

"In all of our data, everything we know is that looking backwards is never helpful," he said, especially when there are "so many people that feel like, can't we just be done with this, can't we move forward?"

It's "messy" because Mayes will have to address her office's error that sent the case back to square one, Coughlin said. The people who were charged, including Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, have shown they will not let the public forget that mistake.

Mayes' "far-left extremism is a loser in the courtroom and it's a loser with the voters of Arizona," Hoffman said in a statement. "This naked political persecution of Mayes' enemies is nothing more than a perversion of Arizona's justice system."

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers ruled in May 2025 that Mayes' deputies should have given the grand jury the full text of a law that several defendants argued could be a defense to the alleged crimes. Myers remanded the case to a new grand jury, but Mayes appealed. The case was in appellate limbo until June 4, when the Supreme Court decided it would not take the appeal.

Mayes said almost immediately she would pursue another indictment before a new grand jury. Court rules say she has 15 days to begin that process.

In a general election, Mayes will be able to point to that decision in contrast to Trump's continued focus on 2020 and as her opponents have said plainly they would end the prosecution, Coughlin said.

"It's a clear defining line for her to communicate, and I think probably electorally it's a winner for her," he said.