Primary pits Democratic seat mates against each other

Legislative District 21, the shape of which resembles a salamander, runs along the border with Mexico in Pima, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties and includes portions of Tucson and Nogales, Benson, Rio Rico, Sahuarita and Naco. It’s a strong Democratic district where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by almost 17 percentage points. 

Rep. Consuelo Hernandez is teaming up with Maritza Higuera rather than her own seatmate, Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton. 

Meanwhile, Stephanie Stahl Hamilton is seeking reelection and a fourth Democrat, Miranda Lopez, is also running for one of the district’s two House seats – though those two are not running as a team.  

All four have committed to a debate on Wednesday, May 27, at 6 p.m., which will be streamed live on the Citizens Clean Elections Commission YouTube channel and moderated by Tucson Agenda senior reporter Joe Ferguson. 

Hernandez fended off a legal challenge to her candidacy this spring when a constituent filed a lawsuit alleging she was ineligible to run due to unpaid fines for late campaign finance reports. And she’s the target of an anonymous campaign website against her and her sister, Rep. Alma Hernandez, who is seeking a Senate seat in the Tucson-based Legislative District 19. 

The website accuses the sisters of backing the priorities of Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for reshaping government. Financial backers of political advertising and electioneering are required to disclose themselves, but the website says it is sponsored “by an individual and not by any political committee.”

Hernandez’s political career began in 2018, when voters elected her to the Sunnyside Unified School District Governing Board, where she still serves. She lost a 2020 race against Adelita Grijalva for a spot on the Pima County Board of Supervisors. In 2022, she won a seat in the state House alongside her sister and following in the footsteps of her brother, former Democratic Rep. Daniel Hernandez. Grijalva went on to be elected to Congress last year. 

Hernandez is going for her third consecutive term in the House, where she has managed to get three bills passed during her tenure in the Republican-controlled chamber and signed into law. This year, she sponsored two bills related to mental health that have passed both chambers of the Legislature. 

Hernandez’s running mate, Higuera, is making her first run for political office. 

Higuera and her husband run an orchard and horse boarding business in Rio Rico, an unincorporated area about 60 miles south of Tucson, and she writes bilingual children’s books. 

“I was in school in Nogales, Mexico, so when I came to the United States, I didn’t know the language, I didn’t know English,” Higuera said in a KGUN9 news report in 2024 about her second book, “If I Eat My Fruits and Vegetables.” 

She said there’s a need for more bilingual children’s books in the border areas so children can start mastering English. 

She was on a shortlist last year to be appointed as the Santa Cruz County school superintendent, but was not ultimately chosen. 

She has also worked for Head Start as a teacher and health and nutrition coordinator, and for various nonprofits, according to her candidate bio on the Secretary of State’s Office website.

Education, public safety and creating opportunities for families are her legislative priorities. 

“As a firefighter’s wife, author, and mother — including a valedictorian daughter now serving in the Arizona National Guard — I live the values of service and sacrifice daily,” she wrote in the bio. 

Lopez, a self-described democratic socialist, has been politically involved since 2018 as an undergraduate at the University of Arizona. She’s worked behind the scenes to get out the vote for various campaigns, and she served for almost two years as the director of the Pima County Democratic Party. She also worked for the Arizona Students Association, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for college students at the Legislature. 

While getting her Master’s in Public Administration, Lopez became the treasurer of United Campus Workers, a union for university workers. 

In a March interview with Democrats of Greater Tucson, Lopez said her top issues include housing affordability, public education and environmental protection. 

“These are like the basic building blocks that make Arizona really great and could make it even better,” Lopez said. 

She said she wants to eliminate the empowerment scholarship account program, or school vouchers, and move that money toward teacher raises and school infrastructure. 

And she noted that her position on affordable housing comes from personal experience. She said she and her fiancé just bought their first home, but they had to drain their savings and now live paycheck to paycheck. 

She said it was worth it, though, because she has a home that will earn equity even though “it doesn’t feel that way right now.” 

“I know that there are a lot of folks that are my age that have not had that opportunity and may not have that opportunity for a very long time, if ever,” Lopez said. 

Lopez said that Tucson City Council hearings on Project Blue, a $3.6 billion data center proposal the council rejected last year, shaped her environmental protection platform. 

Stahl Hamilton first won election in 2020 to the House, switched to the Senate in 2021 to fill a vacant seat, and returned to the House the next year. 

Stahl Hamilton has gotten only one bill passed in the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed into law, but it was historic: a 2024 measure to repeal the state’s 160-year-old ban on abortion. 

A year before, she made lots of headlines, but not for making laws. 

Stahl Hamilton made the formal request for an Ethics Committee investigation that led to the expulsion of Republican Liz Harris for inviting false testimony at a committee hearing in which so-called election deniers accused the House speaker and others of rigging elections and other crimes. 

Less than a month later, three Republican lawmakers filed an ethics complaint against Stahl Hamilton, an ordained minister, for a prank in which she hid Bibles that she took from the members’ lounge. A hidden camera in the lounge caught her in action. 

The complaint alleged she engaged in disorderly behavior, committed theft and created a hostile work environment.  

She apologized on the House floor for her actions, and her attorneys argued that she engaged in “peaceful protest regarding the separation of church and state, and in response to the weaponizing of religion in politics.” House Republicans first attempted to expel her. When several Republicans dissented, they settled for a censure instead. 

The two winners of the primary will advance to the general election in November to face Republican Christopher Kibbey. 

Democratic Sen. Rosanna Gabaldon has no opponent in the primary, but she’ll face Republican Esteban Flores in the November election.