Trump looms over Arizona attorney general showdown

Mayes, who squeaked out her win four years ago by just 280 votes, is hoping to hold the office for another four years in an environment that appears favorable for Democrats nationally.

Her campaign and allies have portrayed Petersen, a longtime state lawmaker, as too extreme to be the state's top cop, and a Trump ally — campaign pitches that helped her defeat her GOP foe four years ago. Petersen and his supporters contend Mayes has weaponized the office and failed in her duty to defend state laws. They point to his lengthy experience at the state Capitol as a factor that distinguishes him from Mayes' prior GOP opponent.

"This race is about results versus extremism," Mayes said. "I spent four years fighting for Arizona families while my opponent has spent his career fighting partisan battles.

"He would have let the federal government illegally claw back $1.5 billion from Arizona taxpayers, and called tariffs that cost Arizona families thousands of dollars a tool for positive changes," Mayes said, a reference to several of the 45 cases she filed against the Trump administration in his second term. "This is a tariff loving, Trump-adoring, election-denying Republican. I don't think that's good for Arizonans and we're going to beat him in November."

Petersen has said it is Mayes who is on the political fringes, for taking on farmers and opposing a state law he has backed that bans transgender girls from participating in school sports. The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a similar law, and Petersen said that is an "80-20 issue" on which Mayes is in the minority.

"The choice is whether we're going to turn into California or whether we're going to remain the wonderful state that we are," said Petersen, who has been Arizona's Senate president for four years. "Kris Mayes' top two priorities have been radical environmentalism and political lawfare and I want to restore order. My priorities have not changed. It's going to be fight crime, keep Arizona safe, defend the Constitution and laws, and root out fraud, waste and corruption."

As to the nearly four-dozen lawsuits Mayes has filed against Trump, Petersen said if he is elected he will review them. As of now, he said "the ones I've looked at, we would be dropping."

Petersen's record to face scrutiny

Petersen defeated Rodney Glassman, his GOP challenger in the July 21 primary election, by 13 percentage points as of votes counted and reported on July 23. Glassman and Petersen sparred over who was more qualified for the job, with Glassman attacking Petersen as a newbie lawyer with no courtroom experience and Petersen jabbing that Glassman was a perennial candidate who hadn't won office in multiple campaigns since he was a Democrat in 2007.

Away from the Capitol, Petersen is a real estate broker who received his law degree from Arizona State University in 2023. Mayes was a law professor at ASU before her 2022 election. She previously was an aide to Democratic former Gov. Janet Napolitano, who named her to the Arizona Corporation Commission. Mayes at the time was a Republican who won reelection to the commission regulating the state's utilities from 2003-10.

Petersen is generally considered to be part of the right flank of Republicans at the state Capitol, and has used his position in leadership to bring over 30 cases defending state laws that Mayes would not. He carries the endorsement of the state's most prominent police unions, backing he hopes to use against Mayes. He has blasted Mayes for her comments earlier this year invoking the state's self-defense law amid skyrocketing tensions over immigration enforcement.

Petersen may not carry the general election baggage of candidates who are more closely tied to Trump. While he touted a shoutout from Trump in his primary campaign, he did not get the president's formal endorsement. And conservative group Turning Point's political arm skipped an endorsement in his primary race, too.

He also has 14 years of experience at the state Capitol. He counts among his greatest accomplishments at the Legislature bills that have reduced regulations and helped business growth, a more traditional GOP talking point that predates Trump's MAGA-fication of Republican politics. He sponsored a measure to repeal a tax municipalities charge on rentals, which Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed into law in 2023.

Yet Mayes and Democrats' efforts to paint Petersen as loyal to Trump's election-denying are not grounded in fiction. Petersen led a Senate committee that issued subpoenas to begin the chamber's widely discredited audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, an exercise that cost over $5 million, according to a 2023 analysis by The Arizona Republic.

He was one of 30 lawmakers who signed a letter to then-Vice President Mike Pence in December 2020 asking Pence to delay certification of the election or give Arizona’s electoral votes to then-President Donald Trump. This year he revived the issue by publicizing his compliance with a federal subpoena turning over audit records to Trump's Department of Justice.

Petersen disputed Mayes' characterization that he was an election denier.

"This is her obsessed with 2020," he said. "And the fact that she's bringing something up from six years ago is making her the election denier."

He said his concerns have been driven by addressing concerns that elections have not been secure. "I've never said the election was stolen, but I've always said we need to get answers," he added.

Millions likely to flood the race

Mayes heads into November better funded than Petersen, with $2.3 million to spend at the end of June, according to the latest state reports. Petersen had about $520,000 at the time.

Both candidates are expected to receive financial help from national political groups that back Democrats or Republicans for attorney general offices across the nation. The groups have signaled early interest in Arizona's toss-up race.

“Warren Petersen has spent his career pushing extreme partisan politics and is a threat to the rights and fundamental freedoms of Arizonans," the Democratic Attorneys General Association's political director Lottie Ash said in a statement after his primary victory, foreshadowing the tone of attacks to come.

Mayes' 280-vote victory over Republican Abe Hamadeh four years ago was the smallest margin across the nation, and Petersen may be a stronger candidate than Hamadeh in part because of his experience at the Legislature.

"Kris Mayes is the most vulnerable Democrat attorney general incumbent, period, end of story," said Adam Piper, executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association. The political group spent about $3.4 million in Arizona in 2022, state records show.

Trump carried Arizona in 2024 by 5.5 percentage points.

"Here's Kris Mayes, who is staking her entire tenure as attorney general; she's really done nothing but thwart and oppose the Trump administration," Piper said. "But candidly, Trump outperformed everyone in Arizona two years ago. This is a pickup opportunity.

"Arizonans miss the days of having a Mark Brnovich ... who is going to work with law enforcement to keep people safe, who will work to protect Arizona consumers, who will ensure that the state is vibrant place for people to live work and raise a family," Piper said, naming Arizona's previous attorney general who left office in early 2023 and died early this year.

Mayes said her next term would continue to focus on antitrust cases, combating internet crimes against children, beefing up elder abuse and scams prosecutions, protecting groundwater and potentially using public nuisance laws against data centers.

"I think that my record as attorney general is so much broader than our fight against Donald Trump and the damage that he's done to the state of Arizona," Mayes said. But she added later: "I wouldn't do anything differently on those 45 lawsuits."