Election Sweeps Many Democrats into Office

Katie Hobbs was elected to serve a second term as Arizona’s governor earlier this month. Hobbs, a Democrat, won by less than one percentage point in 2022. She was reelected by a wider margin this time, winning more than 55 percent of votes compared to Republican Andy Biggs’ nearly 43 percent.

Hobbs’ running mate, former Mesa Mayor John Giles, will be Arizona’s first-ever lieutenant governor. It’s a new position and replaces the Arizona secretary of state as a temporary SUCCESSOR if the governor is unable to serve.

Arizona’s election for superintendent of public instruction was another race that captured attention around the state. Democrat Teresa Leyba Ruiz won the race, becoming the first Latina to hold the state’s top education job. Ruiz is a longtime educator and former president of Glendale Community College who is a first-generation college student.

In federal elections, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate were up for election. Arizona holds nine of the 435 House seats.

Republicans previously held the majority of seats in the Senate and House of Representatives, but Democrats flipped a number of seats and will now have the majority in both chambers of Congress for the next two years. Some of the wins were particularly surprising. Voters in Texas elected a Democrat for governor for the first time since 1990, as well as a democratic senator. Democrats were also elected to the Senate in South Carolina and Kansas—where voters had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932!

Across the country, the preliminary data showed that about 63 percent of registered voters came out to make their voices heard. There are 196 million people registered to vote across the country, and about 124 million voted in this year’s midterm elections. Voting rates tend to be lower for midterm elections than they are for general elections, which are held every four years and include selecting a new president.