Ballot Math / Attorney General
Statewide race: Attorney General

Attorney General: the state's lawyer, and its loudest lawsuit

November 3, 2026 general election. Kris Mayes (D, incumbent) vs. Warren Petersen (R). No third-party candidate qualified.

What this office does: the Attorney General is Arizona's chief legal officer and top law enforcement official. The office represents the state in court, decides whether to defend state laws (or decline and let someone else do it), prosecutes major criminal cases including drug trafficking and Medicaid fraud, and enforces the Consumer Fraud Act against businesses accused of cheating Arizonans. The office's own description: the state's "top law enforcement official and consumer guardian."

The race at a glance

Mayes was unopposed in the Democratic primary. Petersen, the president of the Arizona Senate, won the Republican primary over Rodney Glassman, 56.4 percent to 43.6 percent, despite being outraised. Sabato's Crystal Ball rates the race Lean Democrat, and the October polls disagreed with each other: GrayHouse (October 18 to 20) had Mayes 50, Petersen 47; HighGround (October 6 to 8) had Mayes 51, Petersen 37. This is a rematch of institutions as much as people: for four years, Mayes has run the AG's office her way while Petersen built a Senate legal operation to defend the laws she would not.

Kris Mayes (Democrat, incumbent)

Born 1971 in Prescott; raised on a Prescott tree farm. Reporter for the Phoenix Gazette and The Arizona Republic, then press secretary and senior official for Gov. Janet Napolitano. JD from ASU. Appointed to the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2003, served 2003 to 2010, chaired it 2009 to 2010. ASU law professor before running for AG. She was a Republican until switching parties in 2019. Elected Attorney General in 2022 by 280 votes over Abraham Hamadeh after a recount, the closest statewide race in Arizona that year.

  • The federal lawsuits: as of September 17, 2026, the Arizona Republic counted 49 lawsuits by Mayes against the second Trump administration, including successful efforts to block the executive order redefining birthright citizenship and to thwart tariff policies. She says she would not change her approach. (The count rises through the term; her office's own page lists the cases individually.)
  • Consumer protection: sued RealPage and eight large landlords alleging collusion to inflate rents; joined the successful effort to block the Kroger-Albertsons merger; sued over a health care payment algorithm she alleges underpays doctors; on October 1, 2026, sued pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts and Optum under the Consumer Fraud Act, alleging two decades of practices that "substantially contributed to the opioid epidemic in Arizona." She also intervened against the APS and Tucson Electric rate increases covered on our Corporation Commission page.
  • Fentanyl, campaign-stated figures: her campaign says her office and law enforcement partners have seized 27 million fentanyl pills, "more than any other Attorney General," that her office prosecutes about 80 percent of the state's drug cases, and that she bought a $2 million drone-jamming unit shared with police statewide. These are her campaign's numbers, labeled as such because we could not independently verify them.
  • Laws she declined to defend: she declined to defend Arizona's Save Women's Sports Act; Petersen intervened to defend it in her place, which is the central fact of his candidacy. In March 2026, when the Corporation Commission voted to repeal the state's renewable energy rules, Mayes formally challenged the repeal; Petersen says he would let it stand.
  • Death penalty: in January 2023 her office moved to withdraw the pending execution warrant request for Aaron Gunches while Gov. Hobbs's review of execution protocols ran. The state Supreme Court issued a warrant anyway; Hobbs let it expire. (Gunches was executed in March 2025, after the review ended.)
  • Money: raised over $1.2 million in the second quarter of 2026 and ended June with $2.3 million on hand. By the most recent reports cited in October, she had spent about $5.4 million on the cycle to Petersen's $2.1 million.
  • Priorities, in her words: "keeping Arizonans safe, protecting families from drug smugglers and scams [and] holding powerful corporations accountable." Her campaign frames the office as "a lawyer for the People."
  • The Hobbs investigation: Mayes's office investigated Gov. Katie Hobbs, a fellow Democrat, for over two years after reporting showed a group-home contractor, Sunshine Residential Homes, received a state rate increase after donating heavily to Hobbs-aligned groups. In August 2026 she announced no charges, finding no evidence of the quid pro quo bribery requires, while disclosing the contractor gave at least $550,000 to Hobbs's political groups and the state party, including $150,000 to a Hobbs legal defense fund that had not been publicly known. Petersen and Senate Republicans attack the two-year timeline and the outcome, and have subpoenaed Hobbs and sought Mayes's files. Her spokesperson called the Senate probe "nothing more than performative political nonsense at the taxpayers' expense just weeks before the election."
  • The overreach charge: the Arizona Republic's race guide notes that "some of her novel legal arguments and forays into policy advocacy have irked the business community and Republican critics, who say she's overstepped her foremost duty to enforce Arizona law." Her reply: "I'm the attorney general for all Arizonans, and I'll keep fighting for Arizona families, not special interests."

Warren Petersen (Republican)

Born 1976; third-generation Gilbert resident. BA and JD from Arizona State University; admitted to the bar in 2020. Two decades in real estate and home construction; his family owns a brokerage and a homebuilding company. Arizona House 2013 to 2017 and 2019 to 2021 (House Majority Leader); Arizona Senate 2017 to 2019 and 2021 to present; President of the Arizona Senate since January 2023. Term-limited in the Senate. Married, five children.

  • The 2020 audit: as Senate Judiciary chair, Petersen co-issued the December 2020 and January 2021 subpoenas for Maricopa County's ballots and equipment that launched the Senate's election review, conducted by Cyber Ninjas, a firm with no prior election experience. The hand recount of nearly 2.1 million ballots concluded in September 2021 and confirmed Joe Biden's Maricopa County win, finding about 260 more votes for him than officially recorded. On December 11, 2020, Petersen also signed a resolution asking Congress to accept an alternate slate of electors for Donald Trump, or to nullify Arizona's electoral votes pending a "full forensic audit."
  • 2026: Petersen announced he received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for the Senate's 2020 audit records: "Late last week I received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records relating to the Arizona State Senate's 2020 audit of Maricopa County. The FBI has the records."
  • The "de facto AG" argument: Petersen says he built a "mini solicitor general's office" in the Senate that has been involved in more than 100 cases, stepping in to defend state laws Mayes declined to defend, most prominently the Save Women's Sports Act. His official Senate biography makes the same claim.
  • Legislative profile: a leading limited-government legislator who campaigns on delivering "tax cuts every year"; he has held the House majority leader, Senate Commerce, Judiciary, and Rules chair posts. His 2015 SB 1241 barred cities from requiring business energy reporting or regulating items like plastic bags, the state preemption law local governments still operate under.
  • Priorities, in his words: "fighting crime, defending the laws of the Constitution and rooting out fraud, waste and corruption." Specific pledges: double the AG's criminal investigators and prosecutors within the current budget; enroll Arizona in ICE's 287(g) immigration enforcement program; defend the state laws Mayes has declined to defend; let the renewable energy rules repeal stand. From the September debate: "I'm going to restore order and professionalism to the office."
  • Money: raised $275,416 in the second quarter of 2026 and spent over $1.2 million, including about $900,000 on television. Home builders are significant backers; he loaned his campaign $97,500 early. Total spending about $2.1 million per October reporting, against Mayes's $5.4 million.
  • The BoaVida donations: a PAC supporting Petersen, Restore Order Arizona, received $100,000 in January 2026 and $500,000 on May 11, 2026 from companies in the BoaVida group, a mobile-home operator Mayes's office sued in August 2025 under the Consumer Fraud Act over outages that left Tucson residents without air conditioning in triple-digit heat. The $500,000 arrived five days after Mayes asked a court to hold the owners in contempt for missing a repair deadline. BoaVida's founder, on the record: "We're not a fan of the AG's practices. It seems like she's looking for targets of publicity." The Mayes campaign built an ad on the timeline. We found no direct response from Petersen to the BoaVida timeline in the coverage reviewed, and we say so rather than substitute one.
  • The primary: the Arizona Republic reported Petersen "raised unproven and personal claims against Glassman that had swirled on social media." His campaign's framing was that Glassman, a former Democrat and repeat candidate, could not be trusted. Post-primary, he has been endorsed by former Gov. Doug Ducey and by Democratic state Rep. Lydia Hernandez.

Verification notes

  • Primary vote totals conflict between sources: the Secretary of State's figures (Petersen 333,955; Glassman 258,173) are higher than Ballotpedia's tally page, which appears to be an incomplete count. The winner and percentages agree everywhere. This page uses the Secretary of State figures.
  • Transparency USA's cumulative totals for this race lag the actual filings badly (its expenditure figures are below what each campaign spent in the second quarter alone), so this page does not use them. Quarterly figures come from July 2026 reporting of the Q2 filings and October updates; the exact toplines should be rechecked against See the Money.
  • Campaign finance complaints were filed against the Mayes campaign in September 2026 (alleging an illegal party donation and excess contributions, some of which her campaign refunded). They are unproven complaints reported by a conservative outlet, with no adjudication found, so they are noted here rather than in her record.
  • The BoaVida donation timeline is drawn from filed campaign finance reports as compiled by the Mayes campaign and allied sources; the donations and dates are matters of record, and the founder's explanation is quoted. Petersen's side of that specific timeline was not found in this research.

How to vote without getting your ballot rejected

  • Mail it by Tuesday, October 27, 2026. After that day, do not mail it: use a drop box or a vote center.
  • It must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Postmarks do not count.
  • Sign and date the affidavit envelope, and write a current phone number on it. If your signature is questioned, the county needs a way to reach you.
  • Leaving any item blank is allowed and does not affect the rest of your ballot, including this race.

Sources

Ballot Math: analysis only, no endorsements. Every candidate in this race got the same template: record, money, stated priorities, sources. Back to Ballot Math home.