Ballot Math / U.S. House / AZ-04
Candidate race: U.S. House of Representatives

Arizona's 4th District: a moderate incumbent, a reformer, and a third name on the ballot

November 3, 2026 general election. The district covers Tempe, Ahwatukee, and parts of Phoenix, Mesa, and Chandler, entirely inside Maricopa County. Three printed candidates: Greg Stanton (D, incumbent), Zuhdi Jasser (R), and Tisha Benoit (No Labels), plus one official No Labels write-in (Steven Sanders). Registration is nearly even (about 33 percent Republican, 31 percent Democratic, 37 percent other), but the district leans Democratic: Cook rates it D+4 and every major forecaster calls the race Solid or Safe Democratic.

How they got here: Stanton survived a primary challenge from his left, beating progressive organizer Kai Newkirk 62.3 to 37.7 percent after Newkirk attacked him as a "corporate Democrat" over his immigration votes and support for Israel. Jasser was effectively unopposed in the Republican primary after his main rival was disqualified. Benoit won the No Labels primary over a former Republican state representative, 981 votes to 519. All three met in a televised Clean Elections debate on October 5, 2026.

Greg Stanton (Democrat, incumbent)

Born 1970 on Long Island, raised in Phoenix (Cortez High School). Attorney (Marquette, Michigan Law). Phoenix City Council 2000 to 2009; Arizona Deputy Attorney General 2009 to 2011; Mayor of Phoenix 2012 to 2018, resigning to run for Congress; U.S. House since January 2019 (the 9th District, then the 4th after redistricting). He won his 2024 race with 52.7 percent. Committees: Transportation and Infrastructure, Foreign Affairs, and the Select Committee on Strategic Competition with China; he leads the centrist New Democrat Coalition's immigration task force. Signature issues: Arizona water, infrastructure, and semiconductor investment.

Key votes and record items:

  • Laken Riley Act: YES (January 2025). A break with most House Democrats; he was the only Arizona Democrat to back initial passage, and his primary challenger made it a centerpiece attack.
  • One Big Beautiful Bill (the 2025 Republican reconciliation bill): NO. SAVE Act: NO. SAVE America Act: NO (February 2026).
  • Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act: YES (January 2025), another immigration-enforcement vote with Republicans against most of his party.
  • Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: YES (2021), touting provisions he championed for Arizona water infrastructure. His earlier Environmental Infrastructure Assistance Act created a $150 million Arizona water program in the 2020 water resources law.
  • Semiconductors: voted for the House-passed America COMPETES Act carrying $52 billion for domestic chip manufacturing, and his campaign credits him with helping pass the final CHIPS and Science Act and delivering funds for Chandler's water interconnect facility tied to Intel's expansion.
  • Resolution denouncing "the horrors of socialism": YES (2025), a fact that mattered in the October debate (below). Also YES on the ROAD to Housing Act, aimed at large institutional investors in housing, and YES on the Women's Health Protection Act, the For the People Act, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, per vote summaries.
  • Colorado River (October 2026): backed Arizona joining Nevada's lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's river management plan, saying the state is right to challenge "extreme, disproportionate cuts to our share of Colorado River water."
  • Not a vote: on July 11, 2024, he publicly called on President Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, one of the earlier House Democrats to do so.

Stated priorities: root out corruption in government; protect healthcare access and keep AI out of health insurance decisions; secure Arizona's water supply; lower family costs, including ending federal tax breaks for data centers; and opposition to the Trump administration's tariffs, a central theme of his debate performance.

Money (FEC, as of September 30, 2026): raised $2,603,086, spent $1,709,122, with $1,909,695 on hand, about 78 percent of all money raised in this race. Roughly 31 percent of his fundraising came from PACs and political committees, and his cash balance partly reflects carryover from prior cycles. No significant self-funding.

Attacks and his answers: in the October 5 debate, Jasser charged that Stanton "couldn't get himself to vote against socialism," clarifying later that he meant a September 2026 package vote; Stanton had in fact voted for the 2025 stand-alone resolution denouncing socialism, a fact check that blunted the line. Jasser also called him "a propagandist who pretends to be all about moderation." Stanton replied that Jasser wants to be "another Trump sycophant in Congress" and noted, accurately, that "the number one argument of my (primary) opponent was that I'm too moderate." Republican opposition research (a partisan site called "Where Is Stanton?"; treat as an attack source, not a neutral record) catalogs mayoral-era items: his reversal of a 2011 pledge to repeal Phoenix's food tax (reversed in 2013, citing projections of nearly 99 police layoffs; the reversal itself is documented in Republic reporting), police staffing lows in 2015, and a July 2020 remote committee vote cast from a boat in Utah, for which he apologized ("I messed up and I'm sorry for it"). A 2011 episode involved nearly $70,000 in contributions linked to a former campaign treasurer who was prosecuted for embezzlement; Stanton had fired her in 2010 and opposed the prosecution.

Zuhdi Jasser (Republican)

Born 1967 in Ohio to Syrian immigrant parents; raised in Wisconsin. Physician in Phoenix since 1999 (internal medicine and nuclear cardiology, his own practice), after 11 years as a U.S. Navy officer, including service as a staff internist to the attending physician of Congress and the Supreme Court. Founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which advocates separating mosque and state; appointed a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2012; author of "A Battle for the Soul of Islam." Lives in Scottsdale. He ran for this seat in 2024 and lost the Republican primary to Kelly Cooper (27 percent in a four-way race); Cooper then lost to Stanton. Endorsed in 2026 by Turning Point Action.

The record: Jasser has never held elected office, so his record is his public life: two decades as one of the country's most visible Muslim reform advocates, a frequent congressional witness on radicalization since testifying at the 2011 House Homeland Security hearings, and a figure praised by figures like former CIA Director James Woolsey and criticized for just as long by mainstream Muslim organizations that dispute how representative his views are. Both reactions are part of the record; voters can weigh which constituency a congressman from this district would answer to.

Stated priorities (his campaign's "My Plan"): lower costs by reining in spending and regulation and bringing manufacturing home; curb institutional and foreign investors' role in housing prices; a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution; strong borders and national security; education funding directed to families with empowered parents; and healthcare price transparency, with criticism of the Affordable Care Act.

Money (FEC, as of September 30, 2026): raised $732,912, spent $616,791, with $116,121 on hand, roughly one sixteenth of Stanton's bank balance.

Attacks and his answers: the residency question followed him from 2024 (he lives in Scottsdale, outside the district; members of Congress need only live in the state). His answer: "Representation is about who you serve, not just where you live. For 25 years, I've practiced primary care medicine in Phoenix with over a third of my patients coming from this district." In the 2024 primary, conservative outlets highlighted his past criticism of Donald Trump; he responded that many conservatives, including J.D. Vance, criticized Trump in 2016, that his record supports Trump and his policies, and that he was the first candidate in that race to endorse him. At the October debate he blamed inflation on pandemic-era money creation "under Trump and Biden" ("Any Econ 101 student knows that if you print trillions of dollars, a few years later you're going to have growing inflation"), a line that cuts at both parties and complicates the sycophant charge Stanton answered with.

Tisha Benoit (No Labels)

Arizona native, raised in the district (Marcos de Niza High School, Tempe). Doctorate in acupuncture and Chinese medicine; owns a healthcare practice focused on women's health. No prior elected office. (One county voter guide notes the party label is in transition, "No Labels (now Arizona Independent)"; the official ballot designation remains No Labels.)

Stated priorities (her campaign site): cost of living and small business deregulation with workforce training; a balanced federal budget as her central issue, via a ten-year plan putting both spending cuts and additional revenue on the table; preventive healthcare and price transparency, praising expanded Medicare coverage of acupuncture; more housing supply; water conservation and "water innovation" (recycling, aquifer recharge, desalination research), with large developments required to demonstrate their water source; and a ban on stock trading by members of Congress. Her campaign slogan frames a health angle: "Make Arizona Healthy Again."

Money: she has no campaign finance reports on file with the FEC, which federal law does not require until a candidate raises or spends over $5,000. She is running a sub-$5,000 campaign, in reported terms, against a $2.6 million incumbent.

The spoiler question, handled honestly: Benoit told reporters she voted for Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024 but soured on the GOP over prices, describes herself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, and said at the debate that she agreed with ideas from both opponents and is "disillusioned with both major political parties." A twice-Trump voter running between a Democratic incumbent and a Republican, in a D+4 district, is the profile that draws spoiler talk, and her debate treatment by azcentral was as a full participant, not a fringe candidate. No organized attack campaign against her was found in major coverage.

What the forecasters say

Unanimous: Cook Political Report (Solid D, PVI D+4), Inside Elections (Solid D), Sabato's Crystal Ball (Safe D), Decision Desk HQ (Safe D). The 2024 presidential vote inside the district went 52.6 percent Harris to 46.0 percent Trump even as Trump carried Arizona, and Stanton's 2024 margin was 7.3 points. The structural story: an incumbent whose brand is moderation, in a district that has punished neither his party breaks nor his party loyalty, against a Republican with a national profile and a sixteenth of his money, and a third candidate whose voters have to come from somewhere.

Verification notes

  • Primary and 2024 figures are compiled from official returns as reported by Wikipedia and the Maricopa County official summary; the Secretary of State's certified canvass is the final word.
  • Stanton's earlier service on the House Judiciary Committee is widely reported but was not re-verified from a House source in this pass, so the committee list above reflects his current assignments only. His campaign's characterization of his CHIPS role is labeled as the campaign's where it appears.
  • One circulating claim about Stanton's vote on the 2025 bill restricting girls' sports (H.R. 28) rests on a partisan opposition site rather than the Clerk's roll call in our sources, so it is not in his vote list. Likewise, specific claims about his 2026 votes on ICE and Border Patrol funding were not captured from a citable source and are not printed.
  • Whether Jasser self-funded any part of his 2026 campaign is not broken out in the FEC summaries reviewed. No endorsement of Jasser by President Trump was found for 2026; the verified organizational endorsement is Turning Point Action.
  • Benoit's age is not reliably reported and is omitted. Her sub-$5,000 status is an inference from the absence of FEC reports, stated as such above.

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.

Sources

Ballot Math: analysis only, no endorsements. Every candidate in this race got the same template: offices and record, money with dates, stated priorities, and controversies with responses. Back to Ballot Math home.