Arizona's 7th District: the rematch from the special election

Adelita Grijalva (Democrat, incumbent)

Key votes and record items (November 2025 to October 2026):

• First official act, November 12, 2025: immediately after being sworn in, she signed the Massie-Khanna discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, providing the 218th and deciding signature (AP). The Epstein Files Transparency Act then passed the House 427 to 1 on November 18, 2025, and was signed into law the next day. Her individual yea on passage was not confirmed directly from the Clerk's roll call in this pass (see Verification notes).
• Government funding (H.R. 5371): NO (November 12, 2025), on the package ending the 43-day shutdown, which passed 222 to 209. Her pre-vote statement said she was "disappointed that one of my first votes will be on a bill that does nothing to protect working people from skyrocketing premiums, loss of health coverage, or do anything significant to rein in Trump's abuse of power."
• First bill (December 3, 2025): H.R. 6391, the Save Oak Flat from Foreign Mining Act, which would repeal the 2014 law transferring 2,422 acres of Tonto National Forest including Oak Flat, a site sacred to the San Carlos Apache, to Resolution Copper. Her father first introduced the bill in 2015. Referred to committee, not enacted.
• Consensus YES votes: the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act (December 9, 2025, passed 399 to 5) and the Housing for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 6644, February 9, 2026, passed 390 to 9); she supports the housing package's restrictions on institutional investors buying single-family homes. These, not party breaks, are her clearest cross-party votes.
• DHS funding: NO, on a bill continuing Homeland Security funding without ICE reforms, after her two amendments (barring DHS databases of protesters and immigration enforcement observers, and requiring tribal consultation before enforcement on tribal lands) were not adopted. Her statement: "This DHS funding bill maintains the status quo and does nothing to rein in ICE, which is rotten to the core and must be completely dismantled." The press release text reviewed carried no date (see Verification notes).
• Co-sponsorships of note: the Medicare for All Act (H.R. 3069), of which she is a stated supporter; the American Dream and Promise Act of 2025 (H.R. 1589); the Block the Bombs Act, which would halt U.S. military aid to Israel, co-sponsored on taking office; and, as an original co-sponsor, the Reimagining Safety Act (introduced October 13, 2026), which would abolish ICE and Customs and Border Protection, dismantle DHS, and create a Department of Community Safety (below).

Stated priorities (campaign): protect immigrant communities, comprehensive reform with a pathway to legalization, DACA protections, end mandatory and family detention, phase out private detention, ICE oversight (she cites five oversight visits to ICE facilities in Arizona and Texas); lower gas, grocery, housing, utility, and health costs; oppose tariffs she calls harmful; expand the earned income and child tax credits; the Raise the Wage Act ($17 minimum wage, indexed) and the PRO Act; protect and expand the ACA and premium assistance, restore Medicaid funding, lower prescription drug costs, reproductive freedom; protect Arizona water and Tribal water rights, oppose Colorado River plans placing "the vast majority of long-term water cuts on Arizona," clean energy investment, and modernizing the 1872 Mining Law with royalties and Tribal consultation; oppose dismantling the Department of Education, competitive teacher pay and a national minimum starting teacher salary; expand housing supply and restrict large institutional investors; protect VA care and immigrant veterans. Her campaign site also self-reports 11 bills introduced, 422 co-sponsorships, and over $15 million in community project funding; those figures are campaign claims, not independently audited.

Money (FEC, as of October 14, 2026): raised $2,559,577, spent $2,122,030, with $437,547 on hand. Through September 30, 2026 the figures were $2,509,134 raised and $469,388 on hand. One caution: these are two-year cycle totals for a committee that also funded her 2025 special election campaign, not spending on the 2026 race alone.

Attacks and her answers: the biggest fight of her tenure so far was getting seated. Democrats argued Speaker Mike Johnson delayed her swearing-in for 50 days to prevent her becoming the 218th Epstein petition signature; Attorney General Kris Mayes sued, saying Johnson was "actively stripping the people of Arizona of one of their seats in Congress" and subjecting the district to "taxation without representation." Johnson denied any Epstein motive, said he would swear her in when the House returned to session, and cited what he called the "Pelosi precedent" (Rep. Julia Letlow waited 25 days in 2021). Grijalva answered with a November 6, 2025 USA Today op-ed and floor remarks that it was time "to restore a full and check and balance to this administration." Second: on December 5, 2025, she said that during an ICE operation outside a Tucson restaurant she "was sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent, pushed around by others" while presenting herself as a member of Congress seeking information. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin denied it flatly: "If her claims were true, this would be a medical marvel. But they're not true. She wasn't pepper sprayed. She was in the vicinity of someone who was pepper sprayed as they were obstructing and assaulting law enforcement," adding that two officers were seriously injured. Video of the encounter was posted by Grijalva herself; the two accounts remain in direct conflict. Third: in the August 2025 special election debate she accused the Israeli government of committing genocide in Gaza and co-sponsored the Block the Bombs Act on taking office, a live fault line from her primary, where a rival was backed by pro-Israel donors. Fourth: her original co-sponsorship of the October 2026 Reimagining Safety Act drew sharp Republican criticism, for example Sen. Jim Banks: "What about the INNOCENT AMERICANS killed by criminal illegal aliens? … Democrats will fight for everyone except the American people." Her stated rationale is the DHS statement quoted above. Finally, the "dynasty" attack from 2025: primary rival Deja Foxx ran on generational change, and Butierez runs as the change candidate ("If you vote we win, if you don't only the radicals will have representation"). Grijalva's answer to AP: "In more than two decades of public service to Arizona, I have a record of my own," and, of succeeding her father, "I would rather have my dad than have an office."

Daniel Francis Butierez Sr. (Republican)

The record: with no office held, his record is three consecutive nominations and the positions he has taken in them. In 2025 Republican primary debates, all three GOP candidates centered border security and support for President Trump's immigration enforcement. Two positions that cut against a simple party line, from AP debate coverage in 2025 as summarized by a secondary outlet: he objected to immigration enforcement around schools and churches, and he shared Democrats' concerns about losing health care funding under the Republican tax and spending bill, even while supporting that bill. That is reported, secondhand, not verbatim (see Verification notes).

Stated priorities: border and immigration: "fight to keep our border secure, slash taxes where appropriate, and crush the fentanyl crisis destroying Arizona families" (his 2025 vow, per Fox News); Vote Smart records his site language: "Secure the Southern Border and fight to give U.S. Border Patrol the resources they need to do their job." A bilingual voter guide summarizing the 2025 race reports he supported ICE raids and detaining and deporting migrants who entered without authorization in the prior four years, and opposed comprehensive immigration reform with pathways to citizenship. Taxes and economy, per The Center Square's July 2026 summary of his campaign website: replace federal income taxes with a national sales tax of between 15 and 20 percent; tax credits and trade reforms to bring back U.S. manufacturing; expand career and technical education. Homelessness, same source: expand federal support for "mandatory rehabilitation programs tied to shelter access." Guns: opposes gun control generally; his 2024 site called the Second Amendment "a right given by God." Education: supports school choice, opposed a federal role in education, and argued parents were leaving public schools over "indoctrination," per the 2025 guide. His live 2026 campaign website was not directly retrieved in this research; see Verification notes.

Money (FEC, as of October 14, 2026): raised $233,882, spent $223,188, with $11,287 on hand. Through September 30, 2026: $232,232 raised and $12,399 on hand. In his 2024 cycle he raised $78,607 total. The fundraising gap is roughly eleven to one in Grijalva's favor, and like hers, his cycle totals span both the 2025 special election and the 2026 race.

Attacks and his answers: the oldest item is the 1992 conviction, later voided. Butierez served prison time after a 1992 marijuana conviction. A court ruling quoted in 2024 Arizona Star News Network coverage found "clear and convincing evidence establishing that the defendant was convicted of an offense that the defendant did not commit" and declared "Defendant's September 15, 1992 conviction is VOID," citing that the state could not prove possession of eight pounds of marijuana and that no verdict form for the offense was submitted to the jury. The underlying court document was not independently retrieved in this research (see Verification notes). His framing: the wrongful conviction and his fight to overturn it fueled his commitment to protecting citizens' constitutional rights, and he ties it to his advocacy on addiction and homelessness. The other attack is structural: he is on his third straight run at a seat Democrats, and for two decades the Grijalva family, have held (36.6 percent in 2024, 29.4 percent in the special). His response is the change candidate argument quoted in her section, plus his post-special-election comment to AP that he was "puzzled by the results" given bipartisan turnout at his watch party but "not bothered because he didn't aspire to be a politician." No specific sourced attack by the Grijalva campaign on his national sales tax proposal, and no response from him on that point, was found; none is invented here.

What the forecasters say

Unanimous at the safest tier: Cook Political Report Solid D, Inside Elections Solid D, Sabato's Crystal Ball Safe D, Decision Desk HQ Safe D, The Economist Safe D, Silver Bulletin Solid D. No verified public poll of the 2026 general election was found. The structural story is the 2025 special election itself: Grijalva's 39.5-point margin in it was a significant overperformance even against Harris's roughly 22-point 2024 margin in the district, and the 2026 race is the same pairing, with the same roughly eleven-to-one money gap, in a full-turnout year.