Ballot Math / Arizona Legislature / LD24
Candidate races: Arizona Legislature, District 24

LD24: the safe seat district that fired its own incumbent in the primary

November 3, 2026 general election. District 24 is entirely in Maricopa County, covering parts of west and central Phoenix, including Maryvale and the Encanto area, plus a southern edge of Glendale, about 235,000 people. Registration: about 38 percent Democratic, 21 percent Republican, 40 percent other. The district was drawn as a majority Latino constituency, with 65 percent of residents Hispanic or Latino. The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission rated it outside the competitive range and leaning Democratic, and recent results match: the district voted Democratic by about 20.5 points in the 2024 presidential race, and its Democratic senator ran unopposed that year. The Arizona Republic's guide gives a key election vote spread of Democratic plus 33.54 for this district. The action in LD24 in 2026 was not Democrat versus Republican. It was Democrat versus Democrat, in July.

State Senate: Ortiz vs. Steele

The shape of the race: Sen. Analise Ortiz (D) won this seat unopposed in 2024. This time she has a Republican opponent, Frank Steele, the chair of the district Republican Party, who won his primary unopposed with 4,066 votes and reported raising zero dollars as of March 2026. Ortiz won her primary unopposed with 9,938 votes. One caution against writing Steele in as a footnote and moving on: a Green primary write-in, Gerard Davis, filed for this seat and then did not advance, because, per Ballotpedia, he received no write-in votes in the primary and so did not win a plurality of his party's votes as Arizona law requires. The printed general election ballot is Ortiz and Steele. Given the district's 20 point presidential margin, Ortiz is the overwhelming favorite; the honest description is a contested ballot with a heavily favored incumbent, not an uncontested race.

Analise Ortiz (Democrat, incumbent)

LD24 state senator since January 2025, after two years in the state House for the same district. Born and raised in Arizona, a Maryvale resident, one of six children of two educators. Graduated summa cum laude from ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and worked as an investigative reporter (KTNV in Las Vegas and KGBT in the Rio Grande Valley, per BallotReady), then as a communications strategist for the ACLU and the ACLU of Arizona, working on criminal justice and immigration reform. In the House she was ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. In the Senate she is ranking member of the Judiciary and Elections Committee, per BallotReady. Named Best Political Rising Star by the Arizona Capitol Times and Legislator of the Year by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, per her Arizona List profile.

Record and key items (name-level where noted):

  • HB 2677 (2024), repeal of the 1864 near-total abortion ban: she was one of its 25 House sponsors. The bill passed and was signed. Ortiz herself lists "a key role in repealing the 1864 abortion ban" among her accomplishments. Sponsorship is name-level sourcing; her individual floor vote is not separately printed, for the reason given in the verification box.
  • Housing is her signature legislative claim, in her own account: she says she negotiated historic levels of investment in affordable housing and homeless services as a representative, helped legalize casitas (accessory dwelling units), helped establish a new homeless services fund, and helped double investment in the state housing trust fund. Those are her campaign's characterizations of budget negotiations she took part in, printed here as attributed claims, not as independently audited figures.
  • Constituent episode she cites: when a corporation threatened to evict senior citizens from a Maryvale housing complex, she says she got involved and the corporation committed to helping residents find new housing and paying moving costs.
  • Stated priorities: affordable housing; public schools, including a new K-12 funding formula, higher teacher and support staff pay, smaller classes, a cap on the universal voucher program, and restored community college funding; voting rights and a fairer criminal legal system; reproductive rights; LGBTQ+ rights; immigrant protections; access to affordable health care.

Money: no campaign finance total for Ortiz was located in the sources retrieved, including the March 2026 See the Money tables published with the 2026 Senate election summary, which list no fundraising table for District 24's Democratic nominee. Noted as a gap. One money fact about her political operation is documented: the No Safe Seats effort she helped launch raised nearly $4,000 in total from its June 2026 launch, per the Arizona Republic, a small share of the endorsed candidates' overall fundraising.

Controversies, two, both with her responses:

  • The ICE alerts and the ethics complaint (2025). On August 5, 2025, Ortiz posted alerts that ICE agents were in the area near Southwest Elementary School in south Phoenix, warning her community to stay away. Senate President Warren Petersen referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney for Arizona. On September 3, 2025, Sen. Jake Hoffman filed a formal Senate ethics complaint, supported by Petersen and other Republican leaders, calling for expulsion or significant discipline and arguing she "actively tipped off individuals being pursued by ICE, jeopardizing the safety of officers and law-abiding citizens." Ethics Chair Sen. Shawnna Bolick forwarded the federal law parts to the U.S. Attorney and said her committee would take up the complaint once it set operating rules; it had not met that year. Ortiz's response: she defended the alerts as free speech and a public service and vowed to continue them, posting, in part: "When ICE is around, I will alert my community to stay out of the area." Attorney General Kris Mayes defended her, accusing Petersen of trying to intimidate a lawmaker for exercising First Amendment rights. No outcome of the ethics complaint or of any federal review was located as of October 27, 2026, and this page does not claim one either way.
  • No Safe Seats, the intraparty fight she helped start (2026). Ortiz helped organize the No Safe Seats fundraising effort to oust fellow Democrats she argued had drifted right and voted too often with Republicans. In her own district it worked: its two endorsed House candidates beat incumbent Rep. Lydia Hernandez in the primary (see the House race box). Ortiz's stated rationale: "We need to be sure that there are elected leaders who are pushing for progressive values and that it's not just going to be business as usual at the state Capitol," and, on the money problem for first-time candidates, "for too long, corporate interests have played a role in our Democratic primaries." Critics inside her party, including the lawmakers targeted, describe the same effort as a purge of representatives who reflected their districts; Hernandez's own defense is in the House box below. Voters should read this as what it is: an incumbent senator using her platform to reshape her own party's delegation, openly and on the record.

Frank Steele (Republican)

Chair of the Legislative District 24 Republican Party, per the 2026 Senate election summary and Ballotpedia. He won the Republican primary unopposed with 4,066 votes (Ballotpedia's Frank Steele page gives a total of 4,064 in one table, a two vote discrepancy preserved in the verification box).
  • Money, with its date: as of his March 2026 campaign finance reports, raised $0.00, spent $0.00, $0.00 on hand (See the Money, via the 2026 Senate election summary). A district party chair running against an incumbent senator with no reported money as of March is the central fact of his candidacy.
  • Stated priorities: none located. No campaign website, issue platform, or candidate survey response for Steele was found in the sources retrieved, and the Arizona Republic's legislature guide, which profiles candidates in every district, does not include an entry for him in its District 24 section. This entry is short because the public record is thin, and inventing a platform for him would be worse than admitting it.
  • Controversies: none found.

State House: two open seats, three candidates, one Republican

How this race works: vote for up to two. Both seats are open. Rep. Anna Abeytia (D) is retiring. Rep. Lydia Hernandez (D) lost renomination in the July 21 Democratic primary, finishing third with 2,666 votes, behind Alberto Flores (7,468) and Lisbeth Arescurenaga (6,930). Context a voter needs: in June 2026 the Democratic Party of Legislative District 24 formally censured Hernandez, for voting with Republicans more than 170 times and, per her Wikipedia summary of the censure, for provoking a security disruption at Maryvale High School when she entered with an unidentified woman who brought a box cutter. Hernandez defended her record as a "direct reflection" of the community she represents and accused local leaders of timing the censure to help her opponents. After losing the primary, she endorsed Republican Warren Petersen for attorney general and appeared in a Spanish language ad for his campaign. None of that is on your ballot, but all of it explains why the two Democrats who are on it ran. With only one Republican, Dolores McLaughlin, in the race, she takes a seat with a top two finish; the two Democrats must both finish ahead of her to take both seats.

Alberto Flores (Democrat)

First-time candidate who led the Democratic primary field with 7,468 votes, about 40 percent. The eldest son of a Phoenix auto repair shop owner, per the Arizona Republic; a Phoenix Metro DSA profile adds that he is the son of a working class, mixed status immigrant family, was born in the district, helped keep the family business going as a teenager, and earned a political science degree at ASU before working with organizations pushing legislation for communities he says the Legislature usually writes off.
  • Stated priorities: protecting working families and addressing the cost of living, with affordability first: housing costs, household budgets, and, per the DSA profile, a school voucher program he argues keeps growing while public school students in his district get shorted. Endorsed by the Working Families Party, Save Our Schools, and U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, per the Arizona Republic, and by Phoenix Metro DSA.
  • The primary as his record: he ran as one of the two No Safe Seats endorsed candidates against a sitting incumbent who had been censured by her own district party, and won the field outright. The Phoenix Metro DSA guide notes he did it while being outspent roughly three to one by Hernandez (the guide gives $3,589 for Flores and $10,475 for Hernandez, without a report date this page could verify, so treat those as the guide's figures for the primary, not as filed totals).
  • Money: apart from the attributed guide figure above, no filed campaign finance total located. Controversies: none found.

Lisbeth Arescurenaga (Democrat)

First-time candidate. Born in Peru and moved to the United States at age 15. Background as a social worker and mental health professional, and as a community organizer working on civic engagement and education, per the Arizona Republic. She took the second Democratic nomination with 6,930 primary votes.
  • Stated priorities: expansion of mental health resources, increased affordable housing, and stronger public education. Endorsed by the Working Families Party, Save Our Schools, and U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, per the Arizona Republic; also endorsed by Phoenix Metro DSA, whose guide says she "has spent her career doing the work the legislature refuses to fund."
  • Her own words on the primary win, via the Arizona Republic's primary account: "Yesterday we celebrated, today we rest and tomorrow we get to work!"
  • Money: no campaign finance total located. Controversies: none found.

Dolores McLaughlin (Republican)

Former community college professor. Running as a Clean Elections candidate, meaning she receives public campaign funding after agreeing to forgo private donations, per the Arizona Republic. She won the Republican primary unopposed with 3,987 votes. Name form: the Arizona Republic spells her Dolores McLaughlin; the 2026 House election summary and other listings spell her first name Delores. This page uses the Republic's spelling and flags the conflict below.
  • Stated priorities, per the Arizona Republic: she says she is running to support older adults and lower taxes for residents. No more detailed platform was located in the sources retrieved.
  • Scorecard, attributed: the NRA Political Victory Fund listed her with a ? grade in 2026, meaning it published no grade for her.
  • Money: Clean Elections status is the money story; no private fundraising total is printed, and no cycle total was located.
  • Controversies: none found.

Verification notes

  • Key vote depth is this page's known shortfall, as on the LD12 page. Ortiz's HB 2677 sponsorship is name-level sourcing from the bill's sponsor list. Her individual floor vote on that bill, and every other individual vote for every candidate on this page, was not retrieved to a name-level standard, so none is printed beyond sponsorship and the public acts described in her entry.
  • No outcome for the September 2025 Senate ethics complaint against Ortiz, or for Senate President Petersen's referral to the U.S. Attorney, was located as of October 27, 2026. The complaint, the referral, her defense, and the Attorney General's defense of her are all documented; the disposition is not, and this page does not guess at it.
  • Hernandez is not a candidate on this ballot. Her censure, her defense of her record, and her post primary endorsement are included only as context for why the House field looks the way it does, and the censure's box cutter detail is attributed to her reference summary of the censure rather than to a primary document this page retrieved.
  • Money is thin and dated where it exists. Steele's zero figures are as of March 2026 reports. No filed totals were located for Ortiz, Flores, or Arescurenaga. The Flores and Hernandez dollar figures in the Flores entry come from an advocacy group's voter guide, are labeled as such there, and carry no report date this page could verify.
  • Small conflicts preserved rather than resolved: Steele's Republican primary total (4,066 in the election summary, 4,064 on his Ballotpedia page), and McLaughlin's first name (Dolores in the Arizona Republic, Delores in the election summary and candidate listings).
  • Ortiz's housing accomplishments are printed as her campaign's attributed claims. Budget outcomes have many authors, and this page did not independently audit the housing trust fund or homeless services figures she cites.

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 instead.
  • It must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. Postmarks do not count.
  • Sign and date the affidavit envelope, and write a current phone number on it.
  • For write-ins: only votes for officially filed write-in candidates are counted. The Secretary of State's general election write-in list, revised September 9, 2026, names no official write-in in either District 24 legislative race.
  • Leaving any item blank is allowed. It does not affect the rest of your ballot.

Sources

Ballot Math: analysis only, no endorsements. Same template as every race on this site: offices and record, key votes, money with dates, stated priorities, controversies with responses, and gaps admitted in the open.