Ballot Math / Arizona Legislature / LD7
Candidate races: Arizona Legislature, District 7

LD7: a rural Republican district that does not touch Maricopa County

November 3, 2026 general election. District 7 covers parts of Coconino, Gila, Navajo, and Pinal counties, including Flagstaff, Payson, Show Low, Snowflake, and Globe, about 240,000 people. It includes no part of Maricopa County at all; it appears in this county expansion because its Senate incumbent is a statewide figure and because Pinal County voters share it with Maricopa commuters. Registration: 21 percent Democratic, 47 percent Republican, 31 percent other. The Independent Redistricting Commission rated the district outside of competitive range, with a key election vote spread of about Republican plus 21.4 points, and recent results match: Sen. Wendy Rogers won in 2024 with 65 percent. No forecaster publishes a rating for these specific races.

State Senate: Rogers vs. Montiel

The structural fact: this is a safely Republican seat on the registration and results numbers above. Both nominees won their July 21, 2026 primaries unopposed: Rogers with 30,032 Republican votes, Michiel "Mike" Montiel with 14,211 Democratic votes. The general election question is the margin, and whether Rogers's national profile helps or hurts her at home, not which party is favored.

Wendy Rogers (Republican, incumbent)

State senator since January 2021, representing the old 6th district and then LD7 after redistricting. Retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and one of the service's early female pilots, who flew tanker aircraft; she and her husband ran a Tempe home inspection business after retiring in the late 1990s. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress or the Legislature for about a decade, largely from Tempe, before winning in 2020 by beating a conservative incumbent in the primary. Born July 24, 1954; degrees from Michigan State, the University of Alabama, and California State University, San Bernardino.

Profile and record, as reported: azcentral describes her as a nationally known, far right politician and prolific fundraiser, an Oath Keeper, an election denier, and a promoter of QAnon themes, who has also faced accusations of antisemitism. Those are the Republic's characterizations, printed here as attributed reporting, not as this site's labels. Her legislative identity in office has matched that profile: election system changes, including proposals to eliminate mailed ballots for most voters, are the cause most reporting associates with her.

Money: as of her March 2026 campaign finance reports, raised $438,804, spent $238,865, $233,329 on hand. That is by far the largest war chest on this page, and reporting over several cycles has noted that most of her money comes from outside Arizona. That date is part of the fact: no later figure was retrieved.

Controversies, with responses:

  • 2022 censure: on March 1, 2022, the state Senate censured Rogers 24 to 3, with 11 Republicans joining Democrats, after she spoke by video to a conference organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and spoke of trying political criminals and using "a newly built set of gallows." The censure cited conduct unbecoming a senator, including messages encouraging violence and threats of "political destruction" against people who disagree with her. Rogers said she did not apologize and called the censure a violation of her free speech. A censure is a reprimand; it carried no penalty and did not limit her participation.
  • Residency questions: Rogers lists a Flagstaff mobile home as her residence on current campaign documents. The Arizona Republic reported in October 2026 that she and her husband also own other properties, including a home in Chandler and a Sedona timeshare, that she previously owned a Tempe home sold in 2023, and that reimbursements have at times gone to addresses outside the district. Her attorney, William Fischbach, told the Republic it does not matter that she might also have a home in Tempe, that nothing requires a legislator to live in the district year round, and that she is at her Flagstaff home "more than frequently." Rogers says the couple chose Flagstaff's Wildwood Hills for its rural lifestyle and that she can pilot her own aircraft into the district's short field runways.

Michiel "Mike" Montiel (Democrat)

Member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and a U.S. Army veteran. A community organizer who has worked on expanding rural access to healthy food and supporting regenerative agriculture, per azcentral. A first time candidate for the Legislature in the sources checked; he won the Democratic primary unopposed.
  • Stated priorities: the reporting retrieved for this page establishes his organizing work on rural food access and regenerative agriculture, and little else in his own words. No fuller platform, campaign finance total, or debate record was located as of October 27, 2026, and this page does not fill that gap with guesses.
  • Money: no campaign finance figures located in the sources checked. The contrast with Rogers's March 2026 totals above is itself the verified fact about the money in this race.
  • Controversies: none found.

State House: two seats, four candidates, one open seat

How this race works: vote for up to two. Incumbent Walt Blackman (R) seeks reelection. The second seat is open: Rep. David Marshall (R) resigned to accept an appointment as Navajo County Recorder, and former Rep. David Cook (R) won the second Republican nomination. Democrats fielded only one candidate, Samuel Martin, plus Green candidate Richard Grayson, who won his party's primary as a write-in. In the Republican primary, Blackman took 19,404 votes (35.03 percent) and Cook 14,972 (27.03 percent), ahead of Andrew Costanzo and Barby Ingle. With two Republicans and a Republican plus 21 point district, both Republicans are favored; Martin and Grayson compete to be the strongest challenger.

Walter "Walt" Blackman (Republican, incumbent)

State representative for LD7 in the current legislature; previously served in the House from the old northern Arizona district. In 2018 he became the first Black Republican elected to the Arizona House. U.S. Army veteran awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in combat during the Iraq War; lives in Snowflake with his wife, Kristie. He has chaired the House Government Committee for the past two years and previously chaired Judiciary; committee listings also show Public Safety and Law Enforcement, Commerce, Appropriations, and Rural Economic Development.

Record, as reported: azcentral credits him with a reputation for working across the aisle on veterans' services and criminal justice reform, and notes he opposed Sen. Rogers, the powerful senator in his own district, to help pass a 2025 law increasing the penalty for falsely claiming military service or combat, the so called stolen valor law. His stated food access position, given to a northern Arizona hunger voter guide, is a Rural and Tribal Healthy Food Access Initiative run through existing agencies, plus wider use of Double Up Food Bucks for SNAP households, rather than a new bureaucracy.

Money: no clean campaign finance total for his 2026 House race was located in the sources checked, so none is printed.

Controversies: azcentral's LD7 coverage links a fact check headlined as Blackman accused of bending the truth, and reporting on why the stolen valor fight matters to him personally. The underlying detail was not retrieved in full for this page, so it is noted as coverage, not summarized beyond its headline. No ethics or legal controversy was found.

David Cook Sr. (Republican)

Former state representative for this area, returning after two years out of office following an unsuccessful bid against Sen. Rogers for the Senate. He chaired the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in his last term; one of his priorities has been paying down the state's debt. He lives in Globe with his wife, Diana, where they run DC Cattle Company.
  • Term limits note, as azcentral frames it: state law bars more than four consecutive two year terms in the same chamber, which is part of the recent history of this seat; Cook's time out of the House is what makes a return run possible.
  • Money: no campaign finance totals located for this race in the sources checked.
  • Controversies, with responses: azcentral reports two episodes from his earlier service: a 2019 DUI arrest in the Valley, and an ethics investigation over his relationship with a lobbyist. Cook denied wrongdoing in the ethics case, and his fellow lawmakers dropped it. Both facts, and the dropped outcome, are part of his record as reported.

Samuel "Sam" Martin (Democrat)

Lives in Oracle, in Pinal County. He won the Democratic primary unopposed with 14,308 votes, and he is the only Democrat on the general election ballot for two seats.
  • Stated pitch, in his campaign's framing: he is running "to restore trust in government and bring prosperity to rural Arizona," under the slogan "Sam for Sanity," per azcentral.
  • Money and controversies: no campaign finance totals located, and no controversies found. His public record in the sources checked is thin, and this page says so rather than padding it.

Richard Grayson (Green)

Green Party candidate who won his party's primary as an official write-in, with 1 vote recorded in the primary results table, and is listed as a general election candidate in the 2026 Arizona General Election Guide.
  • His pitch is unusual and is reported in his own terms: azcentral reports he is asking for Democrats' support even while running under the Green label, describes himself as "Trump-hating," and calls his slate part of the "Hobbs, Fontes, Mayes, Mike Montiel, Sam Martin, et al. Democratic Team."
  • Money and controversies: no campaign finance totals located, and no controversies found.

Verification notes

  • Geography was checked against two sources: the district consists of sections of Coconino, Gila, Navajo, and Pinal counties, with no Maricopa County precincts. Any Maricopa ballot will not contain these races.
  • Key vote depth is this page's known shortfall. No individual roll call votes for Rogers, Blackman, or Cook are printed, because no name level source for a specific 2025 or 2026 vote was retrieved that this page could stand behind. Rogers's censure, the 2025 stolen valor law reporting, and Cook's ethics history are documented events, not reconstructed votes, and party line votes were deliberately not assumed.
  • Money is thin and dated where it exists. Only Rogers has a verified figure on this page (March 2026, via the Senate election finance tables compiled from Arizona reporting). No totals were located for Montiel, Blackman, Cook, Martin, or Grayson.
  • The second House seat being open rests on reporting that Rep. David Marshall resigned to become Navajo County Recorder, plus the primary and general candidate lists, in which Marshall does not appear. Marshall's own account of the move was not retrieved.
  • Descriptions of Rogers's politics are azcentral's characterizations and are attributed in the text. Her responses on residency come through her attorney's statements to the Republic.

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. No official write-in candidate in these two LD7 races was found in the sources checked; Richard Grayson appears on the ballot as the Green candidate after winning his primary as a write-in, so vote for him on the printed line.
  • 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.