Ballot Math / Arizona Legislature / LD9
Candidate races: Arizona Legislature, District 9

LD9: west Mesa is a real swing district, and both parties know it

November 3, 2026 general election. District 9 covers most of west Mesa, from about Loop 101 to Val Vista Drive, plus a very small portion of northeast Tempe, all within Maricopa County. Registration: 29 percent Democratic, 32 percent Republican, 38 percent other, a Republican registration edge in a district Democrats have held. The Independent Redistricting Commission rated the district highly competitive, with a key election vote spread of about Democratic plus 2.6 points, and recent results match: the Democratic Senate candidate won in 2024 by 51.7 to 48.3 percent. National forecasters do not rate these specific races, but the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee named LD9 one of five Arizona Senate seats it is targeting to hold or flip this cycle.

State Senate: Sears vs. Fitzgibbons

The structural fact: neither nominee had a primary opponent. Sen. Kiana Sears took 12,161 Democratic primary votes and Bridget Fitzgibbons took 10,538 Republican primary votes, each at 100 percent. Sears holds this seat by appointment, not by a prior election in it, and this is her first general election test in the district in a seat her predecessor won twice by about 3.5 points. On paper this is the most competitive Senate race on the three pages in this set.

Kiana Sears (Democrat, incumbent by appointment)

State senator since March 2025, appointed unanimously by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on March 26, 2025 to fill the seat vacated when Sen. Eva Burch resigned on March 14, 2025. Sears beat former Mesa Councilman Ryan Winkle and EVIT board member Dr. Laura Metcalfe for the appointment; by law the appointee had to be a Democrat, as Burch was. Mesa resident for more than two decades; married to Ernest Sears. Background, per the county and azcentral: nearly 30 years in public policy, government relations, and civic engagement; Mesa Public Schools governing board member for eight years, ending January 1, 2025; seven years as a regulatory consultant for the Arizona Corporation Commission; earlier work for nonprofits including Valley of the Sun United Way, and for ASU's Faith Based Outreach and Community Partnerships program helping young people prepare for college; a former Arizona Senate research staffer. Master's in public administration and public policy and bachelor's in intercultural communication, both from ASU. She ran unsuccessfully for the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2018.

Why the seat was open: Burch, a registered nurse reelected in November 2024, resigned saying she could not afford the $24,000 annual legislative salary and found it difficult to pass bills as a member of the minority party. That context matters here: Sears inherited a swing seat mid term, and Supervisor Mark Stewart said the board chose her for "exceptional leadership, deep understanding of key issues like water, housing and education," and a lifelong record of community service.

Stated priorities: water, housing, and education are the issues both the county appointment record and her campaign endorsements emphasize. Equality Arizona rated her a "Champion" and endorsed her; the Arizona Technology Council also endorsed her. No detailed legislative agenda in her own words was retrieved beyond those themes, and this page does not invent one.

Money: as of her March 2026 campaign finance reports, raised $11,420, spent $3,142, $8,278 on hand. That is a small war chest for a targeted swing seat, and the date is part of the fact: outside group spending in a DLCC targeted race will not appear in her own totals, and no later figure was retrieved.

Controversies: none found. Her appointment itself drew no reported dispute; the three finalists were all praised by the supervisors who chose among them.

Bridget Fitzgibbons (Republican)

Certified naturopathic doctor who describes herself as a physician and cosmetic industry expert; she runs a medical spa in Scottsdale. A small business owner and first time candidate for the Legislature in the sources checked. She won the Republican primary unopposed.

Stated priorities, from her campaign site: her slogan is "Healthy Politics. Healthy Communities." Her listed priorities: lower costs for Arizona families; grow the economy and create good paying jobs; lower health care costs and expand patient choice; invest in great schools and support teachers; secure Arizona's water and energy future; support law enforcement and safer communities; and bring back civility, common sense, and compromise. Her issues page adds: keep taxes low and stop unnecessary new fees, cut red tape for small businesses, performance based budgeting and audits, streamlined permitting and zoning for starter homes, workforce housing near job centers, support for responsible energy infrastructure including proposed natural gas pipelines, and modernized digital infrastructure for education and business. She says good ideas can come from either party and commits to working across the aisle.

Endorsements, as listed by her campaign and azcentral: Mesa Mayor Mark Freeman, Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, the Mesa Police Association, the Arizona Police Association, and the Mesa Chamber of Commerce. The Arizona Technology Council endorsed both candidates in this race, Sears and Fitzgibbons, which is noted on the LD9 technology endorsement listing.

Money: no campaign finance figure for Fitzgibbons was included in the March 2026 compiled tables retrieved for this page, and no separate total was located. That gap is stated plainly rather than filled with a later, unsourced number.

Controversies: none found in the sources checked.

State House: two seats, three candidates, and a single shot Republican

How this race works: vote for up to two. Rep. Seth Blattman (D) is not running again, so one seat is open. Incumbent Lorena Austin (D) and Jacob Martinez (D) won the Democratic primary as the only two Democratic candidates, with 11,252 votes (54.78 percent) for Austin and 9,290 (45.22 percent) for Martinez. Republican Bradley Bettencourt is his party's only candidate, running the single shot strategy azcentral describes as often successful: with two Democratic votes split across two names, one Republican needs only to finish in the top two to take the open seat. A Republican write-in, Sage Stroh, took 251 votes (2.35 percent) against Bettencourt in the primary and did not advance.

Lorena Austin (Democrat, incumbent)

State representative since January 2023, reelected in 2024, now the senior Democrat in this House race. Azcentral describes Austin as the first and only openly nonbinary member of the Arizona Legislature. Committees: Commerce and Appropriations.

Record and stated priorities: azcentral reports Austin has emphasized LGBTQ+ rights along with environment, education, and affordable housing. In 2023 Austin fiercely opposed Senate Bill 1001, dubbed the "Pronoun Bill," which would have prevented school personnel from using a student's preferred pronouns if they did not match the sex assigned at birth; the bill did not survive Gov. Hobbs's desk. That episode is the clearest documented example of Austin's legislative posture in the sources retrieved: a public, named fight on a specific bill, not an assumed party position.

Money: TransparencyUSA's listing for this race, retrieved October 2026, shows Austin with $57,786 in contributions and $17,324 in expenditures. The listing as retrieved did not carry a report as of date, so treat those as the tracker's current cumulative figures, not as a dated filing total.

Controversies, with her response: azcentral's LD9 coverage links a fact check whose premise is in its headline: Austin says posts showing her backing Andy Biggs are deepfakes. In other words, the controversy is fabricated looking material about her, and her stated position is that it is fake. The full fact check text was not retrieved for this page, so no further detail is claimed.

Jacob Martinez (Democrat)

Democratic candidate for the open seat. He first ran for office as a 17 year old, for Mesa City Council District 3. As a junior at Dobson High School he became involved in March For Our Lives, the student led push for stricter gun laws after the Parkland school shooting that killed 17 students and staff. More recently he has served as vice president of Save Our Schools Arizona, the public education advocacy group.
  • Stated priorities: his organizational record points to public education defense and gun safety as his defining issues, and Equality Arizona rated him a "Champion" and endorsed him. No fuller platform in his own words was retrieved for this page.
  • Money: TransparencyUSA's listing for this race, retrieved October 2026, shows Martinez with $31,032 in contributions and $9,846 in expenditures, with the same no as of date caveat as Austin's figures above.
  • Controversies: none found.

Bradley Bettencourt (Republican)

Businessman with a background in credit risk and real estate investing, per azcentral. The only Republican on the ballot for two seats, a deliberate structure, not an accident: he won his primary with 10,441 votes (97.65 percent), with the balance going to a write-in challenger who did not advance.
  • Stated priorities: his campaign emphasizes fiscal responsibility and "common sense values," per azcentral. No fuller issue list in his own words was retrieved for this page.
  • The strategy, named: azcentral calls his approach the often successful single shot strategy, in which only one member of a party runs for one of the two House seats, concentrating that party's votes on one name while the other party splits its votes across two. Whether it works here depends on how many LD9 voters vote a straight two Democrat slate.
  • Money: TransparencyUSA's listing for this race, retrieved October 2026, shows Bettencourt with $55,983 in contributions and $22,320 in expenditures, the highest spending figure of the three House candidates on that listing, with the same no as of date caveat.
  • Controversies: none found in the sources checked.

Verification notes

  • Key vote depth is this page's known shortfall. Sears has served only since March 2025, and no name level roll call source for her was retrieved; Austin's SB 1001 opposition is documented advocacy reporting from 2023, not a roll call line. No other individual votes are printed, and party line votes were deliberately not assumed for any candidate on this page.
  • Money comes from two different kinds of source and is labeled as such in the text: Sears's figures are dated March 2026 campaign finance reports compiled in the Senate election tables, while the House figures are TransparencyUSA tracker totals retrieved in October 2026 with no as of date shown on the listing. No finance total was located for Fitzgibbons.
  • Sears's spellings: some secondary coverage renders her first name "Keanna." The county appointment release, the Arizona State Library legislator record, and the ballot all use Kiana Sears, and this page uses that spelling.
  • The Austin deepfake item is included only to the extent of azcentral's fact check headline and Austin's denial as stated there, because the full article was not retrieved.
  • Blattman's departure is sourced to the House election retiring incumbents list, which says he is retiring; his reasons were not retrieved and are not speculated about.

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 LD9 races was found in the sources checked; Sage Stroh's write-in run was in the Republican House primary, where it lost, and is not a general election option.
  • 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.