Arizona Senate

2020 Election Update

Heading into the 2020 election, Republicans controlled the Arizona Senate 17-13. Democrats flipped one seat; control of the chamber is now 16-14. EveryDistrict endorsed successful Democratic challenger Christine Marsh (SD 28). EveryDistrict also endorsed Felicia French (SD 6), AJ Kurdoglu (SD 17), and Doug Ervin (SD 20).

The below table shows 2020 and 2018 election results for the Arizona Senate. The LDI scores are for the 2020 cycle. EveryDistrict will release new scores and district rankings after the redistricting process.

2018 Election Update

After the 2016 election, Republicans controlled the Arizona State Senate 17-13. After the 2018 election, there was no change to the partisan composition of the chamber. EveryDistrict endorsed Wade Carlisle (SD 6) and Christine Marsh (SD 28). Carlisle lost by 1,712 votes (1.80%) and Marsh lost by 267 votes (0.20%).

EveryDistrict identified two other districts as competitive: SD 8 and SD 20. The Democratic candidates in those districts lost by 6,821 votes (12.20%) and 2,818 votes (3.80%) respectively. The Democratic candidate in SD 17 lost by 1,744 votes (1.80%).

Understanding the Map

EveryDistrict’s Legislative District Index (LDI) is the gold standard of state legislative competitiveness. Our LDI ranks state legislative districts on a scale from 100 to -100, using statewide elections data. Districts with a score of 100 would vote for statewide Democratic candidates by an average of 100 points (with the Democratic candidate receiving 100% of the vote); districts with a score of -100 would vote for statewide Republican candidates by an average of 100 points (with the Republican candidate receiving 100% of the vote). For a more realistic example, a district with a score of 10 would vote for statewide Democratic candidates by an average of 10 points (meaning we would expect the Democratic state legislative candidate to win with 55% of the vote compared to the Republican winning 45% of the vote).

After the 2018 election, EveryDistrict reviewed and enhanced our LDI system, improving the accuracy of the metric with new methodologies and the most recent electoral data.

For more information about EveryDistrict’s LDI, please click here.