Alex Kolodin Wins Arizona GOP Secretary of State Primary, Will Face Adrian Fontes in November

State Rep. Alex Kolodin won Arizona's Republican primary for secretary of state on Tuesday, July 21, defeating former Arizona GOP Chair Gina Swoboda, according to Votebeat. With 65% of the expected vote counted as of 9 p.m. MST, Kolodin led 58% to 42%. The Associated Press called the race for him that night.

Kolodin, an election attorney from Scottsdale, now heads to a November general election against Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes for one of the most consequential jobs in American elections. Arizona is a perennial presidential battleground, and the secretary of state certifies voting equipment, sets statewide election rules, and plays a central role in certifying results, according to Democracy Docket.

What Kolodin actually did after 2020

Kolodin helped file the so-called "Kraken" lawsuit after the 2020 election, which alleged hacked voting machines, foreign interference, and widespread illegal voting cost Trump the race. A federal judge dismissed the suit, finding its claims lacked factual support, according to Democracy Docket. The State Bar of Arizona later placed Kolodin on probation over his role in multiple 2020 election lawsuits, requiring him to take ethics courses and pay for the disciplinary investigation.

At a May candidate forum, Kolodin said of the 2020 election: "When people say was it stolen? I say it was stolen fair and square." Votebeat reported he has repeatedly told voters throughout the campaign that they don't trust Arizona's election system and has criticized local election officials and the state's voting infrastructure as dysfunctional.

The policy fight underneath the rhetoric

There is a real policy disagreement here beyond the 2020 baggage. Kolodin has sponsored legislation to ban vote centers, shorten the early voting period, and require voters to recertify their address each cycle to vote by mail, according to Votebeat. He also pushed the Arizona Secure Elections Act, a ballot measure that would restrict when voters can return early ballots and require many voters to file new requests to receive mail ballots.

Supporters of stricter mail-voting rules argue that requiring ID and periodic re-verification is basic election hygiene, no different from requiring ID for a bank account or a flight. Nearly three-quarters of Arizona voters are enrolled in the state's permanent early voting program, according to Democracy Docket, so any change to that system would touch the large majority of the electorate. Critics say that scale is exactly the problem: tightening rules on a system most voters already use looks less like fixing fraud and more like making voting harder for people who already vote legally.

No source here presents verified evidence of widespread fraud in Arizona's 2020 or subsequent elections. The federal court that dismissed the Kraken suit found the claims unsupported. That doesn't mean concerns about ballot-return deadlines, ID verification, or address recertification are illegitimate on their own terms. They are standard election-administration debates playing out in states across the country. But they are a different claim than "the election was stolen," and Kolodin has made both arguments at different points.

Swoboda's warning, and Kolodin's pivot

Swoboda, who ran to Kolodin's more institutional side, argued during the campaign that his hardline positions would make him unelectable in November. She told Votebeat in June that Kolodin had a "negative zero" chance of beating Fontes.

Kolodin moved quickly to court general-election voters after his win. "My campaign was about protecting every vote, regardless of Party," he said in a statement reported by Votebeat, while also blasting Fontes over what Kolodin called "mismanagement of our election system."

The bigger picture: Arizona's primary night

Kolodin's win wasn't isolated. U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, who refused to certify Arizona's 2020 results, won the Republican nomination for governor over a more moderate challenger, Karrin Taylor Robson, according to WWNO. Biggs will face Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who beat Kari Lake narrowly in 2022, in a race Cook Political Report has since shifted toward a slight Democratic advantage.

Trump-endorsed former NFL kicker Jay Feely also won a competitive congressional primary, per WWNO, as part of a broader pattern of Trump-backed and 2020-skeptical candidates prevailing across Arizona's marquee races.

Kolodin has been explicit about the stakes of his own race. "The Arizona Secretary of State's Office is probably the most important elections official in the country," he said, according to Democracy Docket. "The road to the White House runs directly through the Arizona Secretary of State's Office." Whether Arizona voters agree enough to hand him that office over Fontes will be decided in November.