People are reading a lot into Zohran Mamdani's win in the Democratic NYC mayoral primary. But a young socialist beating a widely hated sleazebag is not, by itself, a national trend. Another test case will take place in Arizona on July 15. This time the establishment candidate doesn't have a lot of baggage that turns off many voters.
This test case is in AZ-07, a roughly triangular district that runs from the outskirts of Phoenix to the point where California, Arizona, and Mexico meet on the west and down to Tucson and on to the Mexican border on the east, plus almost the entire Mexican border on the south. Not surprisingly, the district is heavily Latino (60%) and it is also somewhat poor (median household income of $61,000). It is also home to seven sovereign Native American nations.
The House seat became vacant when Raúl Grijalva died in March and Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) called a special election to fill the seat. After first hesitating, Grijalva's daughter, Adelita Grijalva (54), jumped in. She has a bit of a political background, having served on the Tucson school board for 20 years and then 4 years on the Pima County Board of Supervisors. She resigned in April because Arizona has a resign-to-run law, which states that you can't run for one public office while holding a different one. The idea is that if you are a public servant, you are supposed to spend all your time serving the public, not going for a promotion. She is reasonably qualified for the House, having served in a lower office recently and she has no known baggage. Of course, as the daughter of a long-time congressman, she could be seen as a nepo baby, although county supervisors run for Congress all the time. Naturally, given her father's job, she is seen as highly establishment and is backed by the Democratic establishment.
Enter 25-year-old Deja Foxx, a Filipina-American who grew up in public housing and was fed by food stamps. She was the first in her family to go to college, and it was Columbia University, where she made the dean's list for academic performance. She is also a political activist and spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention about abortion rights. Foxx is a Gen-Z'er, 7 years younger than millennial Zohran Mamdani, who got the Democratic nomination for NYC mayor, not so much because he was younger than the other main candidate, but because the other guy was an unpopular scumbag. Foxx can't count on that factor, because although Grijalva is much older, she hasn't done anything wrong or offended anyone. Foxx's hope is that enough voters want generational change and she is in the right place at the right time, with no incumbent. Working for her is that Arizona is a relatively young state. In 33 states, the median age is older than Arizona's and in 16 it is younger. Will generational change do the job when the older candidate is a fairly standard politician with no obvious flaws? We will see in 2 weeks. The district is D+13, so the winner of the Democratic primary will be the heavy favorite in the special general election.
Also, a Democratic firehouse primary in Northern Virginia's VA-11 district concluded this weekend and a youngish candidate, James Walkinshaw (42), won. The special election was called when Gerry Connolly died in May. The primary wasn't old vs. young. There were nine candidates, most of them total unknowns hoping lightning would strike. Walkinshaw was Connolly's chief of staff and made the case that he understands how Congress works very well and doesn't need any on-the-job training. It worked. The district is D+18, so he is a shoo-in for the Sept. 9 special general election. (V)