The Arizona Green Party has released an official list of candidates it will support, oppose, or otherwise decline to rate in its state primary this summer as it continues warning voters about candidates it says are attempting to use the party’s ballot line without its support.
A member of the party shared the endorsement ratings with Independent Political Report this week, with the document evaluating candidates for governor, secretary of state, Arizona Corporation Commission, U.S. House, and the state Legislature. The list includes candidates appearing on the Green Party primary ballot, as well as those recognized by the state as official write-in candidates seeking the party’s nomination in their respective races. The state primary is scheduled for July 21.
In its statewide primary, the party has endorsed Carlos Melendez for governor, Jon Ralston for secretary of state, and Mike Cease for Arizona Corporation Commission. It is also backing Gary Swing for U.S. House in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District and Brendan Trachsel for state representative in the 6th Legislative District.
The party is alternatively taking an active stance against several candidates, opposing Risa Lombardo and William Pounds in their respective gubernatorial bids, as well as Duwayne Collier for secretary of state. In the primary for the 3rd Congressional District, the party said it is opposing David Redkey, while in the 7th Legislative District, it is opposing Richard Grayson.
The party also declined to endorse or oppose several other candidates, listing Athena Eastwood’s write-in campaign for governor as not endorsed and Hector Gomez’s bid for state representative in the 26th Legislative District as not rated.
The Arizona Green Party said the ratings follow a formal endorsement process and are intended to clarify which candidates the party recognizes as consistent with its values, though it does not go into detail about what that process entailed. It also said that ballot labels in Arizona do not necessarily show whether a candidate is a member of, or endorsed by, the party whose nomination they are seeking.
“Only candidates formally endorsed through this member-led process are recognized as Arizona Green Party–endorsed candidates for purposes of party communication and support,” the party said.
As the Arizona Green Party regained recognition as a new party for the 2024 and 2026 election cycles, Green write-in candidates in the primary need only receive a plurality of the party’s votes for the office to win the nomination. That threshold is lower than the one applied to write-in candidates for parties with continued ballot representation, creating a situation where earning a spot on the general election ballot as a Green candidate is possible even in incredibly low-turnout contests, so long as a candidate files as an official write-in.
The announcement follows months of warnings from the Arizona Green Party about candidates it has deemed “sham candidates.” Last December, the party publicly identified Lombardo, Lisa Castillo, and Collier as individuals collecting signatures under the Green Party label despite, according to the party, having no formal prior involvement with the organization.
During the 2024 election cycle, the party similarly warned that candidates seeking its U.S. Senate nomination were attempting to use its ballot line without the party’s support. The primary was eventually won by Eduardo Quintana, the then-chair of its Pima County affiliate, whose write-in bid surpassed both candidates that initially drew the party’s concern.
The Arizona Green Party said it supports election reforms it believes would reduce incentives for candidates to use a new party’s ballot line without organizational support. Among them, it proposed ranked choice voting, proportional representation, easing ballot access laws, changes to the signature challenge process, and allowing small parties to nominate candidates by convention instead of primary.
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