AZ’s CD7 Special Election Race Forecast: Odds and Ends

If you aren’t familiar with the candidates, I advise you to watch the debates and TheDGT.org’s Monday Shows with QA with each of them.

There is only a little public polling available in Arizona’s very safe Democratic Congressional District 7, but there are some fairly easy assumptions to make regarding the state of the race to replace progressive lion of the House, Raul Grijalva.

Public Policy Polling released a poll in early April of this year.

A new poll in Arizona’s 7th Congressional district Democrat primary finds that Adelita Grijalva emerges as a clear frontrunner: 

● In the initial 3-way matchup between candidates, Grijalva leads at 49% of the vote compared to 11% for Daniel Hernandez and 5% for Deja Foxx. After voters learn more about the background of each candidate, Grijalva’s lead in the matchup jumps 5 points to 54%. This suggests an ability to grow support even as voters learn more about Grijalva’s opponents. Additionally, a majority (55%) say they are more likely to vote for Grijalva after hearing about her background, which helps increase her lead in the informed vote. 

● 67% of primary voters overall (including 78% of Hispanic voters in particular) have a favorable opinion of Grijalva compared to just 6% with an unfavorable one. Daniel Hernandez also has a net positive rating at 41% favorable/13% unfavorable. Deja Foxx is largely unknown with just 13% viewing her favorably, 10% unfavorably and 77% “not sure.” 

● 85% of respondents said that it was either very (63%) or somewhat (22%) important to elect someone who is committed to carrying on Congressman Raúl Grijalva’s legacy. 

Public Policy Polling surveyed: 527 likely Democratic primary voters from April 7-8, 2025. The margin of error is +/- 4.3%. 75% of the interviews for the survey were conducted by text message and 25% by telephone. 

The methodology used here is interesting to me, with 75% being done by text message (i.e. cell phones, and semi-self-selected in response by the nature of text messaging) and only 25% by traditional land line polling. This has been an increasing trend in polling since 2020, prompted by some of the rather notorious polling misses in recent elections.

Mixed methodology polling of this sort has tended to be at least as accurate as traditional methods, and by some estimations slightly more accurate, in that these new modes tend to better model generational cohorts in the population due to differential preferences in telephony use (i.e. younger folks tend not to have land lines nor do they respond well to traditional telephone surveys).

In any case, I don’t see anything to take exception to in this poll, other than it taken is a bit early to really capture the state of the race as voting commences. I expect that it is likely that as the media savvy Ms. Foxx has had some time to introduce herself to the electorate, she is likely to pick up greater recognition and support. And as Ms. Grijalva has had time for likely supporters to see her solid performance in the race thus far, her support is likely to further firm up.

Given the massive wave of high profile endorsements for Adelita, I’d say that most politicians and expert observers are judging that she is the clear frontrunner and are of the opinion that she is favored to win the nomination. And, of course, whomever the Democratic nominee ends up being is likely to be elected to the seat, given the substantial registration advantage of Democrats in this majority-minority district.

One issue with the above poll is, of course, that it does not include two of the lesser-known candidates: Mr. Harris and Mr. Malvido. Mr. Harris is running what he terms a ‘zero-budget’ campaign, mainly centered around his idea for a Constitutional Amendment limiting Americans to a mere $1 billion net worth, is certainly different, if not outight quixotic. Mr. Malvido is a first time candidate, but a long-time organizer and leader in the community, and is a surprisingly effective, if low-key, advocate for the grassroots needs and concerns of the district. Of the two, I expect that Mr. Molvido’s message, to the extent he is able to spread it by word of mouth and door to door will prove the more effective.

It takes a lot of time and energy and money to shift public sentiment and voting by substantial margins. I don’t think there is enough of any of those resources in a quick Special Election like this one for any of the candidates to move very far from the conditions found by PPP’s poll.

If there are any major surprises in store, we will surely hear about them as the candidates chase ballots and do voter contact in what is the mail-ballot equivalent of exit polling. If any campaign is seeing major anomolies in those trends, they will be sure to holler about it as we near mid-July.

Major trends I will be looking for, and questions to which I anticipate interesting answers, include:

• Will Ms. Foxx outperform expectations by garnering more than the 5-10% one might expect of an previously unknown, but appealing candidate? Can she out-perform Mr. Hernadez, who is an established name and personality in the district?

• Will Ms. Grijalva clear a plurality of the vote and gain a clear majority of the vote?

• Will the nototious Grijalva/Hernadez hatchet finally be buried with an endorsement in the General Election by Hernandez should Grijalva prevail in the Primary – or the opposite?

• Will Mr. Harris – with his quiotic and moderate approach – or Mr. Malvido – with his undenialbly earnest and genuine grassroots campaign – be much of a factor in the race? Can either break the 1-5% one might expect of such outsider, and minimally financed, campaigns?

My own appriasal of the candidates are that:

• Ms. Foxx and Mr. Malvido will be the surprising news from the race and will gain strength and recognition from the contest, and may outperform expectations;

• I exspect that Ms. Grijalva will preform as expected, or exceed expectations;

• I expect that Mr. Hernandez and Mr. Harris will find that moderation and centrism in a Democratic Primary in the current environment are no virtues; and,

• I suspect that Mr. Harris might regret having entered the race as a Democrat, as Arizona has a ‘sore loser’ law that will prevent him from continuing to push his interesting/innovative central agenda (which sparks useful discussions, if nothing else) as an independent in the General.