Missing a target?

I’ve seen this a lot: for this year’s Arizona legislative elections, the target legislative districts are supposedly these seven: LDs 2, 4, 9, 13, 16, 17, and 23. Once such a list is provided by a reputable source, it gets repeated. Over and over again. Until it is taken as gospel.

But just because it is repeatedly stated, it doesn’t mean it’s right.

Of course, all such determinations are made using models, all of which rely on many assumptions. That’s OK – as statistician George Box supposedly said, “All models are wrong, but some of them are useful.” All the listed districts are ones where Democrats could do well this year, particularly given the national mood about MAGA Republicans – just look at Presidential approval ratings, and Generic Congressional estimates. While it is common that independents and moderate Republicans may vote differently in non-Federal races, particularly those further down the ballot, still there may well be a Blue Wave this year that includes down-ballot races.

Another Way to Look at Vote Share

Modeling using data from previous years, it is easy to see why a district like LD27 with no history of Democrats winning would be missing from the target list. But even without public polling (which also requires modeling), there is another way of looking at the available data for these districts. And that is to look at what happened in 2024 and see how a particular candidate tracks with statewide candidates in a tough year. While that lacks the complexity of other models, it has the advantage of recency and of data specific to the candidate in LD27’s state House race, which will have the same opponents face off this year.

And when you look at 2024 results for the commonly targeted districts and LD27, you see something interesting – LD27’s Deborah Howard was smack dab in the middle of the pack in tracking the vote share for the Federal candidates in that district.

In 2026, we have no statewide Federal candidates running in Arizona. But this “tracking” metric may still matter because the top of the ticket always provides some coattails for down ballot races, despite an inevitable dropoff in votes for the more local elections. And when negative Trump approval ratings may indicate a strong year for Democrats in state elections, some of this lean will carry over to state legislative races.

In 2024, LD27 AZ House candidate Deborah Howard had a vote share within .61% of that of the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, Ruben Gallego (47.09% vs 47.7%). For the seven districts that are commonly labeled as “targets,” the average gap was 2.38% (49.18% vs 51.56%). The measure is similar (slightly more favorable to LD27) for tracking to the Harris race. 

The Bottom Line

In simpler, non-mathematical terms: Deborah Howard (who is running again this cycle) tracked closely with the statewide candidates in 2024, more closely than at least the average of the other races commonly viewed as targets. And in a good year for statewide candidates like Hobbs, Mayes, and Fontes, she may well do so again. And of course, from my biased view as a Democrat, I hope that the other target districts also benefit from the national political environment, and I think that they will.

As physicist Nils Bohr reputedly said, “It’s hard to predict – especially the future.” But LD27 should be considered to be one of the 2026 target districts.

[Note: The LD27 Democratic candidate for state Senate, Kyle Clayton, is likely to track closely to the Deborah Howard campaign because they are largely campaigning as a team. I can’t use the same math, though, because Democrats had no Senate candidate there in 2024.]