Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan told supporters that internal polling shows Democratic legislative candidates opening a double-digit lead over Republican opponents in Arizona’s battleground districts.
GOP control of the Legislature has left voters paying more for housing, groceries, electricity and prescription drugs while blocking action on schools and water.
Democratic Polling
Sundareshan spoke at the August 17, 2026, meeting of Democrats of Greater Tucson. She said June polling for legislative races found Democrats leading a generic Republican candidate by 4 points before message testing and by 10 points after voters heard the Democratic agenda. She cautioned that those statewide and cross-district findings must still be converted into actual votes in each targeted district.
“People are feeling the pinch, and it is directly attributable to Republican policies,” Sundareshan said, tying voter frustration to rising costs for housing, groceries, utilities and health care.
The opportunity is real, but it depends on turnout. In a narrowly divided Legislature, every door knocked, every voter registered and every early ballot returned could determine whether Arizona gains a Democratic governing majority.
Seven Battleground Districts
The Arizona Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (ADLCC) is targeting seven legislative districts. The strategy is designed to give Democrats a path to majorities in both chambers.
Election Strategy
Sundareshan, the Senate Democratic leader and co-chair of the Democratic ADLCC, said Arizona Democrats have a genuine opportunity to end Republican domination of the Legislature if they organize aggressively in those seven districts.
“We really have a shot to get to the majority,” she said. Her call to action was aimed especially at Democrats in high-turnout communities, including Tucson, to register voters, protect access to the ballot and bring volunteer capacity to nearby competitive districts.
She said the distinction is clear.
- Democrats are running on affordability, strong public schools, reproductive freedom, voting rights and water security.
- Republicans have governed through obstruction, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and ESA vouchers for children in private or religious schools.
“Republicans should not be in the majority anymore,” Sundareshan said, “because then Democrats will be able to invest our state resources in the best way possible that will benefit the vast majority of Arizonans rather than the crony few.”
No Breaks for Data Centers
Arizona Democrats began the 2026 session with an affordability agenda covering housing, grocery prices, utility bills, prescription drugs and insurance coverage. However, Sundareshan said the Republican majority blocked most of those proposals from getting committee hearings.
Democrats sought to limit corporate purchases of residential housing, address rent increases and short-term-rental pressures, and stop utility customers from footing the bill for infrastructure built to serve enormous corporate data centers.
“Residential ratepayers should not be paying for the cost of infrastructure to serve large loads, like data centers,” Sundareshan said. “Especially when all these large loads are large corporations who can bear those costs themselves.”
Democratic budget negotiations won a three-year pause on sales-tax exemptions for new data centers, a partial victory after Democrats pushed for full repeal.
Education and Vouchers
Sundareshan called Arizona’s universal ESA voucher program a $1 billion depletion of public schools.
“It is a significant and huge drain on our state resources,” she said. “It comes directly out of the money that public education funding could be using to support education for the rest of us.”
- The voter-driven Protect Education Act, I-09-2026, would put income limits on newly eligible ESA families, restrict luxury and noneducational expenditures, require stronger oversight and return unused voucher funds to public education.
- Republicans have fought those boundaries while supporting HCR 2048, the proposed “Military Families” amendment, which Sundareshan said would invalidate the voter initiative.
Destructive Ballot Referrals
Sundareshan warned that Republican legislative referrals merit close scrutiny because they bypass the governor’s veto. “The thing about ballot referrals — that’s why they’re so dangerous — is there is no governor backstop,” she said.
One major GOP referral, HCR 2001, known as the Arizona Secure Elections Act, would add voter-identification requirements, end most early voting at 7 p.m. and impose new mail-ballot-list requirements. Republicans frame voting access as a problem to be restricted rather than an essential democratic right.
Sundareshan pointed to Republican Secretary of State candidate Alex Kolodin — an election denier who helped Donald Trump’s effort to overturn Arizona’s 2020 presidential result — as part of a broader movement to make voting harder and undermine public confidence in elections.
Other destructive Republican referrals include:
- HCR 2040, an attack on unions by restricting basic organizing activities.
- HCR 2044, an attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
- HCR 2003, which restricts certain student athletic participation based on “biological sex.”
Sundareshan said these measures show a Republican Legislature using the ballot to attack unions, public education and vulnerable communities when regular legislation would face a gubernatorial veto.
Voters will have a clear choice on November 3: Republican attacks on public schools, tax cuts for the wealthy and the high cost of living – or Democratic measures to increase affordability, support public schools and protect Arizona’s water supply.
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