Legislative Elections
The District DeskLegislative District 27
Debate availableLD27 · 2-Year Term
Population
243,762
Registered Voters
136,158
District Lean
R+11.4
Voter Registration Breakdown
General Election Debate
Legislative District 27 General Election Debate
State Senate
Kevin Payne
Republican · Senate
Kevin Payne is an electrical engineer and food truck owner who served in the state House from 2017 to 2025, then moved to the Senate after he and former Sen. Anthony Kern swapped seats. Gov. Katie Hobbs has signed 24 of his bills since 2023 and vetoed four, including one loosening food truck regulations - an industry he has drawn scrutiny for legislating on. He narrowly turned back Kern in July, and he skipped the Clean Elections debates in both the primary and the general.
Prominent Endorsements
Kyle Clayton
Democrat · Senate
Completed the Agenda's candidate questionnaire
Kyle Clayton is a realtor who won an at-large seat on the Washington Elementary School District Governing Board in 2022, unseating an incumbent, and now serves as its president. In 2023 the board voted unanimously against renewing a contract letting Arizona Christian University students student-teach in district classrooms, citing the school's biblical worldview; the board settled the resulting religious-freedom lawsuit. Clayton has since called that a lesson: "My partisan politics don't belong at that desk." He has not held state office.
Prominent Endorsements
State House
Lisa Fink
Republican · House
Lisa Fink is a healthcare professional and former charter school board president who won her first House term in 2024 as the top vote-getter. Seven of her bills have been signed into law and Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed 18. One that passed, the Alec and Lydia Act, expanded Arizona's domestic violence definition to include coercive control. She also sponsored a 2025 bill to ban geoengineering, and says of solar radiation management: "It is not a conspiracy."
Prominent Endorsements
Tony Rivero
Republican · House
Tony Rivero served in the state House from 2015 to 2021, sat out two terms, and returned in 2025 after finishing second in the 2024 general. He worked in the Peoria city manager's office and holds education and public administration degrees from Arizona State University. In 2025 he helped pass the law that let Axon build its Scottsdale headquarters without a city zoning referendum, citing "thousands of employees, billions of dollars." He supports the ESA voucher program with added financial safeguards.
Prominent Endorsements
Deborah Howard
Democrat · House
Completed the Agenda's candidate questionnaire
Deborah Howard was a special assistant at the U.S. Department of Labor under President Ronald Reagan and spent four decades in communications and advocacy work before moving to Arizona in 2017, where she joined Indivisible Arizona and monitored the state's redistricting process. She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley. This is her second run at the LD27 House: in 2024 she finished narrowly behind Rivero. She has called Arizona's tax system "broken."
Prominent Endorsements