Legislative Elections
The District DeskLegislative District 7
Debate availableLD7 · 2-Year Term
Population
253,467
Registered Voters
160,956
District Lean
R+27.4
Voter Registration Breakdown
General Election Debate
Legislative District 7 General Election Debate
State Senate
Wendy Rogers
Republican · Senate
Wendy Rogers is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who served from 1976 to 1996 and later ran a home-inspection business. She has sat in the state Senate since 2021. In 2022 the Senate censured her in a bipartisan vote for comments it said encouraged violence against American citizens and damaged the chamber's reputation. Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed 32 of her bills since 2023; one Rogers bill signed this year makes it easier to evict squatters.
Prominent Endorsements
Michiel Montiel
Democrat · Senate
Completed the Agenda's candidate questionnaire
Michiel Montiel is an Army veteran who served from 2001 to 2005 and later started a small business and a nonprofit in Superior. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest in Maricopa County Superior Court in 2012, drawing two years' probation that was cut short a year early, and to a misdemeanor in 2021 after his dog attacked a neighbor's goat. He said he was sleepwalking during the 2012 incident. He ran unopposed in the primary.
Prominent Endorsements
State House
Walter Blackman
Republican · House
Completed the Agenda's candidate questionnaire
Walter Blackman served in the Army from 1995 to 2016, earning a Bronze Star, and runs a consulting firm he founded in 2016. He sat in the House from 2019 to 2023, lost a 2022 congressional primary to Eli Crane, and won a seat back in 2024. Criminal-justice legislation has driven his work; he maneuvered a stolen-valor bill past a committee hold by Sen. Wendy Rogers. He led the 2026 primary field. He declined the Clean Elections debate.
Prominent Endorsements
David Cook Sr.
Republican · House
David Cook Sr. is a Globe cattle rancher and former Arizona Department of Corrections sergeant who served eight years in the state House, from 2017 to 2025, before losing a 2024 Senate primary to Wendy Rogers. He often defied his caucus: he voted with Democrats against the 2.5% flat tax in 2021, opposed punishing a Democratic colleague over a Bible prank in 2023, and voted with Democrats 10 times in one day to kill Jake Hoffman's bills. He finished second in the 2026 primary.
Prominent Endorsements
Samuel Martin
Democrat · House
Samuel Martin ran unopposed in the Democratic primary for Legislative District 7's two House seats. He has held no public office, and little independent record of his background exists — Ballotpedia lists no biography for him. At the Clean Elections debate he called for revisiting the state law barring cities from restricting short-term rentals, and for rezoning to add affordable housing. He describes himself as a customer service professional.
Richard Grayson
Green · House
Richard Grayson is a writer, former college professor and attorney who has appeared on ballots in Arizona, Florida and Alaska as a perennial candidate. He drew 39 votes in Arizona's 2012 Green Party presidential preference election, and showed up to the ballot-order ceremony for it in a bunny suit. Though nominated by the Green Party this year, he disavows it and sides with Democrats. At the Clean Elections debate he called himself a socialist and predicted he would win under 4% of the vote.