Runoffs in Mesa, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Fountain Hills mayor races
Maricopa County elections officials nearly finished counting routine ballots Friday evening, clarifying the outcomes of dozens of key local races for mayor and seats on city and town councils across the East Valley.
In Mesa, voters gave Scott Smith and Mark Freeman a commanding lead over three other candidates. The pair will have a rematch in November to become Mesa's mayor.
Likewise, the race for Scottsdale mayor, which could tip the balance of power in City Hall, is also slated for a runoff. Voters gave incumbent David Ortega a narrow lead over Lisa Borowsky. They are now expected to face off in the November election after comfortably outperforming the third challenger.
Scottsdale voters also had many choices for who to represent them on the City Council. Tammy Caputi, Adam Kwasman and Jan Dubauskas were the top three vote-getters, but only Dubauskas appeared to have achieved the number of votes needed to win outright in the primary under state statute.
Caputi and Kwasman are expected to face off in the November runoff against Scottsdale's next two highest vote-getters, newcomer Maryann McAllen and incumbent Tom Durham.
Gilbert voters had a choice of two mayoral candidates in a race overshadowed by the town’s handling of the “Gilbert Goons” teen violence scandal. Scott Anderson held a comfortable lead to secure the mayoral seat.
Election results in Arizona are unofficial until local and state officials have tallied all ballots and certified the results. Maricopa County elections officials have counted around 695,000 ballots, leaving around 46,100 early, provisional and uncured ballots still to be tallied.
Competitive races were also on the ballot for Apache Junction mayor and council, Chandler council, Gilbert council, three district council seats in Mesa, Paradise Valley mayor, and Scottsdale council.
In the north Valley, voters elected councilmembers in Cave Creek, Carefree, and Fountain Hills, as well as the mayor of Fountain Hills.
Council races in Queen Creek and Paradise Valley and the Guadalupe mayor's race were all uncontested.
Valleywide, 137 candidates are running for 79 available seats in 21 communities.
Local leaders face big challenges: supporting housing people can afford; attracting industries that offer well-paid jobs, easing commutes; dealing with state-mandated revenue cuts; curbing a lingering homelessness crisis, providing adequate public safety; keeping up with the effects of rapid growth; developing land responsibly; and maintaining basic civility at public meetings.
Our comprehensive voter guide has a complete rundown of all the candidates and what was at stake in each race.
Full, unofficial results are currently anticipated Monday.
Check back for updates on the remaining races.
Mesa mayor and City Council
Mesa voters will get a new mayor for the first time in 10 years to replace term-limited John Giles. Mesa's next mayor could weigh in on major projects such as Site 17 and Fiesta Redefined.
Five candidates sought to lead Arizona's third-most-populous city: Carey Davis, Mark Freeman, Scott Neely, Scott Smith and Ryan Winkle.
Mesa voters will get a chance to recast their vote for mayor in a November runoff. Smith and Freeman maintained their commanding lead in the five-way race Friday evening.
"I think people in our community wanted a change in government and I plan on bringing, I think to me, stability," Freeman said.
Smith said moving forward the mayoral race will be an entirely different campaign going into the general election. The voter base will be wider and the race will be one-on-one, he said.
The fact that voters favored him and Freeman over the other three opponents means voters are largely happy with the direction the city is moving in, Smith said. But moving into the runoff, Smith will be able to differentiate himself.
Winkle and Neely both acknowledged their loss to The Republic and expressed their disappointment in the two candidates who will move forward. The two men have staunchly different visions for Mesa but both viewed Freeman and Smith as the same side of the coin.
Neely, who wanted to push Mesa toward more conservative policies, said it doesn't matter which of the two wins in November.
"They're not that much different except that Mark wears a cowboy hat and Scott wears a suit," Neely said.
He said either of the two will continue the “John Giles agenda.”
Winkle said it was more of a loss for Mesa because residents “just got more of the same.”
“I think people are really looking to be excited about new faces and new ideas and not the same old,” Winkle said.
Davis did not immediately respond to The Republic for comment.
The races for district seats on the City Council also feature a crowded field. Eight candidates vied for three seats.
In District 1, Rich Adams, Zachary Hichez, Tim Meyer and Ron Williams squared off. Adams and Williams appeared poised to make a second bid to claim the council seat in November after neither candidate got more than 50% in the four-way district race.
The gap between Williams and third-placed Meyer remained narrow.
The District 2 race featured incumbent Councilmember Julie Spilsbury facing off against Melody Whetstone. Spilsbury claimed victory Tuesday night and after Friday’s results was headed to a second term on City Council.
Whetstone, an outsider to city politics, looked to shake up the leadership of Mesa City Council.
Spilsbury told The Republic she has not received a call from Whetstone conceding the race nor has she posted publicly acknowledging the results. Whetstone did not immediately respond to The Republic's request for comment.
Spilsbury said the relationships she's built with the community and business leaders throughout her tenure helped her clinch the victory.
“People know that I’m there. That I’m real. That I’m genuine. That I’m trying to represent them the best that I can. And then with Melody that is kind of the unknown,” she said.
In District 3, it was a two-way race with incumbent Vice Mayor Francisco Heredia and Marc Lavender.
Heredia maintained a comfortable lead over his opponent Lavender. Heredia claimed victory Tuesday night in a Facebook post thanking his supporters.
Lavender has not publicly conceded the race.
First results expected at 8 p.m. Tuesday: Arizona primary election results
Scottsdale mayor and City Council
Scottsdale voters had clear choices between status quo candidates and challengers seeking to take the city in a new direction in a campaign all about preserving or shifting the balance of power in City Hall. The race focused on divisions over city spending, overdevelopment and affordable housing.
In the mayor's race, incumbent David Ortega faced challenges from former councilmembers Linda Milhaven and Lisa Borowski. Ortega led narrowly over Lisa Borowsky. They are expected to face-off in November's election after they both soundly defeated Milhaven, but did not secure enough votes to win outright.
"My expectations were to win the primary and move on to November with my positive outlook for Scottsdale,” Ortega said. “(Having won outright in the primary) would be great. It would be ideal. (But) I have high expectations going into the November runoff … the distinctions between myself and Borowski will be (made) very clear.”
A similar dynamic played out in the campaigns for City Council, in which nine contenders were battling for three available seats. Challenging incumbents Tammy Caputi and Tom Durham were Adam Kwasman, Jan Dubauskas, Mason Gates, Bob Lettieri, Maryann McAllen, Justin Laos and Stephen Casares.
Tammy Caputi, Adam Kwasman and Jan Dubauskas were the three highest vote-getters.
But it appears only Dubauskas secured the 50% of the total votes required to win outright in the primary, per state law, so Caputi and Kwasman are expected to face a runoff in November against the next two highest vote-getters: McAllen and Durham.
Durham, who was in fifth place, told The Republic, "I'm happy that I've got the votes to keep fighting it out until November."
Gilbert mayor and Town Council
Gilbert politics have been mired in squabbles over council ethics probes and the town's handling of the "Gilbert Goons" scandal. The next council will have to tackle the fallout from both. The discord continued into election season, with claims of voter fraud dismissed in court.
Two candidates for mayor remained: Vice Mayor Scott Anderson and Natalie DiBernardo. Incumbent Brigette Peterson pulled out, followed by Shane Krauser after his son was spotted in a video with known Goon members.
Anderson appeared to win comfortably.
Anderson told The Republic the results show voters are interested in the kinds of values and issues he is interested in and the work that needs to be done as the town approaches buildout.
"I look forward to bringing that kind of effort to council and to get us going in the right direction. We've been spending the last couple of years spinning our wheels with a lot of issues that took too much time," he said, referencing the infighting and ethics complaints and investigations that have plagued the Town Council.
DiBernardo did not immediately respond to The Republic's request for comment.
In the Town Council races, four candidates — Aaron Accurso, Kenny Buckland, Monte Lyons and Noah Mundt — ran to replace two outgoing council members.
Lyons looked poised to take one of two open seats on the Town Council. The second seat remained a toss-up between Accurso, Buckland and Mundt, according to the latest count.
As it stands with unofficial results, Accurso, Buckland and Mundt may not have enough votes to outright win the race and could trigger a runoff. The top two candidates would have a rematch in November.
The race remained razor-thin and could be within the margins to trigger an automatic recount under state statute. Gilbert is "very closely" monitoring the automatic recount margins but as of Friday afternoon no candidates were within the margin, town spokesperson Kailey Latham told The Republic.
Chandler City Council
In Chandler, voters had seven candidates seeking three council seats. Two are held by incumbents Christine Ellis and OD Harris. They were challenged by Jennifer Hawkins, Ajlan "AJ" Kurdoglu, Cicely Rocha-Miller, Michael Simon and 21-year-old Joseph Yang.
Harris, Ellis and Hawkins led the field, although only Harris and Hawkins secured enough votes to avoid a runoff under state statute.
Ellis is likely to face-off in November against the next highest vote-getter: Yang.
The low-key race was more civil than in some surrounding communities, with contestants in general agreement about issues such as development and teen violence.
The election was seen as less about vision and more about competence and as a referendum on the incumbents’ performances since 2020 in their responses to the "Gilbert Goons" scandal and the controversial Dominium affordable housing complex called Sonoran Landings.
Apache Junction mayor and City Council
Apache Junction is transforming from a far-flung backwater known for ranching, mining and retirement to a fast-growing edge city of 40,000 residents with master-planned developments such as Superstition Vistas on the horizon.
In the mayor's race, incumbent Chip Wilson was challenged by newcomer Ari Kalan. Wilson easily retained his mayoral seat.
Seeking three council seats were sitting Councilmembers Peter Heck, Bambi Johnson, and Tess Nesser and one challenger, Mo Mohiuddin. Voters returned incumbents Nesser, Heck and Johnson to City Council.
The election in all the contests centered on retaining Apache Junction's unique rural and historical charm without sacrificing economic development.
Paradise Valley mayor and Town Council
Paradise Valley voters considered three experienced candidates for mayor: Mary Hamway, Mark Stanton and Anna Thomasson.
Thomasson held a comfortable lead over Stanton and both held an unassailable lead over Hamway. The latter two will compete in a November runoff.
"I was honored to be the top vote getter in our race, and I look forward to our runoff election (in November)," Thomasson said.
The race for three council seats was not contested.
The low-profile campaign was noted for general agreement on the issues facing the wealthy suburb: regulating unruly short-term rentals and preserving quality of life.
Fountain Hills mayor and Town Council
The local election in Fountain Hills for mayor and council was the spiciest in the north end of the Valley and featured the highest voter turnout of any local elections.
In the mayor's race, incumbent Ginny Dickey squared off again against former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, along with Councilmember Gerry Friedel.
Dickey comfortably outperformed Friedel at the ballot box, but neither secured a majority of the votes cast, so they will face off again in the November runoff to determine who wins the town's top spot.
Arpaio trailed both of his opponents heavily and conceded defeat on Wednesday.
Dickey, describing the previously uncertain levels of support between her more conservative challengers, said that leading up to election day, she “was comfortable with the idea that it would go until November. But I didn't know for sure who (my opponent) would end up being.”
Arpaio narrowly lost to Dickey in 2022 and refused to concede that election. But he accepted the defeat this time around, saying, "The people voted, and I didn't win. But I will congratulate the losers and the winners who did participate in this local election."
The 92-year-old added that he is “still going to be very active in the political arena. Nationally and local,” telling The Republic that "I still have a future." He wouldn’t say whether he planned to run for office again.
The council race saw eight candidates trying to claim three seats. The only incumbent seeking reelection was Peggy McMahon. She ran against Clayton Corey, Mathew Corrigan, Gayle Earle, Henry Male, Art Tolis, Robert Wallace and Rick Watts.
McMahon, Earle and Watts were the top vote-getters. But it appeared on Friday that only Earle had secured the share of votes needed to avoid a runoff.
But that could change as the small number of yet-to-be-counted ballots get tabulated. On Friday, Earle had just barely cleared the threshold of votes needed to win outright in the primary, while McMahon was less than 100 votes away from crossing that line. Watts was much further away from that benchmark.
Any of the top three voter-getters who don't end up with 50% or more of the total vote in the final count will face the next best-performing candidates in November. As of Friday, Corrigan was in fourth place, Corey in fifth and Male in sixth.
Carefree Town Council
In Carefree, voters faced the choice of seven candidates for three available council seats. The campaign was defined by debates over emergency response times and street maintenance.
The next council will tackle issues of transparency, commercial development and the proposed general plan. Voters chose between candidates who advocate for development and others favoring preservation of open space to maintain the current image of Carefree.
Two incumbents, Vince D'Aliesio and Stephen Hatcher, faced challenges from newcomers Diane Roth, Lon Johnson, Colleen Rose-Scurti and Nakisa Azizi.
Rose-Scruti, Johnson and Roth had secured the most votes of the pack on Friday evening. Rose-Scruti and Johnson secured enough votes to avoid a runoff.
In November, Roth is likely to face the fourth-highest vote-getter: Hatcher.
Cave Creek mayor and Town Council
Cave Creek elects its entire Town Council at the same time. Mayor Bob Morris was challenged by Jim Grubb. Councilmembers Tom Augherton, Dusty Rhoades, Thomas McGuire and Kathryn Royer squared off against Cynthia Driskell, Joe Freedman, Julie Goldammer and Alex Nadesan.
In the mayor’s election, Morris came out on top with substantially more votes than his opponent. The incumbent secured enough votes needed to avoid a runoff, guaranteeing him another term.
And in the Town Council contest, Royer, Driskell, McGuire, Augherton, Rhoades and Freedman were the top vote-getters for the six available council seats on the ballot. All appeared to have secured enough votes to avoid a runoff election in November.
But on Friday afternoon there was just a four-vote gap between Freedman and Goldammer, the seventh-highest vote-getter, setting up a likely recount before the final slate of victors can be confirmed.
Securing a reliable water supply topped the issues that defined the campaigns, along with a debate about how much power the mayor should have in setting the agenda.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Runoffs for Mesa, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Fountain Hills mayor
