Democrat Adelita Grijalva has announced a run for the seat her late father held in Congress for 22 years. Photo by Paul Ingram | TucsonSentinel.com
Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva announced Monday that she is launching a campaign for the seat vacated by the death of her father, longtime U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva.
“I want to run for Congress because this community, Southern Arizona, deserves the bold leadership that they’ve had with my dad for the last 22 years,” the Democrat told the Tucson Sentinel. “At this time in our nation, we can’t negotiate with a party of extremists, and you need people who are going to stand up for something. I’m going to stand up for Southern Arizona.”
Raúl Grijalva died on March 13 at the age of 77 after a battle with lung cancer. He had represented Southern Arizona since he was first elected to Congress in 2002. His funeral was last Wednesday.
Gov. Katie Hobbs has called for a July 15 primary in Congressional District 7, where 40 percent of voters are registered Democrats, 21 percent are registered Republicans and the remaining 39 percent are independent of the two major parties. Early voting in the primary begins on June 18 and the general election is scheduled for Sept. 23.
“We’re not living in normal times,” said Adelita Grijalva, speaking before her formal campaign announcement. “We need to be able to speak out, we need to protest, we need to march, we need to make our voices heard, and that’s what I’ve been doing my entire life.”
CD 7 special election
What: Special election in Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 7 to fill the seat held by the late Raul Grijalva
When: Early voting in the July 15 primary begins June 18. Early voting in the Sept. 23 general election begins Aug. 27.
Where: Congressional District 7, which includes parts of Pima, Yuma, Maricopa, Santa Cruz, Pinal and Cochise counties.
How: Early ballots will be sent to voters on the Active Early Voter List beginning June 18. Voters not on the list can request early ballots; procedures vary in different counties. Voting centers and polling places will be set up depending on various county policies. You must have been registered to vote by the June 16 deadline; check your registration at servicearizona.com.
By noon on Monday, Grijalva had already collected the 798 required signatures on nominating petitions, with the state’s E-Qual online platform indicating that she could collect no more from qualified signers from the district.
Grijalva, 54, said Congress should be reining in President Donald Trump as he cuts the federal government workforce, claws back grant dollars and guts agencies like the U.S. Department of Education.
“Part of the problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any kind of balance of power,” she said. “The executive gets to just decide that they’re going to make wholesale changes, decide that they’re going to cut programs that have already been funded and authorized by Congress, and there doesn’t seem to be any pushback.”
She said she feared that if Republicans moved forward with their budget plan to slash spending on healthcare programs like Medicaid, “that’s going to be devastating to Arizona and across the nation. You know who it’s going to impact the most are our most vulnerable, our children who are on KidsCare, those who rely on those services and our seniors.”
She said she shared her late father’s priorities of supporting education, the environment and immigrant rights.
“They are important issues to me,” Grijalva said. “I spent 20 years on the TUSD board. I spent 26 years working at a nonprofit with families that overwhelmingly were low socioeconomic and children of color.”
Indications are that Grijalva has been preparing to run for some time. Her campaign URL adelitaforcongress.com was registered in October, but no site was operating until Monday morning.
Grijalva enters the race with the endorsement of a wide range of local Democratic officials, including Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, who was seen as a possible contender for the congressional seat after the longtime lawmaker announced last year that he would not seek another term in the 2026 midterms. Romero is married to Ruben Reyes, who has served as Raúl Grijalva’s district director for years.
Romero is the first announced co-chair of Grijalva’s congressional campaign.
“Adelita Grijalva is a results-driven leader who fights for good jobs, our children and our environment,” Romero said in a prepared statement. “She believes that strong public schools and strong unions are important for hard-working families trying to make ends meet. Most importantly, she has the backbone to stand up for all of us against the Trump agenda.”
Grijalva has also been endorsed by Tucson City Council members Lane Santa Cruz, Paul Cunningham and Kevin Dahl; Pima County Supervisors Jen Allen and Rex Scott; Pima County Attorney Laura Conover, Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly and Pima County Assessor Suzanne Droubie; state lawmakers Betty Villagas, Mariana Sandoval, Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, Nancy Gutierrez and Chris Mathis; and local school board members Natalie Luna Rose, Jennifer Eckstrom, Ravi Grivois-Shah, Beki Quintero and Robert Jaramillo.
Grijalva submitted a letter Monday to her colleagues announcing her resignation from District 5 seat on the Pima County Board of Supervisors, effective Friday, April 4. Her remaining colleagues will appoint a new supervisor to the seat until a special election for a two-year term is held as part of the 2026 midterms.
The Tucson native graduated Pueblo High School (Class of ’89) before earning a degree in political science at the University of Arizona in 1995. She previously spent more than two decades working with juvenile defendants at Pima County’s Teen Court.
She was elected to the Tucson Unified School District 2002 and served until 2022.
Grijalva was first elected to the District 5 seat on the Board of Supervisors in 2020. She replaced Betty Villegas, who was appointed to the seat to replace the late Richard Elias, who died in 2020. Villegas did not seek to be elected to the board, and now serves in the Arizona House of Representatives.
In that 2020 race, Grijalva defeated Sunnyside School Board member Consuelo Hernandez in the Democratic primary with 68 percent of the vote before capturing 74 percent of the vote against Republican Fernando Gonzales. (Hernandez won election to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2022.) In the November 2024 general election, Grijalva landed 74 percent of the vote against independent candidate and TUSD boardmember Val Romero.
Consuelo Hernandez’s brother, former state lawmaker Daniel Hernandez, is the only other Democrat in the District 7 race with political experience and significant name ID among voters.
Hernandez, 37, said he was running in Congressional District 7 “to once again serve the community that raised me and give other people a shot at the American Dream that I got, but also make sure that we’re having somebody who goes to D.C. who can be a voice and an advocate for so many of these programs that are on the chopping block because of the Trump administration and the MAGA extremists that are enabling them in Washington.”
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who had been weighing a run in the special election, said last week that he would not launch a campaign for the seat.
Other lesser-known Democrats who have filed statements of interest include Samuel Alegria, David “Bees” Beis, Trista di Genova, Patrick Harris Sr., Victor Longoria, Scott Sheldon and Stefawna Welch. Republicans include Daniel Butierrez Sr. (who lost the CD7 race to Grijalva in 2024), Bill Hunter III, Carolyn Norris, Michael Rebeiro, Jorge Rivas, Jimmy Rodriguez, Gabriel Tapia, Raul Verdugo and Joe Wells. Alan Aversa has filed to run as a Libertarian, while Richard Grayson first filed to run as a Green Party candidate, then filed to run under the No Labels banner.
Congressional District 7 includes precincts in Tucson, Yuma, Nogales, Douglas, Sells and other areas in Southern Arizona. The majority of voters – nearly 61 percent – live in Pima County, while 14 percent live in Yuma County, 13 percent are in Maricopa County, 7 percent are in Santa Cruz County, 4 percent are in Cochise County and less than 1 percent are in Pinal County.
Grijalva interview: ‘We’re not living in normal times’
Grijalva gave an interview to the Tucson Sentinel before formally announcing her candidacy. This has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Why do you want to run for Congress?
I want to run for Congress because this community, Southern Arizona, deserves the bold leadership that they’ve had with my dad for the last 22 years. At this time in our nation, we can’t negotiate with a party of extremists. You need people who are going to stand up for something and I’m going to stand up for Southern Arizona.
We’re not living in normal times. So normal tactics of being able to work across the aisle, able to do all those things, those are all really noble thoughts, I think. But realistically, we need to be able to speak out, we need to protest, we need to march, we need to make our voices heard, and that’s what I’ve been doing my entire life.
Talk about your concerns with the Trump administration.
Part of the problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any kind of balance of power. The executive gets to just decide that they’re going to make wholesale changes, decide that they’re going to cut programs that have already been funded and authorized by Congress, and there doesn’t seem to be any pushback. Right now we have 87 executive orders — oh no, he added a couple —89 executive orders and 137 lawsuits.
So the only backup that we have right now are attorneys general like Kris Mayes who are fighting tooth and nail for the rights of all of us. But cutting Medicare, Medicaid, that’s going to be devastating to Arizona. It’s across the nation. But you know who it’s going to impact the most, is our most vulnerable, our children that are on KidsCare, that rely on those services, and our seniors.
Democrats are at a low point in public approval in some recent polls. What do you think the party needs to do to turn that around?
I think that we saw with Bernie Sanders coming and talking about what is happening to our democracy, and in every community that they’ve gone to, they’ve seen record number of people. … That resonated with people. It’s really about standing up for something you believe in. And what I heard overwhelmingly is the leadership we’re currently experiencing with the Democratic Party seems very preoccupied with getting reelected. So it’s less about being a public servant and more about keeping power.
Your dad was known for his advocacy for the environment, for working people, for education, for the rights of immigrants. Do you see all of those as important?
Absolutely, they are important issues to me. I spent 20 years on the TUSD Board. I spent 26 years working at a nonprofit with families that overwhelmingly were low socioeconomic and children of color, many grandparents raising children. The realities of what our families are going through — I don’t think that most of the people making the decisions understand what those impacts are.
Education is critically important. I’m a product of public education. My children are in our public schools, and I have done everything I can to expand opportunities for children for the last 22 years. On the environment, with the Pima County Board of Supervisors, we took the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan and added additional protections in order to try to minimize urban sprawl and try to concentrate development in areas that are already developed.
When you ran for Board of Supervisors in 2020, you faced Consuelo Hernandez in the Democratic primary. Now it appears as though you’ll be up against her brother, Daniel Hernandez. How tough a race do you think this primary is going to be?
I always run every race like I’m losing because I think it’s important for me to go out and talk about the issues that are important to our community. So it’s less about running against someone and why I am running for this. And that’s what I did in every election that I’ve ever run.
What else would you like to say to Sentinel readers?
I’ve spent the last three decades of my life right here in Southern Arizona, serving this community, and I’ve had the privilege of serving in two different offices and a bevy of boards. And if this community provides me the privilege of representing CD 7 in Congress, I will continue to work as hard as I can to earn that right and be the strongest advocate that I can for every person in this community.
