Fresh off his Republican primary win, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R-AZ) is already on offense, and his target is clear.
Petersen secured the GOP nomination for attorney general earlier this week, defeating military attorney Rodney Glassman (R-AZ) with more than 56 percent of the vote. Now, with the general election ahead, he's wasting no time drawing sharp distinctions between himself and Democratic incumbent Kris Mayes (D-AZ).
In a recent interview with KTAR, Petersen laid out what he says will be the defining argument of his campaign: that Mayes has drifted far from the values of everyday Arizonans, while he reflects them.
"I think what people will find is that I fall in line with the values of Arizonans, and Kris Mayes is out on the fringe on these 80-20 issues," Petersen said. "She's siding in the 20 percent and leaving Arizona behind."
Heated Issues
He pointed to more than 110 cases on his campaign website where he and Mayes have taken opposing legal and policy positions, saying voters can review them directly to draw their own conclusions.
Among the issues he highlighted were transgender athletes in school sports and sex offender laws, two areas where he said Mayes has taken positions he considers outside the mainstream.
"She does not think that we should protect girls in sports," Petersen said. "She thinks it's okay for boys to be in sports with girls. She didn't defend our sex offender laws. These are two scenarios where Kris Mayes and I have been on the other side of things."
Petersen also framed the race in broader political terms, arguing that the Democratic Party has moved significantly leftward and that Mayes represents that shift in Arizona.
"It used to be that Democrats and Republicans had a lot of similarities," he said. "But now we're seeing a lot of these Democrat elected officials that have gone extremely far left, like Kris Mayes."
Mayes ran uncontested in the Democratic primary and has been one of the more prominent attorneys general in the country during her first term, taking on numerous Trump administration policies in court.
The November matchup between Petersen and Mayes is definitely one to keep an eye on.
