The results are in, and Democrat JoAnna Mendoza is the new representative for Arizona's 6th Congressional District, defeating incumbent Representative Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ).
The Results
The final tally puts Mendoza ahead with 57.47 percent of the vote, while Rep. Ciscomani finished with 40.62 percent.
The Fight
PollingSource's last reported poll, taken October 26th, gave Mendoza a 3-point lead at 47% over Rep. Ciscomani's 44%, while the Cook Political Report ranked the race as a Lean Democrat, though Sabato's Crystal Ball considered it a toss-up.
JoAnna Mendoza faced intense scrutiny even before she won the primary in July, as footage from a 2020 interview in which she seemed to support defunding the police circulated in March, which the campaign denied was her intended meaning.
She was also confronted for her affiliation with a political action committee (PAC) founded by disgraced former Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA), her apparent support for the decriminalization of prostitution for transgendered women of color, and the allowance of transgender people to use women's restrooms.
Other areas of policy she was attacked for include her disparagement of Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program as "welfare for the wealthy" and alleged description of illegal aliens as "the only folks" who perform certain jobs in the United States.
Mendoza's personal life was further put under the microscope, as July saw the discovery of her brief marriage to a mysterious Syrian national named Tariq Alrawwass in 1998 and that her official campaign Instagram account followed adult content creators and witchcraft-focused pages.
In August, she was accused of collecting an unauthorized tax credit by claiming two primary residences for state aid-to-education tax credits that offset local school district taxes.
Mendoza, however, insisted it was a mistake and filed the appropriate paperwork to correct the issue and repay the money owed.
