A special election primary in Arizona’s 7th District Tuesday is the latest flare-up of the Democratic Party’s clashes over age and experience as candidates vie to replace the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva.
Grijalva, who served as the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, died earlier this year from complications with cancer treatments. His daughter, former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva, is running to fill his seat. But she faces challenges from five other candidates, two of the most prominent being Deja Foxx, a 25-year-old progressive activist, and former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez.
If elected, Foxx would be the first Gen Z woman to serve in Congress. Foxx has underscored this potential first and looks to define the race as her attempt to topple the out-of-step Democratic old guard with fresh perspective. Grijalva, 54, sees it as a race of experiential divides, not generational ones. Her election would also carry symbolic weight as Grijalva would be the first Latina to represent Arizona in Congress.
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Hernandez, 35, has positioned himself in the middle of the two, arguing that there’s a need for generational change while highlighting his legislative experience.
In the heavily blue district, the winner of the primary will likely have a glide path in November. Progressive groups and lawmakers have largely thrown their support behind Grijalva, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Emily’s List. She also boasts endorsements from both of Arizona’s two senators.
Grijalva is campaigning on protecting Medicaid, promoting affordable housing, and defending southern Arizona’s economy against the Trump administration. She has highlighted her father’s legacy of championing environmental justice and her advocacy for public education while serving on the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board as issues she will continue to fight for in Congress.
“I’m not running on my last name, it just is my last name. So my dad left really big shoes to fill, but I stand on my own two feet in my more than two decades of public service to Arizona, and I’m proud to be supported by leaders and organizations that are leading the progressive movement,” she told ABC News.
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“I think Adelita’s record, energy and commitment to fight for working class people speaks for itself,” Joe Dinkin, the deputy director of the Working Families Party, told ABC News. “We were supportive of her father, too, but our support for Adelita has nothing to do with that. It has to do with her.”
Foxx, who worked on Kamala Harris’ presidential primary campaign in 2020, says she is the only “change candidate” in the race and the sole “break from the status quo” that could help push Democrats into favorable approval ratings.
With 250,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 400,000 on TikTok, Foxx has utilized social media to promote herself as a young, working class candidate, highlighting her own experience relying on programs like SNAP, Section 8 housing, and Medicaid and her advocacy for reproductive rights.
“It seems obvious to someone like me that as the Democratic Party faces approval ratings in the 20 percents that they should be embracing new messengers,” Foxx told ABC News.
Thom Reilly, a professor of public affairs at Arizona State University, says there’s little policy daylight between Grijalva and Foxx.
“I also think the national dialogue has kind of factored into this race,” Reilly explained. He pointed to the deaths of three Democratic lawmakers, including Grijalva, while in office this year and the recent win by Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral primary as sparking renewed debates over age in party leadership.
While the Gen-Z and progressive flanks of the party came together in support of Mamdani last month, fissures within the cohort have emerged in Arizona. Foxx is backed by Leaders We Deserve, a political action committee that boosts young progressive candidates whose co-founder David Hogg clashed with Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin earlier this year over the group’s support of primarying “asleep at the wheel” incumbents. Hogg was a DNC vice chair, but left his post last month in the midst of turmoil over leadership elections.
Foxx has also been endorsed by the progressive advocacy group Gen-Z for Change. The organization’s Executive Director Cheyenne Hunt, who ran in a primary for a House seat in California last year, emphasized that the Arizona race was a key opportunity to uplift young leaders in the party.
“When we don’t have a Gen Z woman in Congress yet, that’s a fundamental problem,” she said.
