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December 11th , 2025 Len’s Political Note #773 Adrian Fontes Arizona Secretary of State
2026 General Election
Adrian Fontes
In most states, the Secretary of State is in charge of elections. In Arizona, elections are the Secretary of State’s responsibility. And Arizona was arguably the most volatile, most complicated state in 2020 voting. That year, Joe Biden carried Arizona by 10,457 votes, .3% of the vote.
As he did in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, Donald Trump claimed the Democratic victory was fraudulent. To support Donald Trump’s claim, the Republican-controlled Arizona state Senate hired, as outside auditors, a firm named the Cyber Ninjas to reexamine the ballots. In the midst of a well-publicized and tensely followed operation, the Ninjas found no fraud. Instead, they found that Joe Biden’s margin of victory was 360 votes greater than had been the case in the official count.
Later, there was an entirely different fraud accusation. The Arizona Attorney General announced indictments against eleven people who claimed to be Electoral College electors who planned to vote for Trump. The Attorney General also announced indictments of seven other allies of Donald Trump who facilitated the claims made by these false electors.
In an ideal world every state’s Secretary of State or other official in charge of elections would be a nerd, someone with little or no interest in the outcome of elections except for their accuracy, someone who would organize elections so that there was no basis for questioning their results. After the results were announced, the candidate who lost would concede. The candidate who won would take a victory lap. And governance would continue with little or no disruption.
Adrian Fontes was not the Secretary of State during the 2020 chaos. He had spent four years in the Marines, four years getting his BA at the University of Arizona, and about four years getting his law degree from the University of Denver and working in a prosecutor’s office in Colorado. He returned home to Arizona (the state where his family could be traced back 300 years) to work in the Maricopa County Attorney’s office and the Arizona Attorney General’s office. Maricopa County is to Phoenix as Cook County is to Chicago. Chicago is our third largest city; Phoenix our fifth largest.
Adrian Fontes had been elected Maricopa County Recorder in 2016. Within the limits of Maricopa County, subject to the oversight of the Secretary of State, he had been in charge of the elections in 2020. And he was running for reelection at the same time.
As Recorder, he had authorized early voting, arranged a pilot to allow voters to vote at any voting site, computers providing the appropriate ballot for where they lived. In 2020, the voting at Maricopa County was watched. Protesters and conspiracy theorists were concerned that votes would be stolen from Trump. Among those who saw conspiracies to cheat were Adrian Fontes’ Republican opponent Stephen Richter.
Stephen Richter was elected County Recorder in 2020. Adrian Fontes’ response fit the ideal described above for someone who loses an election. And Stephen Richter retreated from his claims of conspiracy and fraud. It would take an extremely subtle fraudster to arrange for his own election loss while joining a national criminal effort to elect a President of the United States.
In 2022, Adrian Fontes ran for Arizona’s Secretary of State to replace Democrat Katie Hobbs who ran for Governor. During the interim, while working as Deputy Recorder in the Tucson area Pima County, he was critical of Republican intimidation of election workers, threats that led people to need safe houses if they and their families were in danger. Adrian Fontes defeated Mark Finchem by 120,208 votes. Finchem was an Arizona State Rep who joined with the national conspiracy theorists and argued that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Finchem did not concede his loss. He sued. He wanted the election “nullified and redone.” He claimed “suspicion that some votes may not have been counted” and that the Secretary of State Katie Hobbs had a perceived conflict of interest and should have recused herself. The law suit was dismissed with prejudice and the judge required Finchem to pay Adrian Fontes’ legal fees.
The suspicions about the 2020 electio linger. President Donald Trump probably complains about having been cheated out of a victory in 2020 twice a week. Finchem, meanwhile, is still in politics. He was elected to the Arizona State Senate in 2024.
Adrian Fontes’ Republican opponent in 2026, Alexander Kolodin, was born in Chandler, Arizona. He went away to school – getting a BA from Georgetown and his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He is now an Arizona State Rep and has had success both in the legislature and as an attorney.
He represented the Cyber Ninjas and prevented Democrats from stopping the audit. He represents the alternate electors and argues that they became alternate electors only in case Trump won his lawsuits. He blocked efforts to gain access to the Republican Party Chair’s telephone records and prevented Congressman Paul Gosar from being barred from the ballot. In the legislature, he has had bills passed that allowed the hand counting of votes and led efforts to reconcile Arizona election laws with federal laws, generally gaining passage of rules Republicans have seen as favorable to them.
Alexander Kolodin will not be easy to defeat. DONATE to Adrian Fontes’ campaign.
Other Arizona Races
Governor. Katie Hobbs is running for a second term. She has opposed invidious discrimination, strengthened oversight of prisons, and eased Arizonans medical debt bhy arranging for its purpose. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #712.
Attorney General Kris Mayes is running for a second term. A victor by 280 votes, she has been focusing on relations with the federal government – helping fired employees get reinstate, opposing the firing of federal commissioners, and working to help public schools and others prepare for ICE. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #714.
Arizona 06. JoAnna Mendoza, a Marine drill sergeant who became a leading figure among non-commissioned officers, is running to flip this Congressional seat. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #762.
Nevada
Governor Attorney General Aaron Ford is the former State Senate Majority Leader who focused in the Senate on protecting first responders and ensuring price transparency for pharmaceuticals. As Attorney Genereal he has focused on environmental regulation. If elected he would be Nevada’s first African American Governor. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #745.
Nevada 02 Susie Lee has been an advocate for education and for the protection of natural resources. She is now a member of the appropriations committee and was elected to the House Democrats leadership group as a representative of candidates from battleground districts. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #770
