All 60 seats in the Arizona House of Representatives are up for election in 2020. Republicans lost seats but maintained their majority in the 2018 elections for the Arizona House of Representatives, winning 31 seats to Democrats’ 29. Arizona state representatives serve two-year terms, with all seats up for election every two years. Thirty multi-member state House districts elect two members each.
Ballotpedia has identified eight of the races in 2020 as battlegrounds, four of which are Democrat-held districts, three of which are Republican-held districts, and one district which is split between Republicans and Democrats. The Democrat-controlled battlegrounds are Districts 7, 10, 18, and 28. The Republican-controlled battlegrounds are Districts 6, 20, and 23. The split battleground is District 17 which is currently represented by both a Democrat and a Republican. Based on an analysis of these districts’ electoral histories, these races have the potential to be more competitive than other races and could lead to shifts in the partisan balance of the Arizona House of Representatives.
Arizona has been under a Republican trifecta since 2009 when Gov. Jan Brewer (R) was sworn into office. Brewer’s accession to the governorship ended a period of divided government that began when Republicans lost their majority in the state Senate during the 2000 legislative elections. Republicans regained their Senate majority in the 2002 elections, when Janet Napolitano (D) was elected governor. Heading into the 2018 election, Republicans had maintained control of the state House since the 1966 elections. Had the Democratic Party taken the state House, it would have broken the Republican trifecta.
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