Adrian Fontes races out to large lead over Alexander Kolodin in secretary of state race

Incumbent Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is trouncing Republican challenger and election denier Alexander Kolodin in early election night returns. 

After the first batch of election night results were posted, Fontes was leading Kolodin by 17 points with 58% of votes to Kolodin’s 41%. Those votes are early ballots that were delivered to election officials before Election Day.

Early on election night, Kolodin was one of many candidates aligned with President Donald Trump and endorsed by the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA who were faring poorly, according to results posted by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office. A poll last week from HighGround Public Affairs showed Fontes with an 11-point lead. 

Fontes handily beat Republican election denier Mark Finchem to take the office in 2022.

In the GOP primary, Kolodin beat Gina Swoboda, the former Arizona Republican Party chairwoman and a veteran election administrator who avoided backing the unfounded election conspiracy theories that have become a tenet of faith among many Republicans. 

After the primary results were announced, former Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer congratulated Fontes on winning the general election, echoing comments from Swoboda that Kolodin was “unelectable.” 

Kolodin, a state representative member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, ran on a platform of “election integrity” saying that he would “restore lawfulness, stability, and common sense to the office of Arizona Secretary of State.”

But he has been a prominent purveyor of election misinformation and conspiracy theories, during his time as an Arizona legislator, and as an election attorney. 

Kolodin was sanctioned by the Arizona State Bar in 2023 for his part in lawsuits challenging the 2020 election that made implausible and evidence-free claims of massive election fraud. He represented Trump’s campaign in the so-called “kraken” lawsuit in Arizona that was based on claims made by people with no actual knowledge of the elections.

During the campaign, Fontes, a former Maricopa County recorder, said he was the only candidate who would run the office in a professional, nonpartisan manner. 

Fontes far outstripped Kolodin in campaign contributions, raising more than $2.6 million to Kolodin’s $605,000.

The race for secretary of state was full of mud-slinging from both sides, with Kolodin accusing Fontes of failing to properly maintain voter rolls and running elections that aren’t secure. He also accused Fontes of working for the Sinaloa drug cartel and “representing pedophiles” when he was a public defender. 

Fontes denied that, calling Kolodin a “wild-eyed fanatic” running a campaign on restoring election integrity after he spent years stoking doubt in the state’s elections. 

Kolodin authored the legislation that became Proposition 144, a ballot question that asks voters to make numerous changes to Arizona elections, including requiring voters to show ID every time they cast a ballot, even if they vote by mail. The proposition doesn’t say how mail-in voters would do that, leaving the details up to the legislature to figure out later. Critics say that could mean the end of no-excuse vote by mail. 

Although Kolodin has tried to distance himself during this campaign from some of his more extreme past positions, as a legislator, he’s backed numerous extreme changes to the state’s elections, including a bill that sought to abolish no-excuse mail-in voting. 

Republicans implemented no-excuse vote-by-mail in Arizona in 1991. It is wildly popular, with about 80% of voters casting their ballots that way in each election.