Chair of the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) Gina Swoboda detailed what her job as chair will look like leading up to the 2026 midterm elections during an exclusive interview on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show on Wednesday.
Swoboda was reelected as AZGOP chair after she was elected to a partial term last year. She presided over the party during the successful election of President Donald Trump, which won the state of Arizona by 5.5 percentage points.
“The constitution is the product that sells itself and people will come if you give them a candidate that they can believe in. President Trump did accomplish that, and we’re very proud to have delivered it,” Swoboda said on Wednesday’s show.
Looking ahead, Swoboda said the state Republican party will now turn its focus to the 2026 midterm elections, which will include the statewide races for Arizona governor, attorney general, secretary of state, mine inspector, superintendent of public instruction, treasurer, and corporation commission as well as races for the U.S. House, Arizona State Senate, and Arizona House of Representatives.
As chair of AZGOP, Swoboda said her job will be to focus on going after Democratic candidates who emerge in the different races as the state Republican party is not involved in the primary process of hand picking a nominee.
“My job in all of 2025 and all the way through the primary election on the first Tuesday in August is to just beat the heck out of the left and their candidates every single day. As I always say, to make them as squishy on the outside as they are on the inside. Then, and only then, after the primary, we’re going to do a hard pivot and just start amping up the messaging of whatever nominee that the primary voters give me. It’s up to them – it is not up to us, and we shouldn’t be interfering in any way,” Swoboda said.
“As Republicans, we’re very liberty minded people. We go our own way. We don’t owe anybody our vote…Our state party has no business intervening in a primary, putting their finger on the scale, selecting a nominee, discouraging someone from running none of that. There’s no smoke filled back room…That’s not happening in this Arizona Republican Party…The Republican voters will decide who the nominee is that comes out of a primary,” Swoboda added.
The 2026 Arizona primary election will be held on Tuesday, August 4. The 2026 general election will be held on Tuesday, November 3.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
