Republican residents of a Tucson legislative district might feel a sense of dÊjà vu when they go to the ballot box later this month to vote in the primary for state Senate.
On July 30, GOP voters in legislative District 17 will be asked whether they want incumbent Justine Wadsack or former incumbent Vince Leach to be the Republican nominee for their state Senate seat.
Though Leach lost his primary to Wadsack two years ago, the election this time around is different, he says.
âRoughly half of the district was new two years ago because of redistricting,â Leach said in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star. âMost people didnât know me. I couldnât campaign because we were in (legislative) session until late June.â
Two years ago, Wadsack beat Leach in a three-way primary race, earning 40.9% of the vote, or 16,329 of the ballots cast. Leach, the then-incumbent, finished second with 35.5%, or 14,161 votes, and Robert Barr, another challenger, won 23.6%, or 9,407 votes.
Wadsack did not make herself available for an interview prior to this yearâs primary election, despite numerous attempts to contact her, including via text and email.
Leach told the Star he was successfully primaried by Wadsack because it was a three-way race and he thinks that he and Barr split the anti-Wadsack vote.
â(Wadsack) won roughly 40% of the vote and the other two of us took 60% of the vote,â he said. âMore people voted against her or not with her than voted for her.â
That was just the primary, however. In the general election, though by a fairly narrow margin of 3,000 votes, Wadsack beat her Democratic opponent, winning 51.2% of the votes.
Wadsack is well known for her culture-wars attacks in the state senate, as well as her stark black hair and ruby red lipstick, which usually perfectly matches with the bright red âMake America Great Againâ hat she frequently dons.
The incumbent has lived in Pima County for over 40 years, according to her website, and is a fourth-generation realtor.
During the last two years in the state senate, Wadsack made headlines for turning her back to Governor Katie Hobbs during the 2023 State of the State remarks, doing a photoshoot at the Capitol brandishing a machine gun and sponsoring a bill to ban books about transgender and nonbinary teens, despite not having read the book that inspired the legislation.
Wadsack has also pushed to limit the powers of the State Bar of Arizona, claiming that the organization told lawyers they would be disbarred if they took cases related to COVID-19.
When asked on the floor by another representative to provide evidence of her claims, Wadsack replied: âI donât owe you anything in the way of the proof.â
The bill did not pass.
Leach, on the other hand, does not have the breadth of experience as an Arizona resident that Wadsack does. He retired to Pima County from Wisconsin in 2007.
Leach was a member of the Arizona House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019 and was a state senator from 2019 to 2023, before losing to Wadsack. During his time in the senate, he served as the president pro tempore and focused heavily on fiscal conservatism.
He championed the tax policy which some blame for the current state deficit and sponsored a bill to give the legislature the power to overturn election results. Leach was against voter-approved initiatives authorizing medical marijuana and raising the state minimum wage to $12.
âWe always had a balanced budgetâ Leach said of his time on the appropriations and finance committees in the senate.
When challenged on the current issues arising from tax cuts put in place by former Governor Doug Ducey that Leach actively supported, he instead placed the blame on the budgeting system and the current state representatives, saying âshame on themâ for not ârealizing the issue sooner.â
As for most policies, Leach and Wadsack are both staunch conservatives who view issues through a similar lens.
Wadsack did not join Democrats to repeal the 1864 territorial era law banning abortion in Arizona. Leach told the Star that he wouldâve voted to repeal the law, and that instead of a total ban on abortion, he supports a 15-week ban with exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.
When Wadsack was on the floor during the vote, she spoke about her experience with a miscarriage that made her against the repeal of the abortion ban.
âGod chose when that heartbeat stopped,â she said at the time. âIt is not my job as a state senator to determine when a childâs heart stops beating.â
Leach, for his part, said that Republicans, like Wadsack, who voted against the repeal, made âa mistake.â
Now, Leach is back with plenty of time to campaign and money to spend on the race. He has released multiple ads taking shots at Wadsackâs personal beliefs, including times she liked posts spreading conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attack and the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 elementary school students and two teachers.
âYou have families and children killed and she suggested that (they) were killed in order to push for red flag laws,â Leach said, becoming visibly upset. âItâs very disturbing.â
Leach has also accused Wadsack of living outside of the district. A judge formally declared Wadsack a resident, though said he was âsuspiciousâ of her story.
Wadsack had moved from the home she lived in for years near the University of Arizona campus to a home where she rented a room on the far east side, in the legislative district. She claims she moved because of Antifa and harassment, though her husband and children stayed in the original home.
Leach claims the issue is still important, pointing to Wadsackâs donation page on her website, which includes the address and box number of a UPS store that is outside of her district.
That isnât necessarily the smoking gun that her challenger hopes, given its unlikely she would publish her address so widely. Most candidates use P.O. boxes for mail donations. Leach did say he was suspicious as to why she chose a UPS store so far from the district, and her supposed home.
