Democratic Congressman Tom O’Halleran has won a second term in the U.S. House. That means five out Arizona’s nine congressional districts will be held by Democrats in the upcoming 116th Congress, which convenes in January. KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius reports.
O’Halleran took on Republican Wendy Rogers in the race for Arizona’s sprawling First Congressional District. He’s a political moderate elected to Congress in 2016 who served in the Arizona Legislature as a Republican. O’Halleran says his priorities will be to pass a farm bill, protect Social Security and Medicare, and continue to address uranium contamination on tribal lands.
"We have to resolve issues. America has tremendous amounts of priority and they all affect Congressional District 1. There’s too much work to do to have partisanship. There’s too much at stake here," he says.
Republican Paul Gosar cruised to reelection in western Arizona’s Fourth Congressional District with nearly 70 percent of the vote. The four-term Congressman defeated doctor and businessman David Brill.
And in southern Arizona, Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick will return to Congress after flipping the Tucson district vacated by Republican Martha McSally.