Kirsten Engel, the Democrat who misplaced a detailed race final 12 months to signify Southern Arizona in Congress, stated Wednesday she’ll be again within the hunt once more in 2024.
U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani gained the 2022 election, with the Republican garnering about 5,000 extra votes throughout the district to fill the open seat. CD 6 stretches from Pinal County by about half of metro Tucson, and contains most of Cochise County apart from Douglas.
Engel “appears to complete the job” within the subsequent election, her marketing campaign stated. Republican operatives fired again that she is a “failed Democrat (sic) candidate.”
Whereas the freshman Republican has repeatedly labored to affiliate his election narrative with the American Dream, Engel stated in her announcement that “for thus many people, the American Dream retains falling additional and additional out of attain.”
“And what are Juan Ciscomani and the Republican Congress doing? Rolling again girls’s rights, ignoring local weather change, and placing massive companies forward of working households and small companies,” Engel stated. “I will not stand by and let Juan Ciscomani take us backwards.”
The GOP stated that “Southern Arizona voters rejected excessive liberal Kirsten Engel simply 5 months in the past.”
“Engel will lose once more as a result of her harmful agenda of defunding the police, elevating taxes and supporting open borders are (sic) far out of the mainstream,” Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Ben Petersen stated in a press launch.
Engel famous that “we got here rattling shut final time,” saying that CD 6 has been added to the Democrats’ nationwide “Districts in Play” listing.
The Democrat — a former state senator who was in search of to switch ex-U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in Congress — was outspent closely within the 2022 election; Engel says by a 6-1 ratio.
That hole was largely because of the Democratic Congressional Marketing campaign Committee focusing efforts elsewhere, slightly than investing what for years has been a hard-fought battleground district.
Whereas her marketing campaign raised greater than $2.4 million, spending by outdoors teams for the GOP candidate swamped Engel’s fundraising. She spent practically her total struggle chest, reporting simply $1,305 remaining in March, with money owed of $518.
Even so, the race between the 2 candidates was tight sufficient that it took per week after Election Day for the Tucson Sentinel and different information retailers to name the result.
That slim margin “proved that she is the candidate who can win this robust swing seat,” Engel’s marketing campaign stated Wednesday.