Man with dark hair, beard, and black-rimmed glasses wearing a dark suit and red tie, seated against a purple background.
Rob Schumacher/The Republic / US
News

Alex Kolodin Still Says the 2020 Election Was Rigged, and He’s Leading by 24 Points to Become Arizona’s Top Elections Official

By

The office he’s favored to win is the one that certifies Arizona’s elections and tells voters they can trust the count. He was part of the “kraken” lawsuits that tried to overturn 2020, and the state bar admonished him for filing suits that had no merit.

Arizona votes today in a Republican primary for secretary of state, the office that maintains the voter rolls, certifies election equipment, and writes the manual counties follow to run elections.

Kolodin, a state representative from Scottsdale, built his reputation on claiming U.S. elections, including Arizona’s, are unfair and “rigged.” He was part of the “kraken” lawsuits with Trump ally Sidney Powell that alleged “massive election fraud” in 2020, and he represented some of the Republican “fake electors” who tried to set aside Arizona’s certified results. After the case was dismissed, the state bar admonished him and required him to take legal ethics classes for filing suits lacking merit.

His rival, Gina Swoboda, is a former state party chair who worked in the secretary of state’s office under both a Republican and a Democrat. She argues Kolodin can’t win in November. “I just want to ask everybody out there: Do you seriously think that my opponent could possibly beat Adrian Fontes in the general election?” she said during a May 14 forum on Arizona PBS. “The answer is no.” Kolodin fired back that she was “definitely not someone stable enough to be our chief elections officer.”

Man with dark hair, beard, and black-rimmed glasses wearing a navy suit and red tie, seated against a purple background.
Arizona state Rep. Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) sits before a Republican secretary of state primary debate against former Arizona GOP Chairwoman Gina Swoboda, hosted by Arizona PBS in Phoenix on May 14, 2026. Photo by Rob Schumacher / The Republic.

Stephen Richer, the former Maricopa County Recorder and a Republican, warned about what Kolodin would bring to the role. “I think that it could undermine the process if your chief spokesperson is peddling some of the nonsense that Alex has peddled over the last now-almost six years,” he told USA TODAY.

Whoever wins faces Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes in November. The race comes days after Trump gave a nationwide address on July 16 claiming America’s elections cannot be trusted, and after he signaled he intends to assume federal control over some aspects of voting. “Election administration is hard enough without threats from the federal government,” Fontes said.

Thanks for spending time with Thought Catalog. Connect with us on Facebook and browse the rest of our website.