As the Arizona Globe has been predicting since the moment Debbie Lesko announced her retirement from Congress, Blake Masters has now officially thrown his hat into the ring 2022 for the nomination to the CD8 seat in the northwest suburbs of Phoenix.

Masters accumulated a decent amount of name ID in his statewide run last year, in which he spent more than $10 million but lost by 4.9% to incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly. The only other announced candidate, Abe Hamadeh, also ran statewide in 2022. He lost his still-contested race to Kris Mayes by fewer than 300 votes.

As the Globe has covered, it’s instructive to look at how CD8 voted in 2022. In CD8, Masters beat Kelly 161,230 (53.37%) to 140,868 (46.63%) — a margin of almost 7 points. Hamadeh beat Mayes 167,716 votes (55.89%) to 132,392 (44.11%) – a margin of more than 11 points. Not only is Hamadeh’s margin better, he actually got 6,000 more votes in CD8 than Masters did. It is uncommon for a race lower on the ballot to exceed the vote totals of the races higher on the ballot.

Speaker of the Arizona House of Reps Ben Toma has also been mentioned as a possible candidate. And although we didn’t see an official announcement, the group US Term Limits thanked State Sen. Anthony Kern on X for signing their term limits pledge and referred to him as “Candidate for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.” According to a credible poll the Globe discussed yesterday, Hamadeh is the early frontrunner, with 31%, ahead of Masters (24%) and Toma 11%.

In a brief phone call with the Arizona Globe, Masters said that he is looking forward to discussing the race, but is already hard at work dialing supporters. “I would love to schedule an interview, unfortunately I’m in a call-time block.”

The Globe will be covering this race like a weighted blanket, so expect more from all candidates.

So far, both announced candidates have been criticized for carpet-bagging. Hamadeh has noted that he grew up in CD8 and maintained connections to it, while the MSM has taken shots at Masters for, as Business Insider put it in its headline, “he lives over 100 miles away in Tucson.” It’s doubtful voters care as much about their Congressman’s address as his views on the issues — especially primary voting Republicans — but we’ll find out for sure on Primary Day, August 6, 2024.