On May 16, former Arizona state legislator Tom O’Halleran said he will run for the State Senate as an independent candidate. See this story. He changed his registration from “Republican” to “independent” on May 14. The petition deadline this year for independent candidates in Arizona is May 28. O’Halleran served in the legislature for eight years as a Republican.

Arizona is one of only a handful of states in which no one has ever been elected to the state legislature except Republican and Democratic nominees. Of course, one reason for that is that Arizona has only been a state since 1912. It is unknown if any minor party or independent candidates were ever elected to the Arizona territorial legislature.