Being a swing state, Arizona's politics are watched with a magnifying glass across the country. It's not just who wins – though that is definitely what matters most – but it is smaller things.

Among the details that seem to move to the forefront is who leads the major parties. This serves a temperature check for how the parties are running and where they're trending.

2024 was a pretty good year for Republicans in Arizona, as elsewhere. President Donald Trump won the state and Republicans won in all other races that were thought to be a toss-up.

Unsurprisingly, that left Democrats looking for changes in their state party leadership, despite holding office in all of the major roles in the state. The GOP stuck with a leader they didn’t initially select two years ago, though she faced a challenge to keep her post.

This week on The Gaggle, a politics podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, hosts Ron Hansen and Mary Jo Pitzl are joined by Kirk Adams and Sam Richard of Consilium Consulting, a Phoenix-based firm that handles lobbying and consulting.

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