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Abraham Hamadeh
A headshot of Hamadeh smiling in front of an American flag
Hamadeh in 2024
Member-elect of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Arizona's 8th district
Assuming office
January 3, 2025
SucceedingDebbie Lesko
Personal details
Born
Abraham Jamal Hamadeh

(1991-05-15) May 15, 1991 (age 33)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
EducationArizona State University, Tempe (BA)
University of Arizona (JD)
OccupationProsecutor
Military service
AllegianceUnited States
Branch/serviceUnited States Army
Years of service2016–present
RankCaptain
UnitUnited States Army Reserve
AwardsMeritorious Service Medal

Abraham Jamal Hamadeh[1] (born May 15, 1991) is an American politician, former prosecutor, and U.S. Army intelligence officer,[2] who is the member-elect to the U.S. House of Representatives for Arizona's 8th congressional district. Hamadeh was previously the Republican Party nominee for Arizona attorney general in the 2022 election.

Early life and education

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Hamadeh was born in Chicago, Illinois, and later moved to Phoenix, Arizona. He is the youngest child in a family of Syrian and Venezuelan immigrants and grew up in a mixed-faith household, with a Muslim father and a Druze mother.[3][4]

Hamadeh attended Arizona State University for his undergraduate degree and later earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Arizona College of Law. While attending law school, the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys' Advisory Council awarded Hamadeh the Udall Fellowship.[5]

Military service

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Hamadeh has served in the U.S. Army Reserve as an intelligence officer since 2016, attaining the rank of captain.[6] He was deployed to Saudi Arabia in 2020 after al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on Naval Air Station Pensacola in December 2019. He trained members of the Saudi armed forces for 14 months before returning to the U.S. in 2021, receiving a Meritorious Service Medal for his service.[3][7][8]

Early career

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Hamadeh's first legal role was as an unpaid intern in the office of the Tucson City Prosecutor. He passed the Arizona Bar Exam in May 2017, and two months later began working in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office as a prosecutor. According to the Arizona Republic, Hamadeh prosecuted at least six trials while a county prosecutor.[9] He resigned from this role in September 2021, citing his intent to focus on his political campaign and his absence from the office following his military deployment in July 2020.[10]

2022 attorney general campaign

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See also: 2022 Arizona Attorney General election
Hamadeh with Kris Mayes at a candidate forum in September 2022.

Hamadeh's political career began in November 2021, when he launched his campaign for attorney general of Arizona. His primary campaign issue was election security, as he spoke out in support of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen through means of widespread electoral fraud, which former president Donald Trump and his allies had promoted following his loss to president Joe Biden. Other issues he ran on included the enforcement of state border laws, support for law enforcement, and opposition to censorship by technology corporations.[11] Within the first week of his candidacy, Hamadeh's campaign announced that he had raised over $100,000.[12] He received Trump's endorsement in June 2022 and won the Republican primary election in August, defeating former city councilor Rodney Glassman and former state supreme court justice Andrew Gould.[13][14]

In the general election, Hamadeh faced Democratic Party nominee Kris Mayes, a law professor and former chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission. The election was considered a tossup by forecasters, citing each candidate's tight leads in polling as well as Arizona's status as a swing state due to recent Democratic victories in statewide races.[15] On election day, November 8, there was no clear winner, as Mayes held a lead of a few thousand votes over Hamadeh while ballots continued to be counted.[16] When the final tally was completed on November 21, Mayes led Hamadeh by 510 votes out of 2.5 million cast in the closest attorney general race of the year. Because the margin of victory fell below 0.5% of the total vote, an automatic recount was triggered under state law, beginning on December 5.[17] On December 29, judge Timothy Thomason of the Maricopa County Superior Court announced Mayes as the winner of the election with a reduced margin of 280 votes,[18][19] making it one of the closest elections in the history of Arizona.[20] She would take office only four days later, on January 2.

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Hamadeh made his first attempt to challenge the results of the election after the final tally was completed, although his case was dismissed by Judge Randall Warner due to a state law that requires election challenges to be filed after the certification of results.[21] He filed a second lawsuit following the certification on December 5, arguing that misconduct by election workers, including misinterpretation of undervotes, had cost him the election. However, only 14 ballots were submitted for evidence, which Judge Lee Jantzen noted had only demonstrated errors on the part of the voters, not election officials. Jantzen ultimately denied the election challenge in a preliminary hearing on December 23, 2022 stating in his closing remarks that "there isn't enough information" that any illegal activity had taken place.[22]

In his third lawsuit filed after Mayes had been sworn in, Hamadeh argued that 1,100 provisional ballots had gone uncounted. This claim had come after election officials uncovered 507 votes in Pinal County that were left uncounted, largely due to human error.[23] Judge Jantzen rejected this lawsuit in July 2023, finding that there was no new evidence that could not have been previously produced at the original trial.[24] When Hamadeh requested for the Arizona Supreme Court to intervene, they declined and instead sanctioned him, including an order to pay $55,000 toward the legal fees of Mayes and Adrian Fontes, the newly elected Arizona secretary of state.[25] In April 2024, the Arizona Court of Appeals had dismissed Hamadeh's request for a new trial in a split decision, criticizing his failure to swiftly move the case forward.[26] In December 2024, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected Hamadeh's appeal, ending this lawsuit.[27]

In November 2023, Hamadeh initiated another lawsuit against the 2022 election result by claiming that the 2022 election violated his constitutional rights; this lawsuit was rejected in July 2024 by Judge Scott Blaney of the Maricopa County Superior Court, who ruled that Hamadeh filed the lawsuit too late, because it was filed seven months after a report was published on the 2022 election's ballot issues, instead of within a five-day limit for an election challenge.[28]

In a different lawsuit, Hamadeh raised the issue of Maricopa County's counting of early ballots in the 2022 election, then concluded that he should be appointed as attorney general as he was "personally entitled" to the role; a rejection of this lawsuit was published in April 2024 by Judge Susanna Pineda of the Maricopa County Superior Court, with Pineda ruling that Hamadeh's challenge should have been brought before the election, and further stating that Hamadeh "surmises, without proof, that he received the most ‘legal votes’" in the election.[29] In October 2024, the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Hamadeh's appeal of Pineda's ruling, agreeing that Hamadeh had filed the lawsuit too late, but the Arizona Court of Appeals rescinded Pineda's order for Hamadeh to be sanctioned to pay his opponents' legal fees.[30]

U.S. House of Representatives

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Election

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See also: 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Arizona § District 8
Hamadeh with Kari Lake at a campaign rally in November 2023.

Hamadeh announced his campaign for Arizona's 8th congressional district in October 2023, shortly after incumbent representative Debbie Lesko announced her retirement from the seat.[31] Hamadeh's campaign garnered significant support from notable Republican politicians, including former president Donald Trump and former news anchor and political candidate Kari Lake. The Republican primary attracted a field of prominent candidates, including venture capitalist Blake Masters, who lost the 2022 U.S. Senate election against incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly, along with former congressman Trent Franks and state legislators Anthony Kern and Ben Toma.

Polls leading up to the election showed both Hamadeh and Masters with small leads over each other, and the two were seen as the frontrunners, despite Masters massively outspending Hamadeh with his personal funds. The primary campaign was described as "nasty", with the Masters campaign deeming Hamadeh as a "terrorist sympathizer" by negatively highlighting his Muslim heritage. Masters incurred backlash for using Islamophobic rhetoric and imagery in campaign ads.[32] Hamadeh's campaign responded by stating that he "embodies the same Judeo-Christian values that our nation was built upon."[7]

Two days before the primary election, despite endorsing Hamadeh the year before, Trump published a statement making a dual endorsement for both him and Masters.[33] Hamadeh won the Republican primary with just under 30% of the vote to Masters's 26%. Because of the district's strong Republican leaning, he was favored to win the November general election against Democrat Greg Whitten, and would go on to defeat Whitten with 56.5% of the vote.[34][35]

Political positions

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Israel

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Hamadeh is a strong supporter of Israel, stating that "Jewish people have no bigger ally than me." He has said that his views on Israel were affected by a visit he made to the country while in law school. Hamadeh believed he was better accepted as a Druze in Israel than in neighboring Lebanon, which further cemented his support.[8] While campaigning for Congress, he criticized the nationwide pro-Palestine university demonstrations and said that "there was a direct connection between Marxism and the rise of antisemitism in the US since October 7."[36]

Electoral history

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2022

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Republican primary results[37]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Abraham Hamadeh 265,636 33.56%
Republican Rodney Glassman 186,863 23.60%
Republican Andrew Gould 132,253 16.71%
Republican Dawn Grove 94,670 11.96%
Republican Lacy Cooper 67,742 8.56%
Republican Tiffany Shedd 44,453 5.61%
Total votes 791,617 100.0%
2022 Arizona Attorney General election[38]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic Kris Mayes 1,254,809 49.94% +1.68%
Republican Abraham Hamadeh 1,254,529 49.93% −1.80%
Write-in 3,052 0.12% +0.11%
Total votes 2,512,390 100.0%
Democratic gain from Republican

2024

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Republican primary results
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Abraham Hamadeh 30,686 29.9
Republican Blake Masters 26,422 25.7
Republican Ben Toma 21,549 21.0
Republican Trent Franks 16,714 16.3
Republican Anthony Kern 4,922 4.8
Republican Pat Briody 2,336 2.3
Total votes 102,629 100.0

Personal life

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Hamadeh identifies as non-denominational. His older brother, Waseem Hamadeh, works in a Phoenix-based real estate firm and has made $1 million contributions to both of his campaigns.[39]

References

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  1. ^ "Rep. Abraham Hamadeh - R Arizona, 8th - Biography". LegiStorm. Retrieved November 6, 2024.
  2. ^ Estrada, Melissa. "Who is running for Arizona attorney general? These are the major candidates in the race". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved August 22, 2024.
  3. ^ a b Gillespie, Brandon (June 26, 2024). "Army veteran running for Congress reveals plan to save America 'hijacked by left-wing lunatics'". Fox News. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
  4. ^ Van Winkle, Clint (November 17, 2023). "One of Arizona's most pro-Israel candidates Is Arab-American". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved August 22, 2024.
  5. ^ "ASU alumnus wants to serve his community, country". ASU News. Retrieved August 22, 2024.
  6. ^ "Here's what Arizona AG candidate Abraham Hamadeh says about qualifications, other issues". KTAR-FM. September 12, 2022. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  7. ^ a b Kavaler, Tara (June 14, 2024) [June 5, 2024]. "A Nasty House Primary Gets Even Nastier Over Religion". NOTUS. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
  8. ^ a b Van Winkle, Clint (November 17, 2023). "One of Arizona's most pro-Israel candidates Is Arab-American". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
  9. ^ "The Arizona Republic Subscription Offers, Specials, and Discounts".
  10. ^ Waiss, Alexis. "Arizona Democrats attack Hamadeh's legal experience". @politifact. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
  11. ^ Estrada, Melissa (November 20, 2021). "Who is running for Arizona attorney general? These are the major candidates in the race". The Arizona Republic. Gannett (published November 4, 2021). Archived from the original on November 22, 2021. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
  12. ^ Kavaler, Tara (November 15, 2021). "Abe Hamadeh, newest GOP candidate for Attorney General, raises over $100,000 in first week". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  13. ^ "Former President Trump endorses Abraham Hamadeh for Arizona Attorney General". KTAR-FM. Phoenix. June 14, 2022. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  14. ^ Giles, Ben (August 3, 2022). "Abraham Hamadeh will face Kris Mayes in Arizona attorney general race". KJZZ. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  15. ^ "Secretary of State and Attorney General: What to Watch for Next Week in Key Statewide Contests". Sabato's Crystal Ball. November 3, 2022. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
  16. ^ Kalale, Rithwik (November 8, 2022). "With abortion taking center stage, Mayes and Hamadeh run neck and neck in AG's race". Cronkite News. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  17. ^ "Arizona Sec. of State Katie Hobbs gets recount process started for 3 races". KTAR News. December 5, 2022. Retrieved December 7, 2022.
  18. ^ "CV2022-015915: Order Regarding Recount Results". Maricopa County Superior Court. December 29, 2022. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  19. ^ Cohen, Ethan; Bradner, Eric; DePalo, Melissa Holzberg (December 29, 2022). "Recount confirms Democrat Kris Mayes won Arizona attorney general race". CNN. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  20. ^ Billeaud, Jacques (December 29, 2022). "Democrat wins Arizona attorney general race after recount". Associated Press. Retrieved November 6, 2024.
  21. ^ Gomez, Gloria Rebecca (November 29, 2022). "Judge throws out Abe Hamadeh's bid to overturn the election because it's too early to challenge the results". States Newsroom. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  22. ^ Gomez, Gloria Rebecca (December 23, 2022). "Hamadeh's election challenge shot down by judge". States Newsroom. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  23. ^ Huseman, Jessica (December 30, 2022). "Arizona recount uncovers several ballot-counting errors in Pinal County". States Newsroom. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  24. ^ Riley, Kiera (July 17, 2023). "Judge who denied Hamadeh's motion for new trial explains decision". Arizona Capitol Times. Retrieved August 3, 2023.
  25. ^ Barchenger, Stacey (October 17, 2023). "Abe Hamadeh must pay attorneys fees to Kris Mayes and Adrian Fontes, Arizona top court says". Arizona Republic. Archived from the original on October 18, 2023. Retrieved October 24, 2023.
  26. ^ Sievers, Caitlin (April 11, 2024). "Appeals court rejects Abe Hamadeh's third challenge to his 2022 AG loss". States Newsroom. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  27. ^ Fischer, Howard (November 7, 2024). "Supreme Court quashes Kari Lake's final 2022 election appeal". tucson.com. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  28. ^ Schutsky, Wayne; Fischer, Howard (July 2, 2024). "Judge dismisses Hamadeh's 3rd attempt to overturn 2022 election results". KJZZ (FM). Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  29. ^ Fischer, Howard (April 5, 2024). "Judge tosses another election challenge, orders Hamadeh to pay fees". tucson.com. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  30. ^ Fischer, Howard (October 30, 2024). "Unsuccessful 2022 GOP candidate loses again in AZ court". tucson.com. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  31. ^ "Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko says she won't seek reelection, Abe Hamadeh to run for her seat". KTVK. October 17, 2023. Retrieved October 17, 2023.
  32. ^ L'Heureux, TJ (June 7, 2024). "Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh waging MAGA's dumbest bro fight". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
  33. ^ Gersony, Laura (July 28, 2024). "Donald Trump praises Blake Masters in rare last-minute dual endorsement for Congress". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved July 28, 2024.
  34. ^ Gersony, Laura (August 1, 2024). "Abe Hamadeh wins GOP congressional primary, poised to succeed Rep. Debbie Lesko". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
  35. ^ "AP Race Call: Republican Abraham Hamadeh wins election to U.S. House in Arizona's 8th Congressional District". KTLA. Associated Press. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 17, 2024.
  36. ^ Van Winkle, Clint (November 17, 2023). "One of Arizona's most pro-Israel candidates Is Arab-American". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
  37. ^ Arizona Secretary of State (August 22, 2022). "State of Arizona Official Canvass – August 2, 2022, Primary Election" (PDF). Retrieved August 26, 2022.
  38. ^ "General Election Statewide Recount Results" (PDF). Arizona Secretary of State. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  39. ^ L'Heureux, TJ (February 2, 2024). "Abe Hamadeh's big bro becomes his campaign sugar daddy in House race". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
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