Arizona Democrat Says She Was Raped While Running for Congress, Cites Hundreds of Women Who Responded

A Democratic congressional candidate in Arizona said she was sexually assaulted while running for office and came forward publicly after hundreds of women from around the world contacted her with their own accounts of sexual violence.

The candidate, who is challenging freshman Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh in Arizona's 8th District in November, described the assault as having occurred during a heated campaign season in which concerns about political violence have been rising nationally.

She said the response to her disclosure has been overwhelming. "The humbling thing is that so many — hundreds and hundreds of women from around the world — have taken the time to write me and tell me" their stories, she said.

The 8th District race is one of a handful in Arizona that Democrats are targeting as they try to flip control of the House. Hamadeh won the seat in 2024 and is seeking a second term.

The candidate said she initially kept the assault private and continued campaigning, in part because her operation runs on a shoestring budget. "We are not a well-funded campaign," a source close to the effort said.

She described handling much of the campaign's day-to-day work herself. "I took pride in being able to, you know, do these things myself because we are a grassroots campaign, so it wasn't unusual" for her to work alone at events and in the field, she said.

Her decision to speak publicly comes amid heightened scrutiny of safety for candidates and elected officials. At a rally in September, an armed man was arrested near a campaign event, according to law enforcement accounts, one of several incidents that have prompted calls for increased security for candidates down the ballot.

Women who contacted the candidate described similar experiences of assault and said they had stayed silent for years. The candidate said she decided to go public in part to counter the isolation many of them described.

Arizona's 8th District covers parts of the northwestern Phoenix suburbs and is rated as a competitive seat by nonpartisan political forecasters. Hamadeh's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the candidate's disclosure.