Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton announces he’ll run for Congress

PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton wants to go to Congress, announcing Thursday that he’ll seek to replace fellow Democrat Kyrsten Sinema representing the 9th Congressional District.

Stanton’s announcement, which was expected, comes a week after Sinema announced that she was vacating the seat to challenge Republican Jeff Flake next year for his U.S. Senate seat.

The vacancy in Sinema’s Phoenix-area congressional seat is drawing lots of other interest. Democrat Talia Fuentes, who lost in the heavily Republican 5th District last year, has also pulled papers to run.

Four Republicans have filed for the seat: Radio host and political activist Seth Leibsohn, retired Navy physician Steve Ferrara, businessman David Giles and Irina von Behr, who ran for Tempe city council in 2016. Giles lost to Sinema last year.

The 9th District includes parts of Phoenix and several suburbs to the southeast.

Stanton, 47, is an attorney who was first elected mayor in 2011 and re-elected in 2015. As mayor, he has supported expansion of Phoenix’s light rail system and redevelopment of the city’s central core.

He announced his candidacy through a video, saying his record of helping the city recover from the Great Recession and working with both parties is what’s needed in Washington.

“Arizonans deserve better than what we’re getting from Washington, and there has never been a more consequential time in the fight to protect the middle class,” Stanton said in a statement. “In Congress, I’ll continue to do what we’ve done in Phoenix: deliver real results that improve people’s lives.”

The 9th District was drawn about six years ago as a swing district that either party could win. But Sinema won by nearly five percentage points in 2012 and widened that to 22 percent last year.