Democrat Wins Arizona House Seat, Setting Up Epstein Vote

(Bloomberg) — Democrat Adelita Grijalva won the special election for Arizona’s seventh district, The Associated Press projected, further narrowing the already razor-thin Republican majority in the US House while setting the stage for a forced floor vote to release government files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Republicans can only afford to lose two votes on any party-line bill that hits the floor and any tie in the chamber fails. It’s a high bar to pass given certain Republicans, such as Representative Thomas Massie, are known to defect from party-line interests.

Most Read from Bloomberg

That coalition could start becoming a headache for Republican leadership as soon as October. Grijalva said she will join all Democrats as the final signature needed in a petition to force a vote on a measure that would make certain unreleased records on Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell publicly available. The petition currently has four Republican backers and needs just one more lawmaker to compel consideration.

“This is as much about fulfilling Congress’ duty as a constitutional check on this administration as it is about demanding justice for survivors,” Grijalva said in a statement. “The days of turning a blind eye to Trump must end.”

Adelita Grijalva is a self-proclaimed progressive who previously served on the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

She fills the vacancy left open by her late father Raul Grijalva, who died in March from cancer after serving for 22 years in Congress. Her district stretches along the southern US-Mexico border and takes in parts of Yuma, Tucson, and a small slice of the Phoenix suburbs.

Uncomfortable votes

While Republican lawmakers have largely backed the White House’s agenda, their narrowing majority could force House Republicans to take politically uncomfortable votes in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections. Epstein is one, tariffs are another.

While House GOP leaders blocked a vote on President Donald Trump’s tariffs from coming to the House floor until January, some Republicans have expressed anxiety about the economic impacts and are seeking a bigger role for Congress in how the president’s signature foreign economic policy is levied.

There are two more special elections expected through the end of the year.

The first of them will be to fill the seat of the late Democrat Representative Sylvester Turner in Texas’s 18th district, which is scheduled for Nov. 4, 2025. If Democrats hold that seat, it would reduce the number of votes Republicans can afford to lose on any party-line vote to just one.