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Austin Smith (Arizona)
Austin Smith (Republican Party) was a member of the Arizona House of Representatives, representing District 29. He assumed office on January 9, 2023. He left office on January 13, 2025.
Smith (Republican Party) ran for re-election to the Arizona House of Representatives to represent District 29. He did not appear on the ballot for the Republican primary on July 30, 2024.
Biography
Austin Smith's career experience includes working as a director with Turning Point Action and the national field director of Students For Trump. He has served as the chair of Arizona Young Republicans.[1][2]
Sponsored legislation
The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.
Committee assignments
2023-2024
Smith was assigned to the following committees:
- Municipal Oversight and Elections (Decommissioned)
- Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee, Vice Chair
- Ways and Means Committee
Elections
2024
See also: Arizona House of Representatives elections, 2024
General election
General election for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 (2 seats)
Incumbent Steve Montenegro and James Taylor defeated Tanairi Ochoa-Martinez and Thomas Tzitzura in the general election for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Steve Montenegro (R) | 30.3 | 66,301 |
| ✔ |  | James Taylor (R) | 29.9 | 65,431 |
| Tanairi Ochoa-Martinez (D) | 20.4 | 44,776 | ||
| Thomas Tzitzura (D) | 19.4 | 42,535 | ||
| Total votes: 219,043 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 (2 seats)
Tanairi Ochoa-Martinez and Thomas Tzitzura advanced from the Democratic primary for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 on July 30, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Tanairi Ochoa-Martinez | 54.6 | 12,373 | |
| ✔ | Thomas Tzitzura | 45.4 | 10,304 | |
| Total votes: 22,677 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- David Raymer (D)
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 (2 seats)
Incumbent Steve Montenegro and James Taylor defeated Amy Heusted in the Republican primary for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 on July 30, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Steve Montenegro | 54.5 | 22,153 |
| ✔ | | James Taylor | 45.3 | 18,382 |
| Amy Heusted (Write-in) | 0.2 | 85 | ||
| Total votes: 40,620 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Austin Smith (R)
The local Republican Party chose James Taylor as the party's nominee to replace Austin Smith in the Republican primary after Smith withdrew.[3]
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Smith in this election.
2022
See also: Arizona House of Representatives elections, 2022
General election
General election for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 (2 seats)
Steve Montenegro and Austin Smith defeated Scott Podeyn in the general election for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Steve Montenegro (R) | 36.4 | 46,831 |
| ✔ |  | Austin Smith (R) | 35.5 | 45,636 |
 | Scott Podeyn (D) | 28.1 | 36,162 | |
| Total votes: 128,629 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 (2 seats)
Scott Podeyn advanced from the Democratic primary for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 on August 2, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Scott Podeyn | 100.0 | 14,812 |
| Total votes: 14,812 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 (2 seats)
Steve Montenegro and Austin Smith defeated Trey Terry and Hop Nguyen in the Republican primary for Arizona House of Representatives District 29 on August 2, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Steve Montenegro | 37.0 | 17,240 |
| ✔ | | Austin Smith | 30.8 | 14,324 |
 | Trey Terry | 18.7 | 8,696 | |
 | Hop Nguyen | 13.5 | 6,278 | |
| Total votes: 46,538 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign finance
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Austin Smith did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
2022
Austin Smith completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Smith's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
- Election Integrity
- Border Security
- Water Conservation
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Scorecards
A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.
Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.
Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of Arizona scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.
2024
In 2024, the Arizona State Legislature was in session from January 8 to June 15.
- Legislators are scored on their stances on economic issues.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to family issues.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to economic issues.
- Legislators are scored on their stances on animal issues.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to business issues.
- Legislators are scored on their stances on secular policy.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to environmental policy.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to economic policy.
2023
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2023, click [show]. |
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In 2023, the Arizona State Legislature was in session from January 9 to July 31.
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Noteworthy events
Election fraud guilty plea (2025)
In November 2025, Smith pleaded guilty to election fraud charges related to his 2024 re-election campaign. Attorney General of Arizona Kris Mayes said in a statement, “As a part of his guilty plea today, Smith admitted signing the name of a deceased woman on one of his candidate nomination petitions in March of 2024,” and “He also admitted that he attempted to deceive the Secretary of State’s Office by knowingly filing petitions containing forged signatures of purported supporters of his nomination for the Republican primary for State Representative from LD 29.” As of November 20, 2025, Smith had not provided comment on the plea deal.[4]
See also
2024 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Twitter, "AZ State Rep. Austin Smith," accessed March 17, 2023
- ↑ Austin Smith, "Home," accessed March 17, 2023
- ↑ KJZZ, "Maricopa County agrees to include contested GOP candidate on primary ballot," accessed May 29, 2024
- ↑ AZ Mirror, “Turning Point leader, former GOP Rep pleads guilty to attempted election fraud" accessed November 20, 2025
