Priya Sundareshan
Priya Sundareshan (Democratic Party) is a member of the Arizona State Senate, representing District 18. She assumed office on January 9, 2023. Her current term ends on January 11, 2027.
Sundareshan (Democratic Party) ran for re-election to the Arizona State Senate to represent District 18. She won in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Sundareshan was selected as Senate minority leader effective January 13, 2025.[1]
Biography
Priya Sundareshan was born in and lives in Tucson, Arizona. Sundareshan earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006, an M.S. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Arizona and a J.D. from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, both in 2011. Her career experience includes working as a director of the natural resource use and management clinic with the James E. Rogers College of Law and as an attorney.[2][3]
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
Note: This membership information was last updated in September 2023. Ballotpedia completes biannual updates of committee membership. If you would like to send us an update, email us at: editor@ballotpedia.org.
2023-2024
Sundareshan was assigned to the following committees:
- Senate Elections Committee (Decommissioned)
- Government Committee
- Natural Resources Committee
- Legislative Council
Elections
2024
See also: Arizona State Senate elections, 2024
General election
General election for Arizona State Senate District 18
Incumbent Priya Sundareshan won election in the general election for Arizona State Senate District 18 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Priya Sundareshan (D) | 100.0 | 89,003 |
| Total votes: 89,003 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Arizona State Senate District 18
Incumbent Priya Sundareshan advanced from the Democratic primary for Arizona State Senate District 18 on July 30, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Priya Sundareshan | 100.0 | 29,643 |
| Total votes: 29,643 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Matt Welch (D)
Campaign finance
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Sundareshan in this election.
2022
See also: Arizona State Senate elections, 2022
General election
General election for Arizona State Senate District 18
Priya Sundareshan defeated Stan Caine in the general election for Arizona State Senate District 18 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Priya Sundareshan (D) | 62.2 | 67,343 |
 | Stan Caine (R) | 37.8 | 40,896 | |
| Total votes: 108,239 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Arizona State Senate District 18
Priya Sundareshan defeated Morgan Abraham in the Democratic primary for Arizona State Senate District 18 on August 2, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Priya Sundareshan | 55.8 | 20,751 |
 | Morgan Abraham | 44.2 | 16,439 | |
| Total votes: 37,190 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Arizona State Senate District 18
Stan Caine advanced from the Republican primary for Arizona State Senate District 18 on August 2, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Stan Caine | 100.0 | 21,257 |
| Total votes: 21,257 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
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Campaign finance
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Priya Sundareshan did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
2022
Priya Sundareshan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Sundareshan's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Priya was born and raised in Tucson, and attended public schools in the district. She studied engineering at MIT and law and natural resource economics at the U of A, so she knows we need more science-based decision-making in politics. She has two young boys and wants her children and all children to inherit a sustainable world.
Priya has made environmental advocacy her career. She directs the natural resources law clinic at the University of Arizona. Before that, she advocated for sustainable fisheries with Environmental Defense Fund in DC and coordinated the environmental group coalition to prevent weakening of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 2017-18.
Priya is also a voting rights advocate and has been leading voter protection efforts and engagement on redistricting within the Arizona Democratic Party as chair of its Election Integrity Committee. She ran the Arizona Democratic Party’s voter information hotline in 2018, and was a voter protection volunteer with the Democratic Party of Virginia in 2016 and 2017.
- We must create a sustainable, thriving Arizona for my children and all children to live in. This includes a public education system that is fully funded, using water responsibly, and taking action to address climate change by swiftly transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
- Voting rights are fundamental to maintaining our democracy, and we must strengthen everyone's ability to access the ballot by making it easy and accessible to vote. We should not place barriers on the right to vote.
- Protecting our human rights is fundamental to making our democracy a reality. The right to control our own bodies and access abortion as one of many healthcare options during pregnancy, the right to contraception, the right to marry who we want, the right to be the gender we are comfortable being, and many more, must be protected from discrimination.
I am also passionate about responsible water use, especially in our arid West. We need to reform our water laws so that they are based in science and aim for sustainable use to support our desert living.
I believe that voting must be easy and accessible for all, and this makes our democracy a reality. We should not be putting up barriers to vote, especially because such barriers fall harder on black and brown people, the elderly, and people with disabilities.
As a graduate of Tucson public schools, I want all children in Arizona to have the opportunity to attend full funded public schools with teachers and staff who are paid comparable to teachers in other states.
As a new mom who has recently been through pregnancy, we must protect the right to access the full suite of healthcare options during pregnancy, including abortion. Each person should be able to control their own body.
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
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2024, click [show]. |
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In 2024, the Arizona State Legislature was in session from January 8 to June 15.
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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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See also
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Arizona State Senate District 18 |
Officeholder Arizona State Senate District 18 |
Personal |
Footnotes
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sean Bowie (D) |
Arizona State Senate District 18 2023-Present |
Succeeded by - |
