Cortez campaigns on cost of living, healthcare in District 23 race

Emilia Cortez is making her case for Arizona Legislative District 23 around the bills that hit Yuma County households first, from health coverage to the rent due each month. She said her background in business, local board service and economic development work with the Quechan Indian Tribe prepared her for the state Capitol, where she wants to speak for a rural border district with a large Latino population that has often felt overlooked.

Cost of living and healthcare are the clearest anchors in her campaign. That pitch lands in a county where the median household income is $66,844, median gross rent is $993 and 17.0% of residents under age 65 are uninsured, figures that point to the pressure points Cortez is trying to address. Yuma County’s population was estimated at 224,449 on July 1, 2025, and 66.1% of residents identified as Hispanic or Latino, with 25.1% born outside the United States, underscoring the border-region makeup of the electorate she is trying to reach.

District 23 was redrawn after the 2020 census as a majority-Latino district. Public district data put its total population at 232,246, with 169,035 people of voting age and 121,771 registered voters as of 2023. The district includes the kind of working families Cortez says she wants to represent, and the numbers explain why her campaign is centered less on broad ideology than on household budgets and access to care.

Cortez’s campaign bio says she works on infrastructure, investment and workforce opportunity with the Quechan Indian Tribe. A candidate profile also lists her service on the Yuma Regional Partnership Council through First Things First and on the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area Corporation, giving her a resume rooted in local development and community institutions rather than statehouse politics alone.

The race is moving toward the July 21, 2026 Arizona primary, and Yuma County officials list Brian Fernandez, Mariana Sandoval and Michele Pena as the current District 23 legislative delegation. For voters in Yuma, Somerton, San Luis and the Fort Yuma area, the contest is already taking shape around a practical question: which candidate will be able to turn campaign talk about affordability and healthcare into policy that lowers costs and reaches the families feeling the squeeze first.