Hamadeh was born in Chicago, Illinois, and later moved to Phoenix, Arizona. He is the youngest child in a family of Syrian immigrants and grew up in a mixed-faith household, with a Muslim father and a Druze mother.[3][4]
Hamadeh's first legal role was as an unpaid intern in the office of the Tucson City Prosecutor. He passed the Arizona Bar Exam in May 2017, and two months later began working in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office as a prosecutor. According to the Arizona Republic, Hamadeh prosecuted at least six trials while a county prosecutor.[9] He resigned from this role in September 2021, citing his intent to focus on his political campaign and his absence from the office following his military deployment in July 2020.[10]
Hamadeh with Kris Mayes at a candidate forum in September 2022.
Hamadeh's political career began in November 2021, when he launched his campaign for attorney general of Arizona. His primary campaign issue was election security, as he spoke out in support of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen through means of widespread electoral fraud, which former president Donald Trump and his allies had promoted following his loss to president Joe Biden. Other issues he ran on included the enforcement of state border laws, support for law enforcement, and opposition to censorship by technology corporations.[11] Within the first week of his candidacy, Hamadeh's campaign announced that he had raised over $100,000.[12] He received Trump's endorsement in June 2022 and won the Republican primary election in August, defeating former city councilor Rodney Glassman and former state supreme court justice Andrew Gould.[13][14]
In the general election, Hamadeh faced Democratic Party nominee Kris Mayes, a law professor and former chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission. The election was considered a tossup by forecasters, citing each candidate's tight leads in polling as well as Arizona's status as a swing state due to recent Democratic victories in statewide races.[15] On election day, November 8, there was no clear winner, as Mayes held a lead of a few thousand votes over Hamadeh while ballots continued to be counted.[16] When the final tally was completed on November 21, Mayes led Hamadeh by 510 votes out of 2.5 million cast in the closest attorney general race of the year. Because the margin of victory fell below 0.5% of the total vote, an automatic recount was triggered under state law, beginning on December 5.[17] On December 29, judge Timothy Thomason of the Maricopa County Superior Court announced Mayes as the winner of the election with a reduced margin of 280 votes,[18][19] making it one of the closest elections in the history of Arizona.[20] She would take office only four days later, on January 2.
Legal challenges
Hamadeh made his first attempt to challenge the results of the election after the final tally was completed, although his case was dismissed by Judge Randall Warner due to a state law that requires election challenges to be filed after the certification of results.[21] He filed a second lawsuit following the certification on December 5, arguing that misconduct by election workers, including misinterpretation of undervotes, had cost him the election. However, only 14 ballots were submitted for evidence, which Judge Lee Jantzen noted had only demonstrated errors on the part of the voters, not election officials. Jantzen ultimately denied the election challenge in a preliminary hearing on December 23, 2022 stating in his closing remarks that "there isn't enough information" that any illegal activity had taken place.[22]
In his third lawsuit filed after Mayes had been sworn in, Hamadeh argued that 1,100 provisional ballots had gone uncounted. This claim had come after election officials uncovered 507 votes in Pinal County that were left uncounted, largely due to human error.[23] Judge Jantzen rejected this lawsuit in July 2023, finding that there was no new evidence that could not have been previously produced at the original trial.[24] When Hamadeh requested for the Arizona Supreme Court to intervene, they declined and instead sanctioned him, including an order to pay $55,000 toward the legal fees of Mayes and Adrian Fontes, the newly elected Arizona secretary of state.[25] In April 2024, the Arizona Court of Appeals had dismissed Hamadeh's request for a new trial in a split decision, criticizing his failure to swiftly move the case forward.[26] In December 2024, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected Hamadeh's appeal, ending this lawsuit.[27]
In November 2023, Hamadeh initiated another lawsuit against the 2022 election result by claiming that the 2022 election violated his constitutional rights; this lawsuit was rejected in July 2024 by Judge Scott Blaney of the Maricopa County Superior Court, who ruled that Hamadeh filed the lawsuit too late, because it was filed seven months after a report was published on the 2022 election's ballot issues, instead of within a five-day limit for an election challenge.[28]
In a different lawsuit, Hamadeh raised the issue of Maricopa County's counting of early ballots in the 2022 election, then concluded that he should be appointed as attorney general as he was "personally entitled" to the role; a rejection of this lawsuit was published in April 2024 by Judge Susanna Pineda of the Maricopa County Superior Court, with Pineda ruling that Hamadeh's challenge should have been brought before the election, and further stating that Hamadeh "surmises, without proof, that he received the most ‘legal votes’" in the election.[29] In October 2024, the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Hamadeh's appeal of Pineda's ruling, agreeing that Hamadeh had filed the lawsuit too late, but the Arizona Court of Appeals rescinded Pineda's order for Hamadeh to be sanctioned to pay his opponents' legal fees.[30]
Hamadeh with Kari Lake at a campaign rally in November 2023.Hamadeh speaking with supporters at a rally celebrating his primary victory.
Hamadeh announced his campaign for Arizona's 8th congressional district in October 2023, shortly after incumbent representative Debbie Lesko announced her retirement from the seat.[31] Hamadeh's campaign garnered significant support from notable Republican politicians, including former president Donald Trump and former news anchor and political candidate Kari Lake. The Republican primary attracted a field of prominent candidates, including venture capitalist Blake Masters, who lost the 2022 U.S. Senate election against incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly, along with former congressman Trent Franks and state legislators Anthony Kern and Ben Toma.
Polls leading up to the election showed both Hamadeh and Masters with small leads over each other, and the two were seen as the frontrunners, despite Masters massively outspending Hamadeh with his personal funds. The primary campaign was described as "nasty", with the Masters campaign deeming Hamadeh as a "terrorist sympathizer" by negatively highlighting his Muslim heritage. Masters incurred backlash for using Islamophobic rhetoric and imagery in campaign ads.[32] Hamadeh's campaign responded by stating that he "embodies the same Judeo-Christian values that our nation was built upon."[7]
Two days before the primary election, despite endorsing Hamadeh the year before, Trump published a statement making a dual endorsement for both him and Masters.[33] Hamadeh won the Republican primary with just under 30% of the vote to Masters's 26%. Because of the district's strong Republican leaning, he was favored to win the November general election against Democrat Greg Whitten, and would go on to defeat Whitten with 56.5% of the vote.[34][35]
Hamadeh opposes Green New Deal policies, believing they would only further aggravate high living costs and worsen energy reliability. He has pointed to California as an example of failed energy policy.[37]
Immigration
In his congressional campaign, Hamadeh named the ongoing border crisis as one of the biggest problems facing the 8th congressional district. He has declared support for finishing the Trump wall along the Mexican border, ending the practice of "catch and release," and designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.[37]
Israel
Hamadeh is a strong supporter of Israel, stating that "Jewish people have no bigger ally than me." He has said that his views on Israel were affected by a visit he made to the country while in law school. Hamadeh believed that he was better accepted as a Druze in Israel than in neighboring Lebanon, which further cemented his support.[8] While campaigning for Congress, he criticized the nationwide pro-Palestine university demonstrations and said that "there was a direct connection between Marxism and the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. since October 7."[38]
Hamadeh identifies as non-denominational. His older brother, Waseem Hamadeh, works in a Phoenix-based real estate firm and has made $1 million contributions to both of his campaigns.[42]
Districts (1949–present) (3rd district established in 1963) (4th district established in 1973) (5th district established in 1983) (6th district established in 1993) (7th and 8th districts established in 2003) (9th district established in 2013)
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