Her background
Simacek tells the district she is a mom, a teacher, and a neighbor. She grew up in Oregon, earned a bachelor’s degree in communication from Portland State University, and later a master’s in early childhood education from Grand Canyon University. She moved to Arizona in 2014, taught first grade in the Deer Valley Unified School District, then worked as a substitute. She won an at-large seat on the Deer Valley governing board. Her two daughters attend Deer Valley schools.
The 2024 campaign
She first ran for this House seat in 2022 and finished third, behind Justin Wilmeth and Judy Schwiebert. In 2024 she was the only Democrat on the House ballot in District 2, running against Wilmeth and Ari Bradshaw, with independent Tom Simes also on the ballot. The certified results were Simacek 47,797, Wilmeth 46,943, Bradshaw 46,809, and Simes 15,947.
Her campaign listed education, housing, water, and reproductive freedom as priorities. She is a critic of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.
Her marriage and her address
On October 5, 2024, the Arizona Republic reported that Simacek was not at the north Phoenix home associated with her when Bradshaw knocked on the door before 7 a.m. Her husband told him the couple had separated and that she was living elsewhere. Simacek told the paper she still lived in the district.
Bradshaw asked on X why she was “lying about me, lying about her marriage and lying about where she lives.” The Arizona Capitol Times reported the husband’s account the same way.
It has also been alleged that she cheated on her husband. That is an allegation, and no court has ruled on it. What is on the record is narrower: while she was asking District 2 for its votes, her husband said she had moved out, and she said she still lived in the district. She never produced a lease, a voter record, or a utility bill to settle where she was living.
Arizona requires legislative candidates to be qualified electors of the district they run in, which means living there. She won the seat by 988 votes.
What she said about her opponent
The same campaign cast Ari Bradshaw as an extremist. Her campaign sent at least three mailers tying him to 9/11 conspiracy theories and claiming he wanted the death penalty for doctors. Bradshaw ran on water, education, housing, opioids, border security, and homelessness. He asked her publicly to apologize, and she never has, even after he spent 2026 working at the House as a communications staffer. The details are on the issues page.
In office
She kept the teacher image after she was sworn in. Her bill file looks different. She co-sponsored income-tax increases, a right-to-work repeal, and a bill that drops citizenship checks for professional licenses. She voted no on border funding and no on keeping people convicted of dangerous crimes against children on lifetime probation. Each item on the issues page links to the Legislature’s own bill page.