Andy Biggs

His Primary victory virtually assured him of being the next representative from the district; the 5th and its predecessors have been in Republican hands for all but one term since 1953.

Biggs defeated Democratic nominee Talia Fuentes, 64.1% to 35.9%.

He was not required to give up his state senate seat under Arizona's resign-to-run laws, since he was in the last year of what would have been his final term in the chamber.

Biggs is a member of the Congressional Western Caucus and the Republican Study Committee.

Andrew Steven Biggs (born November 7, 1958) is an American attorney and politician who represents AZ's 5th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.

The district, which was once represented by U.S. Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, is in the heart of the East Valley and includes most of Mesa and Chandler and all of Queen Creek and Biggs's hometown of Gilbert.

Biggs was born on November 7, 1958, in Tucson, Arizona.

When he was young, Biggs went on a mission to Japan for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and learned to speak fluent Japanese.

He later earned his B.A. in Asian studies from Brigham Young University in 1982, his J.D. from the University of Arizona in 1984, and his M.A. in political science from Arizona State University in 1999.

Biggs worked as a lawyer for a firm based in Hobbs, New Mexico, before relocating to Phoenix, where he worked as a prosecutor.

In 1993, he won $10 million in the American Family Publishers sweepstakes.

He appeared in a TV ad with Dick Clark and Ed McMahon to promote the sweepstakes.

Enabled by $10 million in sweepstakes winnings, which made him financially independent, Biggs decided to run for office.

A Republican, Biggs was a member of the Arizona House of Representatives from 2003 to 2011 and a member of the Arizona Senate from 2011 to 2017.

He was president of the Arizona Senate from 2013 to 2017.

In 2016, he was elected to Congress.

In 2016, Biggs ran for Congress from the 5th District to replace retiring Representative Matt Salmon.

He led the field in the four-way Republican Primary, finishing nine votes ahead of his nearest opponent, businesswoman Christine Jones.

A recanvass boosted Biggs's margin to 16 votes, and an automatic recount confirmed him as the nominee by 27 votes.

Biggs voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

After the vote, he said the bill would "provide much-needed economic relief" to American citizens and businesses.

From 2019 to 2022, Biggs served as chairman of the Freedom Caucus, which includes the House Republican Conference's most conservative members.

In September 2019, he replaced Mark Meadows as chair of the Freedom Caucus.

On March 4, 2020, Ken Buck and Biggs were the only two representatives to vote against an $8.3 billion emergency aid package meant to help the U.S. respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement, Biggs called the bill "larded-up" and "bloated".

Ten days later, he voted against the larger Coronavirus Response Act, which passed the House, 363–40.

Biggs said he opposed the second bill because it provided benefits to domestic partners and thereby "redefined the family".

In 2020, Biggs joined Representative Paul Gosar in a video falsely claiming there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

They claimed that Arizona's voting machines were faulty, and Biggs claimed that poll watchers were allowed to participate in vote tabulations in Detroit.

They also demanded an audit of Maricopa County's vote count.

Later, Biggs falsely claimed that 10,000 Maricopa County voters were "disenfranchised" without giving evidence.

In December 2020, Biggs was among 126 House Republicans to sign an amicus brief for Texas v. Pennsylvania, an unsuccessful lawsuit that asked the Supreme Court to overturn election results from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, thereby denying Joe Biden from taking office as president.

Biggs also spoke at rallies promoting the "Stop the Steal" election conspiracy movement, and has claimed antifa was behind the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.

He denied that he was involved in planning the event and the riots as alleged by Rolling Stone and a video posted by Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander.

In a deposition to the January 6 committee of the House of Representatives, Alexander testified that he spoke in person with Biggs before the events.

On October 7, 2021, Biggs again falsely claimed that "we don't know who won Arizona in the 2020 presidential election".

During the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Biggs and all other House members were ushered to a secure location when the House chamber was cleared.

A video of Biggs later surfaced in which he refused to wear a face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic, a violation of House rules.

Sources noted that after the siege lockdown, during which several other congressional Republicans also refused to wear masks, three House Democrats tested positive for the disease.

Biggs subsequently voted to object to Arizona's and Pennsylvania's electoral votes that day, joining 146 House Republicans.