← Election Series · Down-ballot coverage · Arizona
Our call — see the breakdown
The race
Decided earlier — Queen Creek re-elected its mayor and all three council members at the July 21, 2026 primary; none of them appears on the November 3 ballot. The Queen Creek Chamber's elections page states the outcome directly: "Election results show that incumbent Julia Wheatley was re-elected as Mayor, and incumbents Bryan McClure, Dawn Oliphant and Travis Padilla were re-elected to Town Council during the Primary Election in July 2026. They will not appear on the General Election ballot in November." The Maricopa County primary tally gives the numbers: Wheatley, the sole mayoral candidate, took 10,192 votes (98.71%). For the three council seats, Oliphant took 7,217, Padilla 6,725, and McClure 6,412 — ahead of challengers Nick Masse (4,476) and Benjamin Harrison (3,441), who were eliminated.
The candidates
Julia Wheatley — mayor, re-elected unopposed. No filed challenger; her re-election was a ratification.
Dawn Oliphant — re-elected, top council vote-getter. First elected to the council in 2010 and re-elected in 2022, per azcentral; she worked for the City of Tempe for 17 years before retiring, has lived in Queen Creek since 2005, and serves on the Arizona Municipal Tax Code Commission. A sourced governing data point from this fall: she was absent from the October 7, 2026 council meeting at which a controversial rental-housing rezoning was denied 3–2 — noted here as a matter of record, not priced beyond what one absence can bear.
Travis Padilla — re-elected. Elected in August 2022; works as an investor and lender and owns real-estate properties, per azcentral; also serves on the Municipal Tax Code Commission. At that same October 7 meeting, Padilla attempted to participate remotely and was defeated by technical difficulties, per azcentral — again, recorded, not inflated.
Bryan McClure — re-elected; the town's vice mayor. First elected in 2022. His sourced October record cuts the other way from his colleagues': at the October 7 meeting he voted to approve the Greystar rental rezoning that residents overwhelmingly opposed in 85 letters and emails (59 opposed, 26 in support, per the town planner) and that the council denied 3–2. Voters who care about growth and housing now have a clear, recent, on-the-record vote to judge him by — which is what a record is for.
Pros and cons
- Oliphant — Pro: The field's top vote total and the longest service record (since 2010) — institutional knowledge ratified by voters who had two challenger options. Con: Long tenure is its own question in a fast-growing town; the October absence is a small but documented gap.
- Padilla — Pro: Re-elected comfortably in his first re-election test. Con: A real-estate investor and lender voting on land-use questions is a standing conflict-of-interest surface voters should watch vote by vote; that is a structural note, not an accusation — no sourced instance of self-dealing was found in this pass.
- McClure — Pro: A clear record: he took the pro-housing-growth side of the town's most contested recent land-use vote, in public, against the room. Con: That same vote put him against a documented 59-to-26 resident majority on the question.
- Wheatley — Pro: Unopposed continuity. Con: Untested this cycle, as with every sole filer.
OUR CALL
Our call: no November call — decided July 21, 2026; we record the outcome. Wheatley, Oliphant, McClure, and Padilla are re-elected. The July verdict was continuity across the board, delivered with challengers available on the council ballot — a stronger ratification than an unopposed slate, and we record it as such.
For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website. Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same. --- Sources
- Queen Creek Chamber of Commerce, Elections page — Wheatley, McClure, Oliphant, and Padilla re-elected in the July 2026 primary; will not appear on the November general ballot — https://queencreekchamber.com/elections/
- Maricopa County Elections, Unofficial Combined Results, 2026 Primary (July 21, 2026) — Wheatley 10,192 (98.71%); Oliphant 7,217; Padilla 6,725; McClure 6,412; Masse 4,476; Harrison 3,441 — https://elections.maricopa.gov/asset/jcr:8f31dc23-01df-4061-9b2d-4fe339c7e7e3/Unofficial%20Combined%20Results%20258AM.pdf
- azcentral, "Who serves on the Queen Creek Town Council in 2026?" (2026) — Oliphant (elected 2010, 17 years with Tempe, Tax Code Commission) and Padilla (elected 2022, investor/lender) backgrounds — https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/queen-creek/2026/05/05/queen-creek-town-council-2026/88054843007/
- azcentral, "Outraged residents convince AZ town leaders to snub rental housing" (October 9, 2026) — the 3–2 denial; McClure voting yes; Oliphant absent; Padilla's remote-participation failure; 59 opposed vs. 26 supporting letters — https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/metro-phoenix/2026/10/09/queen-creek-council-rejects-rental-housing-plan-after-outcry/92144479007/
Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.
AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.