http://azcapitoltimes.com/elections-2014/2014/ld6-map/
It's a recent redistrict. It's not even close to compact or contiguous, and political diversity starts at Goldwater Republican and ends at Constitution party with stops in Libertarian and Sovereign Citizen.
Even Flagstaff, a university town, is liberal only by comparison to the rest of the district. Sedona is the most liberal anchor, but then there's Snowflake, Taylor, Heber, Joseph City, Williams, Woodruff and Young. All of them were Mormon diaspora, established as polygamous outposts. How much polygamy is still ongoing is up for debate (there is some, but on the down low) but there's a long cultural history of hatred and distrust of government, and half of the eastern part of the district is related by blood or marriage to the Allens and the Tenneys (her family.)
In Utah, Mormons who run for office go all Gumby to not even dogwhistle their faith, but in Northern Arizona, it's not even dogwhistled. Getting elected as a non-Mormon in that district? I'm not sure it can be done.
Allen needs a challenge, but I'm not sure a Dem can do it. I think their best chance is a moderate Republican challenge, because she's so far to the right.
Let me give an example of how crazy that district is: I attended a public high school there. I took what was called AP American History at 15. (This was the very early 90s, before Waco and Ruby Ridge.) The legal adult in the room spent most of the first semester lecturing on the New World Order, FEMA camps, Bo Gritz, the coming apocalypse, and how the Mormons would be the salvation of America, and how evil Gentiles (like me, the only one in the class) would sell themselves into (his sexual) slavery for a can of beans when it all fell apart. I started walking out of class and going to the principal's office when he got going because he wasn't teaching history. I spent more time in the VP's office than in class that year. It took going to the school board four times to get him off the subject, and I was basically on independent study for the remainder of the year -- I'd be in class for attendence, but I worked in the library, the librarian directed my work and reviewed my papers -- because the legal adult would have failed every paper I wrote. He was never fired or disciplined. (Oh, and for really gross -- he lived across the street from me.) I'm the only person in his class who ever passed the AP AmHis test. The school board was 100% okay with what he was teaching; I was the problem because I insisted on reality.
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