Paul Anthony Gosar ( ; born November 27, 1958) is an American politician and former dentist serving in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2011. Representing Arizona’s 9th congressional district since 2023, he previously represented the 4th district (2013–2023) and the 1st district (2011–2013). He is a member of the Republican Party.
Gosar was first elected to Congress in 2010. He has been described by some media outlets as a far-right Republican and has drawn controversy over statements associated with conspiracy theories and reported ties to far-right groups.Multiple sources:Sources include: A supporter of President Donald Trump, Gosar voted to challenge the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
In November 2021, Gosar was formally censured by the U.S. House of Representatives and stripped of his committee assignments on a largely party-line vote after posting an edited Attack on Titan video depicting a character with his likeness in stylized combat with figures resembling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Joe Biden. After Republicans regained the House majority in 2022, Gosar was reinstated to his committee assignments.
Gosar and David Schweikert have shared the deanship of Arizona's congressional delegation since the death of Raúl Grijalva on March 13, 2025. Gosar is expected to become the dean of the Arizona delegation by January 2027, as Schweikert is retiring to run for governor in 2026.
Early life and education Gosar was born in Rock Springs, Wyoming, on November 27, 1958. He is the eldest of seven sons and three daughters. His paternal grandparents were Slovenian, and his maternal grandparents were Basque immigrants from Banca, on the French side of the Franco–Spanish border. Gosar was raised in Pinedale, Wyoming, and graduated from Pinedale High School in 1977. His parents have been described as devoted Republicans who attended the national conventions for former presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford. Gosar's brother Pete is a former chairman of the Wyoming Democratic Party and was a candidate for governor of Wyoming in 2010 and 2014.
In 1981, Gosar received his B.S. degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1985, he earned his D.D.S. from the Boyne School of Dentistry at Creighton.
Early career From 1989 to 2010, Gosar had a dentistry practice in Flagstaff, Arizona. In 2001, Gosar was the Arizona Dental Association's (AzDA) "Dentist of the Year". He was inducted into the AzDA Hall of Fame and served as its president from 2004 to 2005. Gosar was also president of the Northern Arizona Dental Society and vice-chair of the AzDA council on governmental affairs.
U.S. House of Representatives Elections 2010
In 2009, Gosar, who had never run for elected office before, announced that he would challenge Democratic incumbent Ann Kirkpatrick in the 1st district in the 2010 elections. He was identified as a Tea Party candidate by The New York Times because the Arizona Tea Party featured him on its website.
Gosar won the Republican primary. He was endorsed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and three Arizona county sheriffs: Maricopa County's Joe Arpaio, Coconino County's Joe Richards, and Pinal County's Paul Babeu. Kirkpatrick challenged him to five debates across the district. Gosar initially agreed to one debate but later withdrew. He released a statement explaining that his decision to withdraw from the debate was based on the long drive to and from the television station, KAET in Phoenix, which had organized the debate, but a producer at KAET said that Gosar's staff had told the station that the candidate could not participate in the debate because he would be attending a fundraiser instead.
Gosar defeated Kirkpatrick in the November 2010 general election, taking 49.7% of the vote.
2012
Gosar initially planned to seek reelection in the 1st district, which had been made less favorable to Republicans as a result of redistricting, but with Kirkpatrick priming for a rematch, he changed his mind and announced in January 2012 that he would run in the newly created 4th district. The 4th had absorbed much of the western portion of the old 1st district and was heavily Republican. Gosar rented an apartment in Prescott, the largest city in the 4th, which he claimed as his official residence. While members of the House are only constitutionally required to live in the state that they represent, longstanding convention calls for them to live in or reasonably close to the district they represent. Gosar claimed that he eventually would buy a home in the 4th. Despite this, he still claimed his home in Flagstaff as his primary residence; he long received tax breaks on his Flagstaff home due to this status. While he was registered to vote in Yavapai County, home to Prescott, his wife was registered to vote in Coconino County, home to Flagstaff.
Gosar initially faced a tough primary fight against Babeu, but Babeu pulled out in May 2012 owing to allegations of abuse of power."Sheriff Babeu Abandons Race for Arizona Congressional Seat", Fox News Latino, May 11, 2012. . Retrieved 2012-05-11. Gosar defeated former state senator Ron Gould and businessman Rick Murphy in the Republican primary, all but assuring him a second term in Congress. In the November general election, he defeated Democratic challenger Johnnie Robinson with 67% of the vote.
2014
Gosar easily won reelection, winning 70% of the vote against Democratic nominee Mikel Weisser in the 2014 midterm elections.
2016
Gosar faced Weisser again in 2016. Weisser attempted to use Gosar's support of then-nominee Donald Trump and the recent Access Hollywood tape against him in campaign ads. Gosar was reelected with 71% of the vote.
2018
In September 2018, six of Gosar's nine siblings spoke out against their brother and endorsed his Democratic opponent, David Brill, in a series of television campaign ads that drew national and international coverage. In the first ad, sisters Grace and Jennifer, both identified as health-care providers, told viewers that their brother did not care about people in rural Arizona. In another ad, called "A family defends its honor," brother David Gosar, a lawyer, declared, "We've got to stand up for our good name. This is not who we are." Paul Gosar responded to the ads on Twitter, describing his siblings as "disgruntled Hillary supporters" who "put political ideology before family".
Gosar defeated Brill in the November 2018 general election with 68.2% of the vote.
2020
Gosar was reelected with 69.7% of the vote over Democratic nominee Delina DiSanto. Six of his nine siblings—Grace, Jennifer, Joan, Gaston, David and Tim—endorsed his opponent, as they had in 2018.
2022
In 2021, Gosar announced that he would run for reelection in Arizona's 9th congressional district after redistricting. The redrawn 9th was essentially the successor to the old 4th. Since Prescott was drawn into the new 2nd district (the old 1st), Gosar claimed a condominium in Bullhead City as his residence in the district, though public records still showed he owned a home in Flagstaff. It was no less Republican than its predecessor, and Gosar was re-elected unopposed.
2024
Gosar was reelected with 65.3% of the vote over Democratic nominee Quacy Smith.
Actions In January 2016, Gosar wrote and proposed legislation to strip Bill Cosby of his Presidential Medal of Freedom after Cosby admitted to drugging women. His proposal received the support of Angela Rose and her nonprofit organization, with which Gosar consulted when writing the bill; President Barack Obama stated he would "take a look" at the proposal, but it did not pass.
On January 6, 2020, with the caption "The world is a better place without these guys in power", Gosar tweeted a doctored photograph showing Obama meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The encounter never happened; the picture was a photoshopped version of one showing Obama meeting former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh. The photojournalist Daniel Medina pointed out that Rouhani was still in power and condemned Gosar's attempt to spread disinformation. The photoshopped image was also featured in a 2015 TV ad for Senator Ron Johnson. To widespread criticism, Gosar said, "No one said this wasn't photoshopped."
In June 2021, fliers were circulated online for a fundraiser featuring Gosar and white nationalist Nick Fuentes; while at first appearing to defend the event, Gosar ultimately denied that he had planned to attend it.
Attendance of America First Political Action Conference On February 26, 2021, Gosar delivered the keynote speech at the America First Political Action Conference hosted by white nationalist and antisemite Nick Fuentes, who had previously supported the 2021 United States Capitol attack, defended racial segregation, and denied aspects of the Holocaust. Gosar was joined at the event by former Representative Steve King of Iowa, who was taken off his congressional committee seats after defending white nationalism in 2019. Gosar later distanced himself from Fuentes, telling a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that racism and violence are unacceptable, criticizing "white racism" and saying, "there's no room for violence." Nevertheless, he defended his presence at the conference, saying, "There is a group of young people that are becoming part of the election process, and becoming a bigger force. So why not take that energy and listen to what they've got to say?... You don't accomplish anything by isolating and refusing to speak to some audiences." Liz Cheney criticized Gosar's attendance at the event, saying, "This is not the kind of an organization or an event that other members of Congress should be participating in".
CNN also reported that, before CPAC, Gosar and a dozen other Republican House members skipped votes and enlisted others to vote for them in order to attend the event, which was held at the same time as their absences. They cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for their absences. In response, the Campaign for Accountability, an ethics watchdog group, filed a complaint with the House Committee on Ethics and requested an investigation into Gosar and the other lawmakers.
2021 censure In November 2021, Gosar posted a video on social media that parodied the title sequence of the anime series Attack on Titan that had been edited with the faces of himself, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Joe Biden superimposed on the show's characters, depicting Gosar killing Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Biden with swords. In posting the video, Gosar inquired: "Any anime fans out there?" Gosar insisted that the video "wasn't a threat and is meant to be 'entertaining.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the House Ethics Committee and law enforcement to investigate it as a threat. On November 17, 2021, Gosar was censured for the post and removed from committee assignments by a 223–207 vote, making him the 24th House member to be censured in American history. The vote was mainly along party lines; only two Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, voted with the Democrats, while "about a dozen Republicans stood beside Gosar in a show of support," according to The Washington Post. (One Republican, David P. Joyce, voted present.) Minutes after being censured, he retweeted the offending video again. The next day, Trump endorsed Gosar for his 2022 reelection bid, while House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said he would likely give Gosar better committee assignments if Republicans won the House in 2022.
2022 In February 2022, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized Gosar for participating in the America First Political Action Conference, organized by white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, saying there was no place in the Republican Party for "white supremacists or anti-Semitism".