carpetbagging attacks. He lives so close to the line, Tobin said, "I can see District 1 from my backyard."

Tobin was more blunt when talking to the Yellow Sheet. "Yeah, I would be a carpetbagger," he said.

The district is larger than Gosar's,and a seven-hour drive end-to-end.

Former Tobin campaign manager Craig Handzlik provided a written statement.

"Andy is proud to have represented thousands of rural Arizonans in this district for the last five years as their state representative," Handzlik said. "Now he wants to take their voices to Washington to stand up for them against the increasingly out-of-touch politicians in Congress. Andy's record of fighting for rural Arizona is unmatched."

The same type ofpolitical climate that helped Gosar win the district in 2010 could benefit Tobin this year.

It's a midterm election whenRepublican turnout is expected to be high. First Tobin must beat two Republicans in the Aug. 26 primary, including rancher Gary Kiehne,whose spokesman, Chris Baker, promised that by the time the campaign is done, voters will knowTobin as a political opportunist and a hypocrite.

"He's out there criticizing Paul Gosar for the very thing two years later Andy Tobin is doing himself," Baker said. "It makes him look like an ambitious politician who is willing to do anything to gain power."

The most recent high-profile case of a politician losing amid residency-related attacks was Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, of Indiana, booted from his seat in 2012.

American politics expert Peri Arnold, who teaches at University of Notre Dame in Lugar's home state, said the longtime senator lost partially because he was