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March 16th, 2025 Len’s Political Note #712 Katie Hobbs Governor Arizona
2026 General Election
Governor Katie Hobbs
Like Jon Ossoff, the Senator from Georgia, Katie Hobbs is the most vulnerable in her class. Jon Ossoff is defending his seat in Georgia. Katie Hobbs is defending her incumbency as Governor of Arizona.
These are big states. Georgia is the country’s 8th largest with 11.2 million people. Arizona is the country’s 14thwith 7.6 million people. These are expensive races. I encourage you to begin donating to these two candidates now and continue donating until November, 2026.
DONATE TO Katie Hobbs and keep on donating
DONATE TO Jon Ossoff and keep on donating.
Katie Hobbs was born in Phoenix, raised in Tempe. Without interviewing her, it does not seem possible to learn much about her parents. They moved to Arizona from elsewhere, but where? They were middle class, but knew what it meant to be poor. While Katie Hobbs was growing up, they sometimes relied on food stamps. What kind of work did her father do? her mother? Katie Hobbs does not say. Katie Hobbs does say she went to Catholic schools and she is Roman Catholic.
Katie Hobbs says that when she got to college (Northern Arizona University), she knew what she wanted to do with her life – help people. During the 2022 campaign, her Republican opponents mis-characterized her as timid. Katie Hobbs was unwilling to debate her primary opponents who she was far ahead of. Nor was she willing to debate her Republican opponent, the flamboyant former television anchor Kari Lake.
Cautious and persistent are better descriptions of Katie Hobbs. Persistent would be a pretty good description of Katie Hobbs’ twin sister, too. A cyclist, she competes in triathlons and in marathons. Anyone who competes in a triathlon can be counted as persistent.
Katie Hobbs graduated from college in 1972. She was a case worker, but found her home at the Sojourner Center which was founded in 1977. She became their compliance officer. The Sojourner Center was founded as temporary housing and support for women released from prison. As more women were referred, the organization evolved. By 1982, the Board committed the organization to a focus on women escaping domestic violence. The organization continued to grow and developed a $4.7 million capital campaign. In 1994, they moved to a new facility where they could house 120 women.
Katie Hobbs evolved as well. She was active in the Arizona Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers and became a Board Member of the association’s arm for supporting political candidates. She was appointed to Phoenix’s Commission for human services and to its women’s commission. She began to think about running for office participating first in a leadership institute in 2003, then in the Emerge Arizona’s political training program in 2004, and in a Progressive Leadership Political Program in 2007. She had been cautious about participating in the specifically political Emerge program, but came out of that experience ready to be a candidate. Appreciative of Emerge Arizona’s effectiveness, she served briefly as the Executive Director of the program.
As Katie Hobbs developed her thinking about a political career and contemplated her experience at Sojouner,she formed political opinions about helping women. She understood that the work we identify as women’s work has to be better paid. Better pay was what made it possible for women to be independent. That belief has been central to her successful election as State Rep in 2010, her election as State Senator in 2012, her service as Senate Minority Leader which began in 2015, her election as Secretary of State in 2018, and her election as Governor in 2022.
Katie Hobbs’ term as Secretary of State was not for the timid. In 2021, the state Senate Republicans set aside $150,000 for an investigation of the 2020 election. You will remember that Donald Trump claimed and still claims that the election was stolen from him. One of the “stolen” states was Arizona.
The legislature hired the Cyber Ninjas (an organization with no experience in the work with a name worthy of a comic book) for the investigation. In an understated six page letter, Katie Hobbs wrote that lacking attention to a chain of custody for evidence, the audit plans were “a significant departure from standard best practices.” She added that the planned procedures were “better suited for chasing conspiracy theories than as a part of a professional audit.” Well, maybe the letter was not so understated after all.
In a story about the audit the NY Times wrote “Untrained citizens are trying to find traces of bamboo on last year’s ballots, seemingly trying to prove a conspiracy theory that the election was tainted by fake votes from Asia. Thousands of ballots are left unattended and unsecured. People with open partisan bias, including a man who was photographed on the Capitol steps during the Jan. 6 riot, are doing the recounting”.
In the end, the audit cost the state a little money because new ballot boxes had to be obtained for a couple of local elections and Dominion (the company that provided the voting system) had to recertify the impounded ballot boxes for future use. For all of the excitement and the death threats Katie Hobbs endured, the Cyber Ninjas found that some votes were missed and that Joe Biden should have been awarded an additional 360 votes. Do not accept that as an accurate report.
Katie Hobbs had won the Secretary of State election in 2018 by 50.4-49.6 – a 20,252 vote margin (1,176,184 to 1,156,132) . Her election as governor in 2022 was even closer: by 17,117 (1,287,891 to 1,270,774). There is no reason to believe the 2026 election will be anything but close.
As Governor, Katie Hobbs has had to work with or work to oppose a legislature which had increased its slim Republican margin to a less slim margin. Executive orders and vetoes have been her way of governing. Notable executive orders included prohibiting state agencies, contractors, and subcontractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation, gender identity, hair texture, and certain hair styles. She created commissions or task forces – one for prison oversight, one on elections, one an missing and murdered indigenous women, and she restored a commission on homelessness and housing that had been abolished in 2020. She set a record on vetoes, none of which have been overturned. She halted all executions and she celebrated passage of a constitutional amendment making abortion legal up to viability. She used federal Covid funds to purchase $30 million in medical debt from brokers, freeing a large number of Arizonans from an overwhelming burden.
If she is going to be reelected, Katie Hobbs will have to defeat either Congressman Andy Biggs or Businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robinson, the Donald Trump endorsee. (There are three other candidates who have been discussed as possible candidates – Businessman Tom Hatten, Activist Charlie Kirk, and State Treasurer Kimberly Yee.).
On January 22, 2021, Congressman Biggs announced the following denials:
- That he had organized the peaceful January 6 rally
- That he planned the unlawful riots on that date
- That he had led reconnaissance tours of the US Capitol
- That he had funded both the rally and the riot
For three years, including January 2021, Andy Biggs chaired the House Freedom Caucus – the farthest right-wing group among the Republicans in Congress. It was this group that led the successful effort to replace House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Previously, members of this group had led Republican opposition to Speaker John Boehner who chose to retire from Congress.
In preparation for the 2022 elections, nine members of the Freedom Caucus, identified as its most radical and including Andy Biggs, organized primaries in the 2022 election against Republicans who they thought were insufficiently conservative.
John Boehner, recalling his fights with the Freedom Caucus. in a 2017 Vanity Fair interview, said of them: “They can’t tell you what they’re for. They can tell you everything they’re against. They’re anarchists. They want total chaos. Tear it all. down and start over. That where their mindset is.”
That may be a fair description of Andy Biggs, who Katie Hobbs would face in 2026 in the race for governor. Could he win the Republican primary?
It is not often that Donald Trump supports the more conventional Republican. This time, he has endorsed attorney and businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson. Like lots of Arizonans, including Katie Hobbs, Karrin Taylor Robson’s family moved to the state relatively recently. Her parents, Carl and Kathryn Kunasek, moved to Arizona from Omaha.
Carl Kunasek found he had just the right knack to be a successful Arizona businessman and Arizona politician. Owner of four prosperous drug stores, he was more than prosperous. A follower of Barry Goldwater, he fit right into the state’s politics. Kathryn took Karrin on her first campaign. Karrin was in utero as her mom canvassed door to door for Goldwater in his unsucccessful1964 Presidential campaign.
Interviewed by AZ Central, Karrin Taylor Robson was proud of her exploits in elementary and high school. She fondly recalled purchasing erasers for a nickel from her father’s drug store and selling them for a dime to the other children in her Catholic elementary school. The nuns were not pleased. She got a talking; was told she was taking other children’s milk money. Older, in fifth grade, she organized classmates to sell M&Ms from one of the drug stores to finance a class trip to Washington DC. That trip had not been approved by the school. She was not it going to happen.
If she did anything else out of line, she was no longer telling. She was no longer in Catholic school, but was interested in following her father’s electoral success. She was elected student body president of Mountain View High School and lstudent body president at Arizona State University where she earned her BA.
After college graduation, she went to Washington, working in the White House of both Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush. She recalls her return to ASU. A Goldwater devotee, she said of herself “I …. have a huge belief in private property and a healthy skepticism of government that puts barriers and limitations on what you can do with your property. So, I felt my skill sets sort of naturally tended to real estate and land use.” Armed with those beliefs, her understanding of her father’s political success, and her experience in the White House, she would get her JD degree from ASU to become a land sue attorney: “You have to be able to navigate government and navigate stakeholders and that was my skill set.”
She made enough money in her work so she could, in 2022, spend $23 million in her campaign for governor, $18 million of it, her own money. That other five million? She did a lot of online fundraising and had to drop a “controversial fundraising tactic that used pre-checked boxes to make donations recurring,…… Instead of opting in to make regular future donations, contributors had to opt-out.” Initially, she insisted that the refunds she had to make to contributors who thought they were making one-time contributions were common in politics. That was not true among her competitors who had to return money to half of one percent of their donors. Karrin Taylor Robson returned money to 4% of her donors – and they were the ones who noticed and complained.
Another politician who used that same tactic frequently and was not so quick to return money to donors – Donald J. Trump.
We don’t know who the Republican candidate for governor will be. We may not find out until the August, 2026 primary. While we are waiting, DONATE and keep donating to Katie Hobbs, an effective and successful governor, nevertheless, the most vulnerable Democratic Governor.
APRIL 1 LOOMS
Wisconsin – General Election April 1.
State Supreme Court
Support Democratic County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford against former Attorney General Brad Schimel. Currently Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has a 4-3 Democratic majority. Susan Crawford is running to replace a Democratic justice who is retiring. A Republican win would give the court a 4-3 Republican majority. This race is crucial for preserving the right to abortion in Wisconsin, for preserving an un-gerrymandered state legislature and eliminating voter suppression. This will be a very expensive election. Republicans are geared up. DONATE to Susan Crawford. See Len’s Political Note #684
State Superintendent of Public Instruction – also on Wisconsin’s April 1 ballot
Support Democratic incumbent Jill Underly in the primary and in the general election. Jill underly serves as a bulwark against right wing culture war positions. DONATE. Keep a successful Democrat in a leadership role in Wisconsin. See Len’s Political Note #693.
Florida’s Special Election on April 1 – now less than a month away. In these two heavily Republican districts, with your help, we can see just how much damage Republicans have done to themselves during Donald Trump’s opening unconstitutional salvos. A Democratic win in either of these races would be cataclysmic for Trump and the Republicans.
Florida 01: Gay Valimont is the Democratic nominee. Gay Valimont is the former head of the Florida Chapter of Mom’s Demand Action, a gun safety organization. She has returned to politics after two family tragedies. She understands how Republican her district is. She is both courageous and energetic enough to give it her all in a very tough cause. Her opponent is the former CFO for the state of Florida. He proposed using Florida tax money to defend Donald Trump in his criminal trials. That proposal was too extreme even for the Florida legislature. DONATE to Gay Valimont. See Len’s Political Note #694.
Florida 06: Josh Weil is the Democratic nominee. He is a teacher of middle school boys who have not been able to remain in typical classrooms, a job that may be tougher than seeking election as a Democrat in FL 06. Originally exercised by the 2020 Democratic losses in Florida, he describes his commitment to his own children and his students as energizing his campaign. His opponent is Randy Fine, wealthy from the gaming industry, an opponent of rights for members of the LGBTQ community, an opponent of abortion. Fine is convinced that God saved Donald Trump so he could be president. DONATE TO Josh Weil. See Len’s Political Note #704.
The following two are dateless. New York 21 cannot be scheduled until the incumbent, nominated to be Ambassador to the UN, resigns from Congress. And the Republican Judge who lost the November, 2024 election continues his law suit, preventing the winner from taking her seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
New York 21. Blake Gendebien will be the Democratic nominee. There was opposition, but no primary. He persuaded all 15 of the Democratic Party Chairs who state law gives the authority to select the candidate to support him. He is a dairy farmer, not a politician. But he knows enough about politics to be successful. We have no idea who the Republican nominee will be. It appears that the Republican Party chairs don’t know much more than we do about who their nominee will be. Furthermore, none of us knows when this special election will be. We won’t know until the Congresswoman, who has been nominated to be Trump’s Ambassador to the UN, is confirmed by the Senate and resigns from Congress. Help Blake Gendebien maintain his head start. DONATE to his campaign. See Len’s Political Note #706
North Carolina Supreme Court
Previously appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, Allison Riggs won her election in November. Unfortunately, her opponent continues to attempt to disqualify 65,000+ voters. Furthermore, her past and future North Carolina Supreme Court colleagues in what is now a 5-1 Republican Court, have thrown obstacles in her path. DONATE. Help her win her law suit. If she can sustain her effort, it is unlikely the Court would be so bold as to invalidate the election. See Len’s Political Note #594
November, 2026
US Senate – Georgia
US Senator Jon Ossoff
Just as Katie Hobbs is the most vulnerable Democratic Governor, Jon Ossoff is the most vulnerable Democratic US Senator. The election is not until November, 2026. DONATE now. Continue donating through November, 2026. When cannot achieve a Democratic Senate unless we support incumbents first.
