PHOENIX — The losses Democrats suffered at the Arizona Legislature this election have left an elected official exploring whether he could win if he challenges Gov. Katie Hobbs to head the party’s state ticket in 2026.
Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told The Arizona Republic he will be “seriously considering every option’’ when his current term is up in two years. But no announcement is forthcoming even though Fontes, two years out from any future campaign, has close to $195,000 in the bank.
This comes on the heels of Politico reporting that some unnamed Democrats, contending Hobbs is “too weak politically’’ to win a second term, quietly approached Fontes. In the official pecking order of state officials, Fontes is No. 2, first in line of succession for the governorship if there is a vacancy.
Adrian Fontes, Arizona secretary of state
In the most recent election, Hobbs boasted about raising $500,000 in her bid to wrest control of the state House or Senate, or both, from Republicans. Picking up just one seat in either chamber would have created a tie; two seats would have put Democrats in control.
But when the dust settled, Republicans picked up two seats in the House and one in the Senate.
Days after the election, Hobbs brushed off questions about whether the results showed that Arizona voters favored Republicans’ ideas for solving problems, ranging from inflation and housing to border security, over her own. She pointed to her own victory two years ago over Republican Kari Lake.
Hobbs said she would “absolutely not’’ have done anything different in the just-completed election. “We did what we needed to do,’’ she said.
Gov. Katie Hobbs
The question remains of how strong a candidate Hobbs would be against potential Republican challengers.
Near the top of that list is Karin Taylor Robson. She was edged out of the six-way gubernatorial primary in 2022 by Lake. Given Lake’s trouncing in this year’s U.S. Senate race, GOP voters may be looking for someone more moderate, such as Robson, to carry the flag.
Robson also has access to money. She spent more than $23 million in her losing bid, including $18.4 million of her own cash.
Something else on the political landscape has changed.
When Hobbs was elected, Democrats were nearly 30.7% of registered voters against 33.9% for Republicans. As of this year’s elections, the GOP share had increased to almost 35.8%, with Democrats now at just 29.0%.
And Hobbs managed to beat Lake by just 17,117 votes.
The incumbent governor’s supporters have noted she made a strong showing in the 2022 Democratic primary, defeating former Nogales Mayor Marco Lopez by a better than 3-1 margin. But as secretary of state at the time, Hobbs also had $14.7 million to spend, versus $1.8 million for Lopez.
Still, the current governor has proven herself an impressive fundraiser. Aside from the money she raised in the ill-fated bid to wrest control of the Legislature from Republicans, her latest campaign finance reports show she has close to $3 million in the bank.
Fontes, however, is no slouch when it comes to defeating Republicans — especially those who espouse political conspiracy theories. He got elected in 2022 by trouncing then-state-Rep. Mark Finchem by more than 120,000 votes.
The only other incumbent Democrat in statewide office is Attorney General Kris Mayes. But despite some high-profile disputes with the governor, including over what she called the failure of Hobbs and her administration to protect groundwater, Mayes said she is looking at running for a second term in 2026 rather than for governor.
Hobbs may have done herself no favors among some elements of her party in the wake of the just-completed election.
She recently announced that, unlike some other Democratic governors, she would not take on the newly elected Trump administration and its various priorities. Just days ago, Hobbs said she will work with the new president on border security, though she insisted she will not cooperate on actions that “harm Arizonans.’’
When specifically asked whether she would protect “dreamers’’ and other long-time residents from Trump’s vow of mass deportations, Hobbs punted. “I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of action that hasn’t happened yet,’’ she said.
There is, however, another side to the question of how much blame for the Democrats’ legislative losses can be pinned on Hobbs as leader of the party in Arizona.
Overall, it was a bad year for Democrats, not just here but nationally, with Republicans not only electing Trump as president — including his impressive 186,000-vote win in Arizona — but also with the GOP maintaining control of the U.S. House and now having a majority in the U.S. Senate.
The only bright spot for Democrats this year was the 80,000-vote victory of U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego over Lake for Senate.
