Why This Race Matters
This overview reflects information available as of September 4, 2026. Candidates, polling, and endorsements may change before Election Day on November 3.
Arizona is one of five states where a Democratic governor is on the ballot in a state Donald Trump carried in 2024, and Gov. Katie Hobbs won her first term by less than a point in 2022, so both parties see this as winnable. Trump carried Arizona by about 5.5 points in 2024, a bigger swing than most of the other Democratic-held governorships up this cycle. Razor-thin statewide margins are not unique to Arizona; German state elections have flipped a governing coalition by only a few thousand votes even in years the national mood looked settled, and Arizona’s recent history follows a similar pattern.
The Race
Hobbs is running for a second term unopposed in her own primary. On the Republican side, Rep. Andy Biggs defeated Rep. David Schweikert in the July primary after President Trump endorsed both men simultaneously earlier in the cycle; Trump’s first choice, Karrin Taylor Robson, dropped out in February.
This is the first Arizona governor’s race decided under Proposition 131, a 2022 ballot measure that created a lieutenant governor position elected on the same ticket as the governor. Hobbs chose John Giles, the Republican former mayor of Mesa who endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024, as her running mate. Biggs chose former state lawmaker Sine Kerr. Cook Political Report and other forecasters describe the race as competitive, with recent public polling split on how large a lead, if any, either candidate holds.
The Candidates
Katie Hobbs (Democrat, incumbent) is Arizona’s current governor and previously served as secretary of state. Her campaign points to tax and border security actions she took in office and casts Biggs as too closely aligned with Trump’s agenda, including votes on Medicaid cuts, to win a swing state.
Andy Biggs (Republican) represented Arizona’s 5th Congressional District and previously chaired the hard-right House Freedom Caucus. He was among the House Republicans subpoenaed by the now-defunct January 6 select committee over his role promoting unproven 2020 election fraud claims, and he is campaigning on border security and lowering taxes.
Top Issues
Both campaigns opened with attack ads rather than policy rollouts. Hobbs released a digital ad within hours of Biggs’s primary win, tying him to Trump’s agenda, including a vote for Medicaid cuts and a vote against releasing files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Biggs responded with an ad referencing an ongoing investigation into a Hobbs 2022 campaign donor who later received a rate increase for his business as a state child-welfare contractor.
Beyond the attacks, immigration and border security remain central for Biggs, consistent with his record in Congress, while Hobbs points to her record cutting some state taxes and increasing public safety funding as governor.
Evidence Check
The pay-to-play allegation against Hobbs involves a donor to her 2022 campaign whose group-home business received a state rate increase; Biggs’s campaign has called it an “ongoing criminal investigation.” We could not independently confirm the current status or scope of that investigation from public reporting, and we treat the characterization as an allegation rather than a settled fact.
Public polling on the race is unusually inconsistent for this point in a cycle. An Emerson College poll from December 2025 found a near tie, 44% Hobbs to 43% Biggs, in a hypothetical matchup. An August poll from Noble Predictive Insights found Hobbs ahead by 13 points, 48% to 35%, with two minor-party candidates drawing a combined 3%. That gap is larger than normal polling error would explain, so we would treat any single poll here cautiously until more surveys narrow the range.
Supporter Voices
As in the Senate races we have covered, most on-the-record reaction available right now comes from campaigns and allied groups rather than individual voters.
Hobbs has framed her own record directly, saying she has fought for Arizonans by cutting taxes and securing the border, among other priorities. A Republican consultant quoted in Arizona Capitol Times described the early exchange of attack ads between the campaigns as “body shots” in what he expects to be a long fight, a characterization from a strategist rather than either campaign.
How This Race Is Being Framed
National Republican coverage emphasizes Trump’s continued strength with the party base and Biggs’s ties to the Freedom Caucus as an asset in a midterm year, while questioning whether Hobbs’s approval ratings, which pollsters put in the high 30s to low 40s, are strong enough to carry her past a well-funded challenger. National Democratic-aligned coverage instead emphasizes Hobbs’s history of outperforming generic polling in a state that has elected Democrats to the governorship, both Senate seats, and other statewide offices in recent cycles, and frames Biggs’s promotion of 2020 election claims as a liability with the same independent voters who decided the 2022 race.
