Hobbs's narrow political playing field

If Democrats took control of the governorship and the Legislature, what would they do?

Katie Hobbs recently made the unsurprising announcement that she is running for re-election as governor.

Candidate announcements are usually pablum and not much should be expected from them. Nevertheless, Hobbs’s campaign website and a released video underscore what a narrow playing field she encounters heading into the 2026 election.

Since Hobbs was elected in 2022, the Republican registration advantage over Democrats has increased from 166,000 voters to 333,000 today. As a percentage of the electorate, the Republican advantage has increased from 4 percentage points to an astonishing 7 percentage points. In 2022, Hobbs only defeated Kari Lake by 17,000 votes, which represented a margin of less than a percentage point.

The only glimmer of hopeful news in the changes in the demography of the electorate since 2022, from Hobbs’s perspective, is a slight increase in the percentage of voters registering independent, a trend that appears to be accelerating.

Unless Democrats substantially reduce the GOP registration advantage between now and the 2026 general election, Hobbs will need the number of swing voters to increase and for her to get an even larger share of them than she obtained in 2022.

Swing voters, or those who vote for the Republican in some races and the Democrat in others, have decided the outcome of major races in Arizona for four consecutive election cycles. Among them are a large number of disaffected Republicans and center and center-right independents. They have generally rejected MAGA candidates. Trump is the only MAGA candidate to win a race for a major office during this period, and even he lost Arizona in 2020.

This narrow playing field, and the need to increase both the number and share of swing voters, sharply limits Hobbs’s campaign messaging options.

In reality, the best argument Hobbs has for swing voters is that she will continue to be a check on a MAGA dominated Legislature. The anti-MAGA swing vote hasn’t filtered down to state legislative races. Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that, while individual MAGA legislators have escaped the attention of the anti-MAGA swing voters, those voters are dissatisfied with the extent to which MAGA legislators have come to dominate the Legislature. While running against individual legislative candidates for their MAGA affiliation hasn’t produced much, there is probably some political potency in running against what the whole has become.

There was little hint of this argument in Hobbs’s announcement materials. But it’s an argument she can make with credence. She has vetoed nearly 400 bills in just three years. A check on MAGA excesses she has been.

However, making that argument sort of concedes that Democrats aren’t going to be taking over one or both chambers of the Legislature. Unless Democrats sharply reduce their registration disadvantage, it’s hard to see how they win the necessary seats to capture a legislative majority in down-ballot races in an off-presidential year. So, while a continued GOP controlled and MAGA dominated Legislature is a reasonable assumption, making an argument implicitly premised on it is a tricky thing for Hobbs to manage.

This political reality also makes it tricky, and risky, for Hobbs to articulate much of a proposed second-term governing agenda, and there wasn’t much of one in her announcement materials.

During Hobbs’s tenure, state government has mostly been in stasis. Her announcement materials cite claimed successes for her governorship. Yet they are mostly slight movements on the margins of policy. The sole exception is the ag-to-urban water bill, freeing up the ability to construct homes in the Queen Creek and Buckeye areas, where demand is high and costs are more reasonable. However, that was a solution to a freeze of Hobbs’s own making, by virtue of a regulatory injunction against new home construction in those areas. It was a different way, arguably a better way, of basically returning to the status quo ante.

Under Hobbs, state government, in its scope and structure, is not materially different than what she inherited from Doug Ducey. What she might have done was sharply circumscribed by a hostile GOP Legislature. But Hobbs hasn’t really attempted material changes in the administration or regulatory approach of state government, where she has more latitude. Nor has she articulated the kind of governing agenda she would pursue if she had a supportive Legislature.

And that raises an interesting question headed into 2026: If Democrats retained the governorship and took over the Legislature, what would their governing agenda be? Unless the registration advantage substantially narrows, that’s an unlikely outcome. And that presents Democrats, particularly Hobbs, with a dilemma. An appealing governing agenda – more specific than “we like education” – could make a Democratic sweep more likely, particularly if nationally there is a strong Democratic tide. However, the specifics could make it more difficult to retain the right-leaning swing voters Hobbs needs to keep her seat.

For example, it is hard to imagine an honest governing agenda for Democrats that doesn’t include a tax increase. State finances are very tight and projected to remain so for the next several years. Not enough can be squeezed from shutting down abuses of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program to fund the kind of increases in education and social services, such as daycare, that an honest Democratic governing agenda would contain.

Under no plausible scenario would Democrats pick up enough legislative seats to directly enact a tax increase, which, under the state Constitution, requires a two-thirds vote. It would necessitate a referendum and voter approval.

That’s not necessarily a political non-starter. The current top rate on the personal income tax in Arizona is 2.5%. In 2020, voters approved a top rate of 8%, when at the time the top rate was 4.5%. The voter-approved rate was nullified by the Arizona Supreme Court on dubious grounds.

Now, I inveighed against the ballot proposition containing the 8% rate and think any increase in the rate of income taxation would take the state in the wrong direction economically. Alas, the overall electorate doesn’t share that view, or at least didn’t in 2020.

However, a significant portion of those right-leaning swing voters would share that view. An honest Democratic governing agenda would shrink swing voters available to Hobbs, when she probably needs to expand that population.

An honest Democratic governing agenda would be something between swinging for the fences and a Hail Mary pass. I think Democrats in general, and Hobbs in particular, will instead be satisfied with a bunt single.

Hobbs won’t explicitly run on an agenda of keeping state government in stasis. But that’s what her re-election would probably produce.

Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.