Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs Announces Her Bid For Governor

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Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced her bid for Governor in 2022 today.

In the video announcing her bid, “We did our job,” Hobbs says. “They refused to do theirs. And there’s a lot more work to be done … When you’re under attack, some would have you believe you have two choices: fight or give in. But there is a third option: get the job done,” she adds in the video. “I’m here to solve problems.”

“The other side isn’t offering policies to make our lives better, they’re offering conspiracy theories that only make our lives worse,” she says.

This begs the question, “who do the Democrats have coming off the bench to run for Secretary of State?”

I’ll throw this out there just to start the conversation: state senator Martín J. Quezada has always impressed me as highly knowledgeable about election law (he is a lawyer). I do not know if he is interested in running, and this is not an endorsement. I’m just sayin’.

UPDATE:

But remember, Secretary of State is a critical must-win contest. We can’t have a Trumpster looking to steal the next election elected to this office, e.g., the GQP Queen of Voter Suppression, Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, or even worse, insurrection leader, “Oath Keeper” Rep. Mark Finchem.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports, Hobbs begins campaign for governor:

Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is hoping to accomplish something only five former state lawmakers have done before – become governor.

After many months of rumors on her impending run, Hobbs made her announcement Wednesday morning, launching her bid for the state’s top elected position. The seat will be open since Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s term expires after 2022, and her run for it will leave open her current seat as the second highest elected official in the state.

Hobbs has been in the national spotlight for overseeing Arizona’s 2020 election, one that officials from all parties mostly agree was safe and secure — save for claims the election was rigged for President Biden to win, leading to an independent audit GQP sham “fraudit” commissioned by the state Senate.

The national coverage became the top focus of her campaign video rehashing everything Hobbs has gone through over the past seven months, including a plethora of death threats which caused her to need 24/7 security, but Hobbs still hammered the point that her job was to make sure every vote was counted.

Hobbs said she’s running for governor “to rebuild our economy after Covid stronger than before. To make life saving investments in health care. To invest in our schools, our teachers, and the next generation of Arizona’s leaders to ensure that your race, gender, or zip code, do not dictate your destiny.”

In an interview with Capitol Times Hobbs said her mission has always been to ensure that she is “producing transparent and accountable results for Arizonans.”

“Government only works well if it’s run well,” she said.

“Hobbs is the only recent candidate for governor who agreed to an interview with Capitol Times.”

The Republican candidates have echoed Donald Trump’s attack line that the media is the “enemy of the people,” and have studiously avoided interaction with the media.

Hobbs said when she ran for secretary of state in 2018 she was running to take over an office she did not think hit the bar of being well-run.

“It was a mess and we had to get to work right away to clean it up and we did,” she said.

Overall she does not think the government is up-to-par, so she hopes to fix it.

“We right now have a state government that is being run by conspiracy theorists who are focused on an election that was settled six months ago, rather than governing,” Hobbs said.

“They are out of touch with everyday Arizonans and partisanship is holding us back.”

Ducey has not been part of the stop the steal movement, and he drew President Trump’s ire when he certified the election. [But he has also done nothing to stop the Arizona Senate’s GQP sham “fraudit”.]

Hobbs touted her legislative track record of working across party lines to get things done, and like in 2018, she prominently featured a clip of her as Senate Minority Leader shaking hands with Ducey. She served in the Legislature for eight years before narrowly winning her secretary of state race in 2018.

“I have a record of getting things done for Arizona and I’ve worked to bridge that partisan divide … that’s what I want to do as governor,” she said in the interview.

It’s likely that if Hobbs wins, she will have a Legislature still in Republican control after redistricting – [does this reporter have some insider information about the fix being in at the “Independent” Redistricting Commission?] – but she said that won’t stop her from being able to govern. She said that’s something that has been done before and most recently under the last Democrat governor in Janet Napolitano, who is expected to endorse Hobbs.

The two were spotted at dinner in May and one Hobbs ally told Yellow Sheet Report it was for a gubernatorial endorsement. Hobbs would not confirm or deny, but said the campaign has some endorsements lined up it will be sharing over the next few weeks.

Hobbs told Capitol Times she will govern by avoiding “personal attacks” that keep up partisan bickering, saying that Arizonans have had enough of it.

One issue that is sure to come up will be her 2017 tweet in the aftermath of the deadly riot in Charlottesville in which she said Trump “has made it abundantly clear he’s more interested in pandering to his neo-nazi base” than being president for all Americans.

Her tweet has been borne out in spades as the God’s honest truth. The Seditious insurrection on January 6 was a “white riot” of far-right white nationalists, i.e., the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys, QAnon, etc. So racists who don’t like to be called a racist will be upset? Too bad. They are not voting for her anyway.

If Hobbs gets elected as governor she will only be the sixth former legislator in history to accomplish that feat with Republicans Jan Brewer and Jane Dee Hull were the most recent two in 2010 and 1998 respectively. Republican Evan Mecham was elected in 1986 and R.T. Jones, a Democrat, in 1938 and Republican John Phillips in 1928 were the others.

State Treasurer Kimberly Yee, a Republican who announced her run for governor on May 17, also served as a legislator before her statewide election in 2018. Karrin Taylor Robson, a developer who is on the Arizona Board of Regents, is also running as a Republican and she and she and Yee plan to focus on the border, a topic many Republicans will lean on with Biden, a Democrat, in the White House.

Let’s not foreget former Fox 10 news anchor, Kari Lake, now a full time right wing conspiracy mongerer (Q much?) Five Highlights of Kari Lake’s Dark Path to Right-Wing Radicalization.

Hobbs will first have to defeat Marco Lopez, the former Mayor of Nogales and Napolitano’s former advisor and the former chief of staff of Customs and Border Protection.

While she doesn’t have an extensive background with border issues, she said it’s not a new issue by any means and when she was a social worker before she first ran for office in 2010, she saw the “human side of immigration.” She said she worked in a domestic violence shelter and saw it firsthand.
“Women who were in terrible situations, and were afraid to reach out for the resources that they needed to survive for them and their children,” she said. “We have to fix our broken immigration system.”

Hobbs said she knows she’s in for a long campaign and it won’t be easy, but she is excited to get started.

“I’m certainly not walking into this race thinking that it’s going to be an easy race, but there’s been changes over the last couple of cycles in the electorate and how they voted, and I’m walking into this race as a battle tested statewide leader who has had a unique opportunity for Arizona to see the leadership that I’ve provided,” she said.

“I’m going to be focused on being a governor for all Arizonans and making Arizona work for everyone.”

Let the race begin!