R Governor primary debate

The Committee to Re-elect Katie Hobbs met on Wednesday, 6/17.  They tried to be clever about though and called it a debate between the Republican candidates for governor.

Seriously, the Citizens Clean Elections Commission sponsored the debate; all of their debates can be found here.

Other observers termed the debate "tame."

Note: I won't use too many quotes in this; most of the things I found most objectionable were typical R talking points/social positions.  Though there will be exceptions to the "no quotes" things, but only one candidate, Scott Neely, embraced his inner wingnut - he started discoursing on robots taking over the economy.

First up: a pic of the person they all wish to depose as Governor of Arizona, Katie Hobbs:

The candidates in the R primary, from the Arizona Secretary of State -

One thing was clear: they're all Republicans, and agree on a few things -

All want to lower taxes and regulations facing businesses.

All despise any programs that benefit average Arizonans but want to expand welfare for the wealthy in the form of school vouchers/ESAs.

All blame Joe Biden for most of the bad things facing AZ, including inflation (Cheeto was mentioned by name just a couple of times, and then only in laudatory terms - it was as if they knew he'd be a heavy weight around the neck on the nominee in the general election, but in the primary, they're seeking the votes of folks who worship him)

Water in  AZ:: There's no water shortage here, just a perception problem.  Otherwise, everything's fine.

[edit on 6/20 to add]

They're all campaigning on a MAGA platform, where MAGA means "Make Arizona Great Again".

[/end edit]

Candidates Ken Miceli and Scott Neely were unabashed about wanting to be governor to enhance their businesses.

Miceli mumbled a lot and gave off a "just happy to be here" vibe.  My guess is that he'll be fortunate to exceed 1% of the primary vote.

Neely was better and more experienced (he ran for governor in 2022).  He received less than 26K votes in 2022; he may surpass that total in 2026 but will still garner fewer than 50K votes.

Current member of Congress David Schweikert likes to use numbers and figures to justify the same old R talking points, but in a "if you can't dazzle 'em with footwork, baffle 'em with bullshit" way.

At the 16:21 mark of the video, he stated, to rationalize his support of new housing projects, "If an acre of homes, particularly if it's an acre of homes that goes that goes into where agriculture was, you actually end up with excess water supply."

My guess is that he'll come in 2nd in the primary; he may actually be running for the Lieutenant Governor spot on the ticket.

That leaves current member of Congress Andy Biggs.

I believe that he's going to win this particular primary, and it's evident that he does, too.

He tried to present himself as a reasonable person with a history of "working across the aisle."

Of course, being Biggs, it should come as no surprise that a couple of the examples that he cited may qualify as "own goals."

One example he cited was his work with former Senator and Representative Kyrsten Sinema.

Problem: she so despised Democrats (and, to be fair, many Democrats despised her in turn) that she changed her voting registration to nonaffiliated.  Last seen: lobbying (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) for a data center.

Another example he cited was working with the late Senator John McCain.

Problem: while he was a decent human being, he was not a Democrat.

The fact that Biggs thinks of working with a decent human being as "working across the aisle" says much about his personal character.

Republican voters shouldn't be worried though - he is still pandering to them.

At approximately 27:55 of the video, he proposed ending AZ's income tax and paying for it by going after fraud in Medicaid, Indian Health Services, and the Medicaid expansion program and selling off other assets like state trust lands.

He, like the others, glossed over fraud in the ESA program.

At 42:28, he observed "the reason you're hearing about it is that they're catching people that fraudulently use ESAs.

There's also tremendous fraud in {garbled} traditional system that we have to come in and find out and get that and stop that."

Evidently, providing facts is so not necessary in R primaries; only assertions are needed.

The next debates I'll watch are the CD1 debates - I'll watch the Democratic debate because I really don't know who I'm going to vote for, and I'll watch the R debate because I expect it to be entertaining.