Katie Hobbs says she won’t debate Andy Biggs, opting instead to tour the state

For the second election cycle in a row, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is refusing to debate her Republican opponent. 

Hobbs narrowly won the governor’s seat by about 17,000 votes in 2022 after she declined to share a debate stage with Republican Kari Lake. 

Now, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, the winner of the July 21 Republican primary election, is taking Hobbs to task for refusing a debate with him. 

“Arizona voters, especially the independent and persuadable voters up for grabs this cycle, deserve to hear from statewide candidates in a traditional debate setting, one that was held in every Arizona gubernatorial race since 1954 until Katie Hobbs ran for the position in 2022,” Drew Sexton, a top advisor for the Biggs campaign, said in a statement.

Hobbs campaign manager Nicole DeMont said in a statement that the Democratic governor was declining a debate “because face-to-face engagement with Arizonans is more effective than a stage designed for short soundbites and political theater.”

In 2022, Hobbs attempted to convince the Clean Elections Commission to host separate televised interviews of both herself and Lake, arguing that the bombastic Lake “only wants a spectacle.” 

That request was declined, so the Hobbs campaign opted not to debate, telling the commission in a letter that she refused to participate in a debate with a conspiracy theorist who would engage in “constant interruptions, pointless distractions, and childish name-calling.”

Instead of participating in this year’s debate, DeMont said that Hobbs was traveling the state to hear directly from her constituents as part of her Arizona First Tour. DeMont said that Hobbs had already participated in more than “100 open-press events and interviews so she can answer questions about how she’s worked across the aisle to deliver results on the challenges everyday Arizonans are facing.”

The Biggs campaign said that he planned to participate in the Oct. 6 Clean Elections debate “to ask for the votes of every Arizonan of every background” regardless of whether Hobbs will be there.