Jul.23

electoral-vote.com

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GOP 53

Democratic Presidential Candidate of the Week, #31: Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ)

And the beat goes on. Here are the profiles we've done so far:

40. Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ)
41. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
42. Al Franken
43. Jon Tester
44. Jon Stewart
45. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
46. Mitch Landrieu
47. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)
48. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)

And now, Katie Hobbs, you're up to bat:

• Full Name: Kathleen Marie Hobbs
  
  
• Age on January 20, 2029: 59
  
  
• Background: "Three Catholics and a Jew" sounds like the start of a joke involving a lifeboat, or walking into a bar, but it's actually a description of the last four candidates we've profiled. Don't forget, there are a lot of religious Democrats out there; they just don't tend to wear it on their sleeves.
  
  Anyhow, the Phoenix-born Hobbs is a lifelong Arizonan. There are some states where voters don't much care about that, and some where voters do, and Arizona is in the second category, perhaps because the two most famous Arizona politicians, Barry Goldwater and John McCain, were proud, lifelong Arizonans (even if McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone). Like Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) last week, Hobbs was born to a family where money was tight, but she was nonetheless educated at Catholic schools throughout her pre-college years.
  
  Given the socioeconomic status of her parents, Hobbs was on her own when it came to paying for college, and so she put herself through Northern Arizona University, and then Arizona State University, receiving bachelor's and master's degrees in social work. Thereafter, she worked with poor kids in Phoenix, and then assumed leadership of the Sojourner Center, a very large shelter for battered women. Though one might be tempted to guess that is a reference to Sojourner Truth, it is not; it's just meant to convey that the facility offers temporary accommodations for "travelers" who need them.
  
  During her private-sector career, in addition to social work (which is really exhausting, by the way), Hobbs participated in an ungodly number of professional and activist organizations, most obviously the National Association of Social Workers and Emerge Arizona, which encourages women to run for political office. She was also a delegate for Hillary Clinton at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and so had a front-row seat as the then-senator lost out to her colleague from Illinois.
  
  
• Political Experience: After spending some time trying to recruit other women to run for political office, Hobbs decided to look in the mirror and recruit herself. She ran for the Arizona state House in 2010, and won easily. Of course, 2010 was a census year, and by 2012, Hobbs' reliably blue district had been redrawn to be ruby red. She decided she liked her chances better in the state Senate, and so ran for a seat in that body, winning comfortably, and then was reelected two times. During the latter two of those terms, Hobbs was also Senate Minority Leader.
  
  In 2015, Hobbs' first year as minority leader, she ended up embroiled in a scandal, of sorts, that nearly derailed her career. One of the aides in her office was Talonya Adams, who is Black. Adams complained to Hobbs that she (Adams) felt discriminated against on the basis of race and gender. Hobbs later fired Adams—Adams claimed it was retaliatory, Hobbs said it was for poor performance. Adams eventually sued, and won a $2.75 million judgment, though the case dragged out over 6 years.
  
  By the time that judgment was rendered, Hobbs was serving as Arizona Secretary of State, having been elected in 2018. It surely did not hurt that the verdict came down during a non-election year; nonetheless, the dispute with Adams is the kind of thing that can come back to haunt a person who runs for president. After a term as secretary, Hobbs decided to run for the governorship. She had the good fortune to draw a crazypants opponent in Kari Lake, and so eked out a victory, 50.32% to 49.65%. One has to imagine that, against a normal Republican, Hobbs would not have won.
  
  
• Signature Issue(s): Abortion. By virtue of her private-sector career, Hobbs has broad experience with, and credibility on, women's issues. But Arizona has been ground-zero (well one of them) for the post-Dobbs fight over abortion access, and she has managed to hold the line against Republicans who (literally) wanted to turn the clock back to 1864.
  
  
• What Would Her Pitch Be?: "I can bring a key swing state back into the Democratic column."
  
  
• Instructive Quote: "Arizonans are sick and tired of our government being run by conspiracy theorists—like Kari Lake—who wasted our taxpayer dollars and breached voters' trust in their effort to discredit the 2020 election."
  
  
• Completely Trivial Fact: Twins make up 1.7% of the population which means that, roughly speaking, there should be one "twin" president in the first 60. The U.S. is currently on the 45th person to serve, and it hasn't happened yet. But it could happen with the 46th, as Hobbs has a (fraternal) twin sister named Becky.
  
  
• Recent News: One of Hobbs' main focuses, as governor, has been expanding funding for childcare. And just yesterday, she announced that 900 more working-class children will be funded under the state's Child Care Assistance Program.
  
  
• Strengths for the Democratic Primaries: (1) Hobbs does empathy well, and her remarks after various natural disasters come off as very genuine; (2) If abortion ends up as THE issue in 2028, Hobbs is a very good standard-bearer; and (3) Hobbs is a woman, and some Democratic primary voters are eager to break that glass ceiling, after coming up short in two of the last three presidential contests.
  
  
• Weaknesses for the Democratic Primaries: (1) Hobbs leans way too heavy on the politician-speak, and so her words sometimes seem a bit rote and empty; (2) Arizona is one of the last states to hold its primary, so she won't get the "freebie" boost that Democrats from the Midwest or New England get early in primary season; (3) Hobbs is a woman, and some Democratic primary voters clearly believe that "white guy who doesn't scare people in the heartland" is the way to go in 2028.
  
  
• Polls: She's not being polled as a presidential candidate, but Hobbs does have an approval rating of around 50%, against a disapproval of around 38%, putting her 12 points above water. That's not too bad, these days.
  
  
• How Does the Readership Feel?: We asked readers for their thoughts on Hobbs running for president; here are some of those responses:
  
  
  • P.D.N. in Boardman, OH: Well, she's from a crucial swing state the Democrats would love to win back and she's fairly popular in spite of the Trumpy headwinds there, but the Democrats are not going to nominate another woman as their presidential candidate. Maybe she could be a vice-presidential candidate if the Party feels it has to have Arizona's electoral votes and she could deliver them, LBJ-style.
    
    
  • K.T. in Oakdale, NY: There will be two viable lanes in 2028: (1) New and exciting (like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY) or (2) Safe, steady white man who can communicate effectively (like Gov. Phil Murphy, D-NJ). Candidates like Pete Buttigieg may try out both lanes. Katie Hobbs has no path in either lane, and barely notched a win over an absolutely terrible candidate in Kari Lake in an important swing state. She has no chance of winning a primary, much less a general, and won't run for president.
    
    
  • J.S. in Phoenix, AZ: Katie Hobbs is doing the "western, moderate Democrat" bit well for us in Arizona, but I doubt that would translate into a viable national campaign.
    
    On one hand, she vetoed nearly 400 bills sent to her desk in her first three years as governor, including 174 this year alone. While some unpopular bills from the Republican-led legislature are signed, including things that would be considered non-starters in a Democratic run state, like "school choice" bills that steal public school dollars and ID-verification rules for adult content websites, she also has generally held the line against the wild extremism of the current Arizona brand of Republicanism, which is far removed from the days of Goldwater and McCain and is characterized now by people like Kari Lake, Kelli Ward, and Rep. Paul Gosar (R) and their like-minded cronies who easily win heavily R-favored legislative districts in rural and suburban Arizona. Due to the slim-but-powerful Republican legislative majority and its ideological hold on state politics, it means Hobbs is rarely doing anything more than saying "no" to the legislature and maintaining the status quo otherwise, meaning her résumé looks thin and her list of accomplishments small.
    
    Polls of the 2026 governor's race give Hobbs only a slim lead, partly because her Democratic voters want her to do more (which she can't), while the independent and Republican voters see her as an obstructionist. I, for one, don't feel like Hobbs truly had the charisma and charm to win in Arizona if not for the perfect opportunities afforded by an open seat and running against a nutjob Trump-lite Kari Lake, and she would have an uphill battle selling herself to Democrats nationally.
    
    I think for Hobbs to find her way into the White House it would be as a VP candidate. If something awful were to happen to test her leadership and prove it true, that could elevate her but, last I checked, Phoenix is basically immune from most natural disasters, so I wouldn't count on it.
    
    
  • J.C. in Honolulu, HI: The Vikings have a better chance of winning the Super Bowl than Katie Hobbs winning the Democratic nomination in 2028.
    
    
  • G.G. in Sausalito, CA: My late wife, Myra Levenson, and I were residents of Tucson for several years. Myra was reasonably active in Democratic politics, but as a former executive at a very conservative insurance company, I was at best a centrist (at least until Trump crawled out from under his rock again). Yet, as a dutiful husband, I accompanied her to several intimate political gatherings.
    
    One of these gatherings was held in the yard of some friends in Tucson. And candidate Katie Hobbs was to be the speaker. She totally lacked presence and seemed to be just another one of the guests.
    
    I never met anyone as unimpressive a speaker as Katie Hobbs. She spoke in a whisper and was barely able to be heard in a small backyard gathering consisting of perhaps two dozen supporters. She said nothing of substance, nothing motivating, nothing inspiring. As my grandchildren would say, she lacks "rizz."
    
    
  • A.M. in Phoenix, AZ: I've lived off-again, on-again in Phoenix for the better part of 2 decades. It's been interesting to watch the state go from a ruby-red Republican state, although one with a real maverick streak, to becoming a more purple state. This has a lot to do with Latino voting power, millennials coming of age, but probably more significantly that a lot of folks have moved to Arizona in the last two decades—especially from neighboring California where they've been priced out.
    
    And that's how we get to a 2022 election that had a squeaker of an AG contest but a reasonably clear victory for Katie Hobbs. It helped that she was up against Kari Lake, who seems to have no problem lodging her foot in her mouth. Rule number one of the state is: Don't speak ill of John McCain, and Lake basically told those voters to buzz off.
    
    How has Hobbs been doing? Well, given that the legislature has been majority-Republican for a long while now, as well as she can. There was some hope that the Democrats would take the legislature in 2024, but it was a bad year across the board. She is mostly curbing the worst instincts of the GOP in the state.
    
    With that long intro on her, what are her chances of running for the presidency? Basically, less than zero. I'm honestly not convinced she'll win re-election. Even if she pulls that off, I just don't see her making a stab at the White House. Now, if the candidate is Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) or Pete Buttigieg, I could see them wanting a woman from a battleground state as veep, but more likely than not, if she wanted to be in the administration I would think she'd get HHS or Interior (folks in the White House love putting Westerners in at Interior, and probably for good reason).
  
  
• The Bottom Line: Hobbs is something of a poor woman's version of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), and we'd guess the only way there's a possible lane for the Arizonan is if the Michigander takes a pass.

Next week, it's #30, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). If readers have comments about Warner running for president in 2028, please send them to comments@electoral-vote.com.