Katie Hobbs just did something that should make every organizer in this country sit up and take notes. On Tuesday, Arizona’s Democratic governor announced John Giles, the former mayor of Mesa, as her pick for lieutenant governor. Giles was a Republican for most of his life. He changed his registration to independent in May. He voted in the Democratic primary last month. And now he’s running on a ticket with the woman who beat Kari Lake by less than a single percentage point in 2022.
This is what coalition politics looks like when it actually works.
Giles stood on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last summer and told the truth. “The Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult, the cult of Donald Trump.” He said John McCain’s Republican Party is gone and that nobody owes “a damn thing to what’s been left behind.” He endorsed Kamala Harris. He backed Hobbs in 2022. He backed Mark Kelly for Senate. The man spent years being a Republican officeholder in a state where that still meant something, and he watched his party get eaten from the inside by a movement that treats the Constitution as a suggestion.
Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia CommonsNow contrast that with what Hobbs is running against. Andy Biggs chaired the House Freedom Caucus. He has served in Congress since 2017. His campaign’s response to the Giles pick was to build a website calling Hobbs and Giles “Kamala and Tim’s choice for governor,” a reference to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. That’s the level of discourse. Not a policy argument. Not a vision for Arizona. A nickname. A button. A tantrum.
The Biggs campaign is scared, and they should be. An AARP poll shows Hobbs with an 8-point lead. The Cook Political Report rates the race as leaning Democratic. Hobbs has signed more than 900 bipartisan bills into law, repealed the state’s 1864 total abortion ban, and expanded affordable housing. Biggs has his relationship with Trump and a platform of tax cuts and border security, which is the same platform every Republican has been running on since 2016 while delivering nothing for working people.
Let’s be honest about the tension here. Giles told PBS two years ago that he was “pro-life” and said Democrats appeared to favor “open borders.” He said he was more comfortable in the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Those are not positions that inspire confidence in every corner of the coalition. But Giles also said, “I didn’t leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party is trying desperately to leave me.” And he was right. The party that nominated Kari Lake and now nominates Andy Biggs left every reasonable person behind a long time ago.
Hobbs launched her “Arizona Over Party coalition” the same day the Giles news broke, with more than 50 Republicans and independents signing on. This is the model. Not a secret cabal. Not a backroom deal. A public, accountable coalition of people who have decided that the survival of democratic governance matters more than party loyalty. That is how you build power in a battleground state that Trump carried in 2024 and Biden won in 2020.
Allen Boguslavsky / PexelsArizona will elect a lieutenant governor for the first time this fall, after voters approved the position in 2022. Until now, gubernatorial succession in Arizona meant the secretary of state took over, regardless of party. That system gave the state Jan Brewer after Janet Napolitano left for the Obama administration. It gave Arizona Rose Mofford after the legislature impeached Evan Mecham. The new lieutenant governor role fixes a structural problem that has caused real harm. Hobbs and Giles are running to fill it.
The choice in November is between a governor who has governed and a congressman who has performed. Hobbs signed 900 bills. Biggs chaired a caucus dedicated to shutting government down. Pick the side that actually does the work.