Arizona Governor Ducks Debate Stage

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs just told voters she won’t stand next to Trump-endorsed challenger Andy Biggs on a debate stage this fall.

Story Snapshot

Hobbs’ campaign manager Nicole DeMont confirmed the governor will skip debates with Republican Andy Biggs ahead of November’s election.
DeMont claims “face-to-face engagement with Arizonans is more effective than a stage designed for short soundbites and political theater.”
Hobbs used the same excuse in 2022, refusing every debate against Kari Lake and still winning the governorship.
Hobbs’ own campaign has attacked Biggs for dodging a Republican primary debate, even while she refused to commit to one herself.

Governor Ducks the Stage Again

Governor Katie Hobbs will not debate Congressman Andy Biggs before Arizona’s November general election. Campaign manager Nicole DeMont told 12 News the campaign “respectfully” declines debate invitations because direct voter contact beats “a stage designed for short soundbites and political theater.” The announcement broke a debate tradition Arizona voters have counted on for more than two decades.

Hobbs told FOX 10 Phoenix she is focused on statewide outreach instead, brushing off the debate question by noting Biggs still had to win his primary first. Biggs went on to win that primary, and Hobbs still has no debate on her calendar. For a sitting governor asking Arizonans for another four years, that is not a small omission.

A Repeat of the 2022 Playbook

This is not new behavior for Hobbs. In 2022, she refused to share a stage with Kari Lake, and her campaign shut down talks with the state’s debate commission entirely. She won that race anyway, and Democrats now point to that outcome as proof the strategy works. But winning without debating is not the same as proving voters did not deserve one.

Hobbs claimed in 2022 that debating Lake would only hand her opponent “a larger platform” to spread election-denial claims. Whatever merit that argument had against Lake, it does not obviously apply to Biggs, a sitting congressman with a very different campaign. Hobbs has simply recycled the old excuse for a new opponent.

Campaign Claims Don’t Add Up

DeMont says Hobbs has already held “more than 100 open-press events” to make up for skipping the debate stage. No public schedule or attendance record backs up that number. Arizona voters are being asked to take the campaign’s word for it, with no way to check whether those events actually reached the people who need to hear from their governor before Election Day.

The bigger problem for Hobbs is her own inconsistency. Her campaign publicly slammed Biggs for skipping a Republican primary debate, even while Hobbs herself refused to commit to any general election debate. Reporters at KJZZ noted the irony directly: Hobbs’ team calls Biggs a “debate dodger,” which is exactly what he says about her. Arizonans can see through that double standard.

Institutional Pressure Builds

Arizona’s Citizens Clean Elections Commission has spent two decades insisting that candidates appear side by side so voters can judge them directly. Skipping that format again puts Hobbs at odds with an institution built specifically to protect voter access to candidates. Conservative outlets and Biggs supporters are already framing the refusal as contempt for basic accountability, and the governor’s own history gives that framing real weight.

Refusing to debate does real damage to Katie Hobbs' campaign & chances of being re-elected.

But it does far less damage than broadcasting her voice & her trying to dance around all substantive questions would.

— Jating Hews (@JatingHews) July 31, 2026

Hobbs may calculate that dodging Biggs costs her nothing, just as dodging Lake cost her nothing in 2022. But Arizona voters deserve to see their governor answer tough questions next to the man challenging her, not just at hand-picked events her own campaign controls. Refusing to debate does not build trust. It just confirms what her critics already suspect: she would rather avoid scrutiny than face it head-on.