Arizona governor's race: Where Katie Hobbs stands on the issues
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Katie Hobbs speaks Oct. 7 in Tucson. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
With early voting underway and the election just around the corner, Axios Phoenix is breaking down the biggest races on your ballot. We're starting the race that will largely determine the direction our state will take for the next four years: the race for governor.
Context: Democrat Katie Hobbs has been Arizona's secretary of state since 2019, and she spent eight years in the legislature, including as the Senate's Democratic leader. She spent much of her career before running for office as a social worker.
Education: Hobbs wants teachers to get an average pay raise of $14,000 to bring Arizona to the national average of about $66,000. Teacher salaries are set by school boards, but the state has in the past sought to increase them from the top down.
- She wants voluntary universal preschool education and all-day kindergarten.
- In addition, Hobbs wants expanded dual enrollment and career and technical education, including a tax credit for technical education.
- Hobbs would seek to roll back the expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program and create financial accountability for charter schools to ensure that taxpayer dollars are going to the schools instead of private companies that operate them.
Taxes and economy: Looking to emulate a similar federal program, Hobbs wants to implement an annual child tax credit of $250 per child for families that earn $100,000 or less annually.
- She wants a permanent child care assistance program for working families, which she estimates would cost the state about $400 million per year.
- Hobbs also proposed eliminating state sales taxes on diapers, baby formula, over-the-counter medicines and feminine hygiene products.
Border security: Hobbs sees a minimal role for the state in border security, a federal responsibility, but said she'd ensure that border communities get the financial and law enforcement resources they need to deal with issues caused by illegal immigration.
- Hobbs would also end Gov. Doug Ducey's busing program for asylum seekers.
Abortion: Hobbs wants to ensure that women have a right to abortions and her first priority would be to repeal the state's pre-Roe ban on all abortions except those necessary to protect the health or life of the mother.
- If the legislature won't repeal the law, Hobbs would lead the effort for a ballot measure to do so in 2024.
- She opposes restrictions on abortions through the third trimester. Her campaign noted that most such abortions are done out of medical necessity and that a woman's decision to get an abortion should be between her and her doctor.
Elections: Hobbs, who has served as Arizona's top election official since 2019, has steadfastly defended the 2020 election and rejected the bogus conspiracy theories that it was rigged against Trump.
- She wants to expand access to the ballot box by implementing same-day voter registration, extending in-person early voting through the weekend before Election Day and automatically restoring the voting rights of people with felony convictions who have repaid their debts to society.
- Hobbs proposes cleaning up voter rolls by allowing election officials to use the National Change of Address database, funding risk-limiting audits for elections and making nonpartisan post-election audits mandatory.
The other side: Where Republican Kari Lake stands on the issues