Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, is weighing a primary challenge against Gov. Katie Hobbs, potentially launching a battle for control over the Democratic Party in the crucial Southwestern swing state.
If Fontes were to run, the Democratic primary could become an early flash point in the national struggle to define the party after its disappointing performance in the 2024 elections.
Fontes in recent days has been listening to Democrats who have been privately urging him to run against Hobbs because they believe she is too weak politically to win a second term, according to three Democratic operatives in the state familiar with the talks and granted anonymity to describe them.
The operatives said that Fontes hasn’t made any decisions yet — and doesn’t take doing so lightly, as his entrance would make for a messy and expensive primary — but that he’s been receptive to their entreaties. Their push comes after several major Democratic defeats in the state: Not only did Vice President Kamala Harris lose in Arizona, but Republicans gained more seats in the state Legislature, even as Democratic Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego notched a more than 2-point victory over Republican Kari Lake.
“People are saying, like, ‘Well, why can’t it be Fontes? Why does it have to be Hobbs?’ And I think he’s responding to that saying, ‘Well, what does that landscape look like?’” one of the operatives said.
Fontes was elected secretary of state alongside Hobbs in 2022, defeating his Republican opponent, now-former state Rep. Mark Finchem, a member of the conservative-leaning extremist group Oath Keepers, by nearly 5 percentage points. An Arizona native, Fontes formerly served as Maricopa County recorder.
Fontes did not respond to a request for comment.
Hobbs defeated Lake, a highly polarizing Republican who was once viewed as a rising star in the MAGA movement, by less than a percentage point in 2022. And after absorbing the party’s losses this month, some Democrats say they fear the governor won’t be able to beat a better Republican candidate.
Hobbs set out this election cycle to flip the state Legislature for the first time in more than three decades — raising millions of dollars to do so — and prioritized campaigning for those races and an abortion ballot measure. She not only fell short of her goal, but Republicans actually gained seats in both chambers.
But Hobbs’ allies have argued the challenges Democrats faced this year are far bigger and shouldn’t be blamed on the governor, noting Republican wins not just in Arizona, but across the map. Republicans, for instance, made gains in state legislative races across the country, despite being vastly outspent by Democrats.
“Absolutely not,” Hobbs told local reporters last week, asked if she would have done anything differently in the election. “We did what we needed to do, and I’m going to work with the Legislature that Arizonans elected.”
State Sen. Priya Sundareshan, chair of the Arizona Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, called Hobbs a “key partner” in their legislative efforts, adding that she was the “largest individual funder in the effort to flip the state Legislature.”
“Along with financial support, the governor crisscrossed the state and campaigned in every competitive district for battleground legislative candidates,” Sundareshan said. “Despite significant challenges from the national political landscape, Arizona’s legislative chambers remain extremely close, and that is a direct result of the hard work we put in this year.”
Hobbs’ allies also cast doubt on whether Fontes has the money and the name recognition to beat Hobbs. A Morning Consult poll from July found that 52 percent of Arizonans approve of Hobbs’ job performance, compared with 37 percent who disapprove. (The top ranking governors mostly scored in the high 60s.)
Hobbs also won her 2022 Democratic primary by a nearly 50-point margin.
The Democratic Governors Association is already voicing strong support for Hobbs’ reelection — Meghan Meehan-Draper, the association’s executive director, said the group is “all-in” for the governor — while Arizona Democratic Party Chair Yolanda Bejarano said that Hobbs will be “critical to protecting Arizonans from extremist policies coming from Washington over the next four years,” calling her a “champion for Arizona.”
Still, some Democrats in the state are frustrated that Hobbs didn’t do more to campaign for Harris. While she endorsed the vice president, visited a campaign office with Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and spoke at a Harris-Walz reproductive freedom bus tour event, she didn’t appear at an event attended by the vice president herself until the last week of the election.
And some Latino leaders are particularly worried about the approach she’s taking on the border, as she takes a centrist posture in the run-up to her reelection campaign. During a visit to the border on Monday, Hobbs announced that she would deploy the Arizona National Guard to the border as part of an effort to crack down on drug trafficking and boost border security.
Their concerns come as Democrats nationally grapple with how to win over Latino voters, particularly as younger Latinos come of voting age.
“The Latino community is the one who’s being affected by it, and they feel left behind by her comments,” said one Latino Democratic insider, granted anonymity to speak freely. “The Latino community is no longer a bloc that can be taken for granted by either party.”
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