As Arizona barrels toward 2026, the governor’s race is already acting like it’s in the final month — and the tone is getting uglier by the week. Although the primary is still months away, political oxygen is being consumed by an increasingly combative Republican fight. At the same time, Democrats largely rally around Hobbs as the incumbent heading into a high-stakes general election on November 3, 2026.

On the Democratic side, Hobbs is running as the clear front-runner, and her messaging is less about a contested primary than defining the Republican field early. At a November 2025 rally, Hobbs framed the GOP contest as a test of Trump loyalty, stating, “He wants someone who will do whatever he demands and not push back, and all three of my opponents fit this bill.”

She’s also pre-butting the attacks she expects to hear over the next year, warning supporters that “my opponents will try to make me into someone I’m not.” That’s notable because, even without a serious Democratic challenger, Hobbs is treating the campaign like a daily knife fight, signaling she’ll go after the Republicans as a bloc long before the GOP primary produces a single nominee.

The Republican primary is where the nastiness is most visible, and it’s not subtle. Congressman Andy Biggs, Karrin Taylor Robson, and Congressman David Schweikert are all trying to be the “last Republican standing” against Hobbs.

Robson is leaning hard into the “outsider” lane, explicitly making her rivals the punchline. When Schweikert entered the race, Robson welcomed him by drawing a bright line for voters as a choice between “a Trump-endorsed conservative outsider who built her success in the private sector, or yet another career politician.” She’s also been willing to hit Biggs from the right, and to do it in language designed to sting. In one sharp broadside tied to Trump-world policy drama, Robson blasted him for criticizing Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” calling it “shameful, swamp behavior.”

Schweikert, meanwhile, is pitching himself as the adult in the room by implying his opponents are running on rage. In an Arizona Capitol Times article dated September 30, 2025, he said, “I think if you run as an actual conservative instead of your perceived anger, I think that works.”

Biggs, on the other hand, is aiming most of his fire at Hobbs, portraying her as politically desperate and untrustworthy, stating, “Katie Hobbs now shamelessly wants to take credit for the tax cuts passed by President Trump and Congressional Republicans.”

The “big picture” storyline is clear: the Republican primary is incentivizing candidates to out-label and out-punch one another, bandying about terms like “career politician,” “outsider,” “swamp,” and “sellout.” Meanwhile, Hobbs is using the chaos to argue that the GOP field is more about national grievance politics than Arizona governance. Whether that strategy works is still an open question. But the trajectory is obvious: the closer we get to August 2026, the more this race looks like it’s aiming for maximum damage rather than maximum persuasion.