Gov. Katie Hobbs’ reported choice of former Mesa Mayor John Giles as her running mate looks like an audacious play for Arizona’s political center. But it could prove less expansive than it appears: Giles may appeal chiefly to Republicans already prepared to oppose Andy Biggs, while handing Biggs a decade-long municipal record to attack.

Hobbs’s campaign hasn’t formally announced Giles’ inclusion on the ticket. The New York Times reported that Hobbs plans to name Giles, a Republican who led Mesa for more than a decade, as her nominee for Arizona’s lieutenant governorship. Arizona voters created the office in 2022; it will be filled for the first time this election. The lieutenant governor will be first in the line of succession and must also hold an appointed position under the governor’s authority. This is more than symbolic: Arizonans must accept Giles as a governing partner and potential governor.

Mesa’s recent crime trends create the first hazard. The city reports that violent crime rose steadily from 2020 through 2024, a period overlapping Giles’ tenure, before declining approximately 14% in 2025. Opponents can turn that raw trend into advertising that links Hobbs and Giles to crime and public disorder.

The picture is less convenient for that attack. Mesa reports that in 2024, it had the lowest violent and property crime ratesamong cities with populations between 500,000 and 650,000. Its council-manager system also leaves daily operations to a manager. Blaming Giles personally for every police statistic would be simplistic.

Campaigns, however, are seldom won by the most nuanced argument. Mesa is a large city with large-city headlines, and perception can outrun comparative data. If Republicans make “the Mesa record” shorthand for insecurity, Hobbs may spend time defending Giles instead of defining Biggs.

Giles also has a substantial record to defend inside Mesa. Voters reelected him in 2020 with 66% of the vote. During his tenure, Mesa added population, revitalized downtown, opened an Arizona State University campus and strengthened its position as a manufacturing center. Supporters see a pragmatic, business-friendly mayor.

Within today’s Republican coalition, his résumé reads differently. Republican committees in Maricopa County and several Mesa-area legislative districts censured Giles after he endorsed Hobbs and Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022. He later campaigned for Kamala Harris, co-chaired Republicans for Harris in Arizona and spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. He also sharply criticized Donald Trump and the GOP’s populist direction.

Those actions may appeal to independents, moderate Republicans, and East Valley voters who still identify with John McCain’s politics. They also mean Trump-aligned Republicans do not regard Giles as a Republican bridge. To them, he is a defector. Hobbs may discover that Giles attracts voters already prepared to oppose Biggs while doing little to loosen the Republican nominee’s base. Some Democrats could also resent being passed over for an office carrying real authority.

Biggs’ selection of former state Sen. Sine Kerr sharpens the contrast. Kerr, a dairy farmer and former federal agriculture official, brings deep rural ties. She may not expand Biggs’ reach in suburban Maricopa County, but she can reinforce the conservative and agricultural voters central to his coalition. Her sponsorship of a 2021 proposal that would have banned nearly all abortions without exceptions for rape or incest gives Hobbs an opening with moderates. So does Kerr’s vote to hold Maricopa County supervisors in contempt as the Senate pursued its review of the 2020 election.

The choice is more complicated than “bipartisan versus partisan.” Kerr gives Biggs ideological consistency and rural credibility. Giles gives Hobbs executive experience, East Valley familiarity, and an anti-Trump Republican identity—but also a record both parties can question.

Will Arizonans see Giles as a serious governing partner chosen for a defined job, or as a bipartisan stunt—and can a Republican repudiated by his own party actually carry Republican voters?