The top Republican contender for governor of Arizona, Representative Andy Biggs, frequently tells his supporters about his collaboration with the late Senator John McCain to enact legislation that assisted American Indian tribes in reporting missing children.
If it weren't for the way other recent Republican candidates in Arizona handled the legendary senator's legacy, this statement from his stump speech would go unnoticed.
The Republican nominee for governor in 2022, Kari Lake, is well-known for telling McCain Republicans to "get the hell out" of one of her campaign rallies. Blake Masters, the Senate nominee that year, said that it was "not (McCain’s) Republican Party in Arizona anymore." They both lost.
If Republicans nominate McCain for governor of Arizona in Tuesday's primary, as is anticipated, Biggs' acceptance of McCain provides an early look at how he plans to handle one of the major obstacles he confronts. Biggs, a hardline conservative supported by President Donald Trump and a key player in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, is comparable to recent MAGA heroes who galvanized the Republican base but were ultimately turned down by the majority of Arizonans.
The GOP may be able to unseat Gov. Katie Hobbs, the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the nation, if Biggs can persuade voters that he is a different kind of Trump Republican than Lake and Masters. If not, the party may continue its run of narrow losses in one of the country's most important battleground states.
"I don't think Arizona is a purple or blue state. At a get-out-the-vote gathering on Friday, Biggs clasped hands with supporters and told CNN, "It is a red state." "All we need to do is remind people."
With almost 300,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats, the state is, at minimum, a redder shade of purple. Republicans have cause for hope after Trump's 6.5-point victory here two years ago, which was his largest margin among the seven battleground states, according to operatives on both sides of the political spectrum.
However, the same election also saw Lake lose a Senate run, which further infuriated Republicans who had seen their influence wane in a state they had long controlled. In a state where one-third of voters are not party-registered, it also highlighted the possibility of hundreds of thousands of ticket splitters up for grabs this November.
Republicans cannot afford to take a chance on another Trump-backed MAGA warrior, according to Representative David Schweikert, who is challenging Biggs in Tuesday's primary. Schweikert claims he would carry his record of winning one of Arizona's most competitive congressional districts into a general election that will probably be decided by the state's expanding independent voter majority.
He asked a direct question of Republicans watching at home during last month's only debate in the race.
"Are you sick of losing?"
For better or worse, a lengthy history of conservatism
Biggs doesn't have the same firebrand persona on stage as Lake did throughout her campaigns. Lake, a former local television anchor, frequently made headlines with outrageous remarks that caused controversy even among her own party. He is also not as vocal as venture capitalist Masters, whose unreservedly strong and divisive opinions plagued his Senate candidacy.
Biggs, a 67-year-old grandpa and lawyer who frequently appears on Fox News, hardly ever employs rhetorical devices. His rhetoric is generally unprovocative, and his voice is usually moderate.
"He's not Kari Lake, and that does cut both ways," stated Arizona-based senior GOP strategist Barrett Marson. "She received negative attention, but sometimes getting your name out there is half the battle. The local TV broadcasters seldom give a damn about Biggs. He doesn't excite me.
"But also unlike Kari, he's a true conservative, and he has a long record, sometimes to his detriment," Marson continued.
Biggs has been one of Trump's most dependable backers as the head of the House Freedom Caucus, but his extreme views frequently annoy House leadership. He was known as one of the state's most conservative politicians during his 14 years in the state legislature prior to entering Congress.
His success has won him the support of Turning Point, a youth-focused political organization founded by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, as well as the affection of people in his ruby-red district. Kirk personally supported Biggs prior to his death in September of last year, and his Phoenix-based organization has promised to use its political might to support the congressman, including a ballot-chasing campaign that helped Trump win in 2024. In TV commercials, Biggs has highlighted Kirk's backing.
The head of Turning Point's political division, Tyler Bowyer, stated that the organization wouldn't function as well in support of a different nominee.
Bowyer stated, "You have to have a candidate that the grassroots wants to support, and we have that in Andy."
His main rivals have attempted to persuade Republican voters that Biggs is unfit for office due to his past. A litany of Biggs's opposition to "legislation to protect sexual abuse survivors," including his House committee vote against subpoenaing the Epstein files, has been released by one challenger, Scott Neely. Schweikert has attacked Biggs in campaign mailings for showing up with the Proud Boys, a white supremacist militia group, and College Republicans United, a far-right organization for young conservatives.
However, Schweikert has neither vigorously confronted Biggs on the campaign trail nor had the means to regularly broadcast that message on television. Other contenders have not succeeded in gaining traction.
Biggs, on the other hand, has focused on less controversial legislation from his career, emphasizing not only his collaboration with McCain but also with Democrat-turned-independent former Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and progressive California Representative Ro Khanna. He has concentrated his criticism on Hobbs, accusing her of not cooperating with legislators to manage growing expenses and criticizing her frequent use of the veto.
He told his fans on Friday, "I've shown that you can be a conservative, a principled conservative, and get things done."
The mention of Khanna caused some people in the audience to sigh. However, they are also looking for a candidate who can fill Lake's void.
"God bless her, but we're just ready for something new," Gilbert substitute teacher Mickie Martinez remarked. "The time has come."
Cindy McCain, McCain's widow, is nonetheless a prominent opponent of the Arizona Republican Party's current course. In September, she and their son Jimmy will organize two Hobbs fundraisers.
A leader who denies the election?
Hobbs has already devoted months to strategizing her reelection campaign to appeal to independent votes. Since May, she has spent $7 million on campaign advertisements with a centrist theme that mostly emphasizes affordability and reintroducing herself to Arizonans.
She and Democrats are getting ready to remind Arizona voters of Biggs' record as he approaches the nomination. Hobbs brought up Biggs' resistance to Medicaid expansion in Arizona, his prior views on abortion, and his assistance to Trump in preventing the election's certification during a campaign visit on Monday in Phoenix.
According to the House committee that looked into the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Biggs attempted to rally Republican lawmakers in the state to back a slate of electors who supported Trump and pushed him not to give up. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House adviser, testified that Biggs was one of several Republicans who requested a pardon from Trump for their part in preventing the election's certification. Biggs has consistently refuted the assertion.
Hobbs, who oversaw the 2020 election while serving as Arizona's secretary of state, stated, "If Andy Biggs is elected governor, Arizona will be the first swing state with an election denier in charge." And 2028 is not the year to end that. It is at this moment.
Biggs told CNN that he is happy with the candidates currently in charge of Maricopa County, the largest county in the state and the target of the right's election-related conspiracies. Biggs told CNN, "I'm looking forward," when asked if he believed that discussions for the 2020 election should take place this autumn.
He continued, "I think we will have a great election."
However, his fans are unwilling to let go. Hobbs was "named," not elected, governor in 2022, according to a local elected official who spoke before Biggs at the gathering on Friday. Republicans have lost recent statewide elections, according to one participant, Ed Runge, because of "the elephant in the room – the integrity of the elections."
Runge stated that he was still "doubting" if Lake and Masters would lose. The outcomes of the elections in 2022 and 2024 have been confirmed by several reviews and audits.
Additionally, Trump has not ceased discussing the 2020 election, as evidenced by his recent speech to the nation and his demands that Congress reform voting procedures and mandate proof of citizenship in order to cast a ballot.
If state Representative Alexander Kolodin, a lawyer who represented numerous prominent attempts to contest Arizona's 2020 election results and is a candidate for secretary of state, joins Biggs on the ticket, the matter may receive more attention. He is competing against Gina Swoboda, the former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, who supports Trump but isn't obsessed with previous elections.
However, it's uncertain if Hobbs will try to confront Biggs directly about this past. Hobbs did not commit to debating Biggs this autumn, and he declined to debate Lake in 2022 before defeating her by a slim margin.
Hobbs told CNN, "There's plenty of time to talk about that in the coming weeks."
According to Biggs' campaign, he would be open to a discussion.
