Overview
- Gov. Katie Hobbs announced her choice of former Mesa mayor John Giles as her running mate on Tuesday, Aug. 11, formalizing a bipartisan ticket for Arizona’s first elected lieutenant governor race.
- Giles changed his registration from Republican to independent in May and voted in the Democratic primary, and he has publicly criticized President Trump and backed Democratic candidates, including speaking for Kamala Harris in 2024.
- The Hobbs campaign said Giles will not take part in public debates, and Hobbs likewise declined the governor’s debate, a decision the Biggs campaign and Sine Kerr have publicly criticized as avoiding voter scrutiny.
- The Biggs campaign promptly seized on Giles’s recent Democratic endorsements and DNC ties to portray him as a Democrat in disguise, while Hobbs frames the pick as a pragmatic outreach to conservative independents and Latter-day Saints voters.
- The move raises succession stakes because voters approved the new lieutenant governor post in 2022, and it sharpened contrast in a swing-state race where Republicans hold a registration edge and both parties are mobilizing resources to win independents.