Arizona stands at a political crossroads. In 2026, voters will decide whether to preserve a balanced state government or hand unchecked power to a single party. Governor Katie Hobbs, the incumbent Democrat, is the last structural counterweight in a system where Republicans already dominate both chambers of the legislature and most statewide offices. Her veto pen has become the only thing preventing Arizona from sliding into one-party rule: a condition that would make state government functionally indistinguishable from those that have been remade under Trump-aligned control elsewhere.
This is a struggle over the survival of Arizona’s democratic architecture—the citizen-led systems that were designed to protect voters from partisan overreach. It is about preserving democracy in Arizona.
Contents: The Long Project of Consolidation → Redistricting Reforms → Citizen-Initiated Democracy → Hobbs’ Record → The Money Behind the Push → It Matters
The Long Project of Consolidation
For more than a decade, Arizona Republicans have worked to consolidate control over every lever of state power. Through judicial appointments, procedural changes, and efforts to erode Arizona’s independent redistricting system, they have continued to seek one-party control of state government. They have gradually shaped a structure that keeps legislative power in their hands even when Democrats win statewide votes.
By 2025, they had secured nearly every statewide executive office, and maintained narrow majorities in the legislature. The courts, stocked with appointees from Republican governors Jan Brewer and Doug Ducey, lean predictably conservative. That left one remaining obstacle: a Democratic governor with the authority to veto legislation designed to tilt the system further.
Hobbs’ extraordinary veto record is the last functioning check on a legislature intent on consolidating power. She has blocked bills that would have restricted voting access, weakened reproductive rights and diverted public funding to private religious schools. Those vetoes have made her a prime target for the same donors and political operatives who have already captured statehouses in Texas and Florida.
Undermining the Redistricting Reforms
When Arizona voters created the Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) in 2000, they intended to prevent precisely this kind of partisan capture. The commission—two Democrats, two Republicans, and one independent chair—was designed to keep the legislature from drawing its own districts.
Yet Republicans have spent years chipping away at that independence. They sued to dissolve the commission in 2011, a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court before being rejected. Since then, they have worked to tilt the selection process for “independent” commissioners, rewrite the criteria used to define competitive districts, and shape public perception by claiming the commission is biased.
While they cannot legally redraw the maps, they have succeeded in undermining the intent of the reform. Districts are less competitive, public trust is lower, and the legislature remains skewed toward Republican control. It’s a quieter form of gerrymandering, done through influence, procedure, and perception rather than pen and map.
Attacks on Citizen-Initiated Democracy
Arizona’s constitution gives its citizens extraordinary power: the right to pass laws and constitutional amendments through ballot initiatives. That right has become the next target.
In recent sessions, Republican lawmakers have advanced measures to raise signature requirements, restrict who can collect signatures, and limit the scope of what voters can propose. Governor Hobbs vetoed several of these bills, including efforts to require signatures from every legislative district—an impossible standard that would effectively end statewide citizen initiatives.
When those bills were vetoed, legislators simply changed tactics. They reintroduced the same ideas as ballot measures, using their legislative majorities to place them directly before voters. In 2022 and 2024, those efforts failed—Proposition 128, which would have allowed the legislature to repeal voter-approved laws, and Proposition 134, which sought to impose district-by-district signature rules, were both rejected by Arizonans.
In addition, Republican legislators successfully advanced a constitutional change requiring a 60-percent supermajority for future citizen-initiated constitutional amendments—a direct effort to limit what voters can enact on their own.
Still, the pattern is unmistakable: when the law blocks them, they find another procedural path; when voters reject them, they return with new packaging. The goal is always the same—to narrow the channels through which citizens can influence or hold the legislature to account.
Governor Hobbs’ Record and Role
Katie Hobbs has governed as a pragmatist. Her focus on fiscal discipline, infrastructure, and public safety has drawn bipartisan acknowledgment even in a highly partisan environment. She has earned praise from some Republicans for her balanced budgets and restrained approach to executive power. She also remains the only barrier preventing her opponents from rewriting the rules of the game.
Her vetoes protect the mechanisms of democracy itself. Without them, Arizona would already have new laws restricting early voting, limiting women’s health care, and curbing the citizen-initiative process. She has held the line through procedural defense: using the powers of her office exactly as designed to keep one branch from consuming the rest.
Political analysts predict that her 2026 reelection fight will be close. Congressman Andy Biggs and other hard-right figures are circling, supported by national money that sees Arizona as the next domino. If Hobbs loses, Republicans would hold every statewide office and both legislative chambers—a complete partisan monopoly for the first time in decades.
The Money Behind the Push
The fight for Arizona’s governorship is drawing extraordinary sums. Republican candidates and their national allies are pouring money into the race, recognizing that capturing the governor’s office would complete their control of the state. Congressman Andy Biggs has already attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside spending from groups like Turning Point USA’s political arm, while former gubernatorial contender Karrin Taylor Robson has raised nearly $2.8 million—most of it self-funded.
In contrast, by late 2025 Hobbs’ campaign had drawn broad small-donor support. It raised roughly $12 million, more than the entire Republican field combined. Yet the imbalance of interests is stark: while her funding base is local and diffuse, the Republican effort is backed by national networks and deep-pocketed donors seeking to bring Arizona’s executive branch into alignment with its Republican legislature and courts. The money flowing into the race underscores what is at stake. At its core, this contest is about consolidating power through sheer financial force.
This Matters Beyond Arizona
What’s unfolding in Arizona is not unique. Across the country, political actors are discovering that it is easier to change the rules of democracy than to win over its voters. The erosion happens slowly—through ballot-language tweaks, “reforms” to signature laws, and quiet reshaping of commissions that were once independent.
Arizona is one of the few states where voters have repeatedly pushed back. They created the redistricting commission, defended it in court, and rejected legislative attempts to curtail their initiative power. Hobbs’ administration, together with Attorney General Kris Mayes, forms the remaining institutional counterweight to single-party dominance in Arizona.
The 2026 election will decide whether that partnership continues. A Republican sweep would hand absolute control of the state government to a party that has spent years trying to limit voter authority. A Hobbs victory would preserve pluralism long enough for voters to reinforce those safeguards.