As the dust settles from November’s election and the sweeping wins Republicans saw here and around the country, Democrats in control here in Arizona are reacting — and figuring out how they might approach the incoming Trump administration.
And they’re reacting differently. Attorney General Kris Mayes, for example, is talking tough, saying she will continue her prosecution of Arizona’s slate of so-called “fake electors” from the 2020 election, and she says she will oppose Trump on any “unconstitutional” actions.
But Gov. Katie Hobbs is taking a different tact. A coalition of Democratic officials from other states are joining together to get ready to fight Trump. But not Hobbs. She said last week “I don’t think that’s the most productive way to govern Arizona,” and that she would work with “anyone who’s doing what’s right for Arizona.”
Arizona Republic columnist Phil Boas and editorial page editor and Elvia Díaz are both unhappy with these reactions. They joined The Show to talk more about it all.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Elvia, I want to start with you because you really took the governor to task here, in your most recent column, about her reaction when she was asked about how she will handle an incoming Trump administration? Tell us why.
ELVIA DÍAZ: Well, you know what, when political parties and candidates and leaders lose this badly in elections, there’s always an overcorrection, from my point of view, of what they did wrong.
In this case, Gov. Hobbs is not only over correcting her failures, but she is moving to the right and not even saying exactly why or how. I understand she’s heading to the border either today or this week and being ready to use the National Guard — we don’t know what capacity. And essentially she’s now standing up to Trump.
She should have said and she should have done like Kris Mayes did, oppose Trump on anything that is unconstitutional at the very least, but she’s not. She’s essentially caving to Donald Trump and moving to the right.
And I think I know why. I think we know why. She’s up for reelection in two years, and she thinks that by being Trump’s useful tool that that’s going to reelect her, but she’s very wrong on this one.
GILGER: Yeah. And you really were focusing on your critique of her reaction to immigration under Trump. As you said, she’s heading to the border this week. What do you think you would like to see her do? Like what could a Democratic governor in a border state do to oppose something like the proposed mass deportations that Trump has said he will carry out?
DÍAZ: To begin with — and I say it in my column — no one is going to oppose going after criminals, period. In this case Trump is clearly saying that he’s going to go after everyone. And if the governor is going to agree and go after everyone and help him, at the very least, she should have the guts to say it.
But as we saw last week, she’s not. I mean, she’s not articulated anything, only that she’s going to work with whomever — with Trump, with Republicans. And keep in mind that she has a Republican controlled Legislature that she has to work with. She thinks that she can work with them, and they’re already making every move to oppose her and override her on almost everything if it is possible. So, she’s mistaken to cater to MAGA instead of recruiting more moderates to her camp. She’s just not doing it. So we’ll see.
GILGER: Phil, I want to turn to you and talk about your critique in a recent column of Kris Mayes, our attorney general. You called it something like a retreat even as she was acting like a kingmaker. Tell us about this.
PHIL BOAS: In the post election, Kris Mayes basically did what the governors of Illinois, Massachusetts, California, the Democratic governors there did, and that is to join the resistance against Trump.
This was something that was started the last time he became president, and it was standing athwart your state and declaring that you’re not gonna stand for him shredding the constitution, which is exactly what Kris Mayes did.
The problem for her is she’s not the governor of Arizona, and she has her own podium and she can say what she wants. But in the same little press scrum, she also said that she was raising the white flag on her supposed criminal investigation of Donald Trump for remarks he made at a rally in Glendale just before the end of the election, in which Democrats accused him of making a death threat against Liz Cheney. And that’s preposterous.

GILGER: So I want to talk about both of these approaches, right? These two very different approaches to this incoming administration. People have some sense of what might happen. This is the second time Trump will be in office.
But I wonder, politically what might play better in Arizona? We have seen a lot of Democrats — and Republicans for that matter — win here by kind of playing the middle. Phil, start there if you can.
BOAS: Here’s what’s happening. Katie Hobbs is making her accommodation with reality. Arizona just voted for Trump by 6 points. The Republican Legislature grew stronger. Latinos are increasingly more and more voting for Trump. Illegal immigration is a key concern in this state. And Katie Hobbs is sort of plying the middle, looking at an election two years from now when she has to win a general election.
And so she kept her distance from Kamala Harris. That now looks prudent, and you have the opposite coming from Mayes. Mayes is ready to go to war, which would help her in a Democratic primary but would also make her toast in a general election.
GILGER: So let me throw that question to you then, Elvia. You’ve specifically talked about what Hobbs did in not showing up, basically, for Kamala Harris in your column. Do you think that that was a betrayal of a sort, it sounds like?
DÍAZ: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, while listening to Phil and remembering what I said, it kind of reinforces everything that is wrong with politics today and the overcorrection that I was saying at the beginning. We’re talking about the political leaders’ future and not what is best for Arizona We’re talking about what, what Hobbs needs to do to get a elected, what Mayes needs to do to get elected and possibly win the governorship, instead of instead of talking about what is best for the country, what is best for everyone.
And when Phil and others talk about the resistance as if it is something dirty, something wrong, something like, “Oh my gosh, Trump was elected with a great majority, it’s reality.” Well, if reality is so awful for so many people, why would I, or anyone say, “Oh, well, we have to deal with this reality. Oh, well, there are going to be abuses, you know, that’s what people want.”
No, that resistance means and for many people is not having a choice, right? Because they are going to get hurt.
GILGER: So, let me ask you about that because what she’s saying reminds me of what the larger critique has been of the Democratic loss here and the party’s approach to this election in general, which was that they were not speaking to the reality of the American people and lots of critics and politicos kind of saying that they were missing the mark there. They were not acknowledging that people were unhappy with the economy and immigration and things like that. Do you agree with that approach, even if you might disagree with her on how to talk about it?
BOAS: I think that after you have a shocking defeat, like the Democrats have had your first impulse is to want to place blame. And so we’re going through that right now. I mean, that’s what’s happening within the Democratic Party. But, if I were advising the Democratic Party, I would advise them to start being liberals again, start defending free speech again. You used to be the lions of free speech. Why don’t you do that again, instead of looking for ways you can regulate speech and control people?
Look at, look at what’s going on with, all these Democrats who are very openly talking about how they’re leaving Twitter for Bluesky. They can’t even stand to associate with the right, with the broader swath of people that voted for President Trump. That’s not going to win you elections in the future.
GILGER: It sounds like you might agree there, Elvia?
DÍAZ: Yes no. I mean, we have to talk about what real people on the ground are feeling, right? And I could care less about the political parties and the leaders. Maybe what the Democrats need is to begin from the beginning. Find new people, find fresh blood and start there and connect with real folks.
But again, if someone is telling me that I need to disappear, why would I listen to that person? If someone is telling me that I’m not welcome here, why should I listen to this person? If Trump is going to do what he says he’s going to do, then he is making every move to do it. Why should we, if we know it’s bad for the country?