KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about internal Democratic Party drama, President Trump endorsing a second GOP gubernatorial candidate and more, The Show sat down with Lorna Romero Ferguson of Elevate Strategies and former Congressional staffer Roy Herrera.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: So let’s start with the gubernatorial race, Lorna. President Trump late last year seemed to endorse Karrin Taylor Robson. Pretty much every email she sends out says, “Trump-endorsed Karrin Taylor Robson.” And now her primary opponent, Congressman Andy Biggs, has also gotten Trump’s endorsement. What does this do to the race?
LORNA ROMERO FERGUSON: You know, it’s not surprising, right? We saw President Trump do this during the last election cycle for one of the congressional seats between Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh. You know, there was a different dynamic there because Abe got the endorsement early on, and then the Blake Masters endorsement was, what, a week or two before the election?
So he has a reputation for doing this, saying, “I like both candidates in the race. You can’t go wrong either way.” Obviously in December when President Trump was in Arizona, he in front of an audience made that endorsement of Karrin Taylor Robson before she even announced. And then Andy Biggs in the new year decides to jump into the race.
And so there was a concerted effort from the far right, the Turning Point crowd, to get President Trump to endorse Andy Biggs. So this end result is not surprising. I’m a little surprised that it happened as early as it did. I mean, we’re talking about a race that’s next year, right? So, I mean, these folks even announcing their candidacy early on — we’re still recovering from the last election cycle.
So, one, I’m just surprised you did it so early, but two, I think it’s actually beneficial for the Republican primary because it takes that issue off the table. They’re both Trump endorsed, now we can talk about other issues right.
So I think it levels the playing field for both of them. And then you can actually compare the candidates based off of the issues versus the Trump endorsement.
BRODIE: So does it help one candidate more than the other, do you think?
ROMERO FERGUSON: I mean, I think it neutralizes at this point, right? I mean, typically before you would have one Trump endorsed candidate and a non-Trump endorsed candidate, and they used it for fundraising. And then it used it to try to curry favor with more of the MAGA Republicans in a primary.
Now that they’re both endorsed, now you really have to make the case to Republican primary voters. Are we going to be talking about the economy? Are we going to be talking about border security, immigration, public safety? I honestly think for some Republicans, it’s a favor that they don’t really have to talk about the Trump endorsement as much anymore, and they can actually focus on issues that voters are going to care about in 2026.
BRODIE: Roy, I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you don’t think this is necessarily a great thing for the Republican primary — maybe great for Gov. (Katie) Hobbs, but not great for Republicans.
ROY HERRERA: Yeah, I really like this topic. I don’t know if I’m going to like some of the topics we’re talking about little bit later, but this is a great topic because I think it is a great development for Gov. Hobbs and her reelection campaign, because I think what it does — to me anyways — is solidify my view that Biggs is going to win that primary.
I kind of already felt that way in some ways because I think there was always a question about Robson and whether the MAGA base would actually take her for one of their own and whether she was faking it or not. Whereas there’s no question, obviously, that Biggs is a loyal Trump soldier and MAGA member.
But now that you have this dual endorsement — which again, I totally agree with Lauren is not surprising, given how fickle Trump has been about these kinds of endorsements. To me, it means that Biggs is going to be the nominee. And I think for Hobbs, that is a welcome development because Biggs is, I think, going to be a very weak general election candidate.
And I say that primarily because he is pure MAGA. This is not somebody that’s going to try to appeal to independents or moderates at all in the general election. He’s not going to make any kind of pivot or anything like that.
He’s going to have to take, I think some very difficult votes coming up. And I’m looking at the reconciliation bill, for example, which may have some severe cuts to Medicaid that he’s probably going to vote for. I think that’s not going to be politically popular next year.
And he’s never raised money before. And so all those things, I think, make him a very weak general election candidate in this endorsement, I think to me means he’s going to be that general election candidate.
ROMERO FERGUSON: That was a very optimistic take from a Democrat friend when it comes to the Republican primary. When I say that the Trump endorsement kind of neutralizes the primary, I think it goes to show that you made a good point. Andy Biggs hasn’t had to run for statewide office before. He hasn’t had to fundraise to the extent that you need to to be successful.
BRODIE: The fundraising issue seems to be significant for him.
ROMERO FERGUSON: It’s significant. And Karrin ran for statewide office before. You saw impressive fundraising numbers that she just released. And so I really is going to come down to who runs the better race in that primary. And I think Karrin can pull it off. I definitely think so.
I know Democrats after the endorsement this week were doing high kicks, thinking that it is going to be Andy Biggs winning the primary because they think Hobbs will be successful in that general election matchup.
But I think Karrin is a dogged campaigner. And obviously she has the resources to be successful, and she’s going to run one heck of a campaign.
BRODIE: All right. So Roy, you kind of alluded to this — topics that you might not be so enamored of. What is going on with the Arizona Democratic Party?
HERRERA: Well, it wouldn’t be Arizona if we’re not talking about sort of internal party politics on both sides of the aisle, right? Obviously, what happened with the letter from the chairman ws an unwelcome development that I think he has caused himself and all of us.
When you’ve got Sen. (Mark) Kelly, Sen. (Ruben) Gallego, Gov. Hobbs — all the statewide Democrats, Democrats who have won the most difficult races, literally have gotten millions of votes of Democrats and Arizonans over the years — on one side, and then on the other side you’ve got the chairman, then I think as the chairman, you ‘ve probably got to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Well, maybe I’m wrong here.”
And so when I saw that letter, on top of the fact that it was unwelcome that he made it public in the way it was made, I think there’s a lot of things in there that were untrue, as far as I know, and mischaracterizations.
And the biggest problem here is: The whole point of the party is to get Democrats elected. That’s why it exists, so that Democrats can get elected and then enact their policies. And so this letter and this sort of controversy surrounding it gets in the way. And that’s really unfortunate development.
Now, the good news is that this has happened early enough in the cycle here where I think there will be an adjustment made, certainly with the governor running for reelection next year. She’s going to have the organizational infrastructure she needs one way or the other. So whether that’s through the state party or through another vehicle, it’s going to be there.
And so right now, I’m just hopeful that there is an adjustment, that perhaps we can find a way where Gov. Hobbs can kind of have the reelection infrastructure that she wants and deserves as our top-of-the-ticket candidate and go from there.
BRODIE: So Roy, we had the chairman, Robert Branscomb, on about a week or so before all this came out. And I asked him about whether the party was unified, because obviously a number of elected Democrats did not endorse him for that role. They endorsed the former incumbent, Yolanda Bejarano.
And he said, “The party’s unified. We’re ready to go.” It seems as though that’s really not the case.
HERRERA: Well, I think it’s largely unified. I’m not sure if he’s part of that unity. I mean, that’s the issue. But again, you’ve got all of the statewides — the two senators, the governor — working hand in hand with each other, again, on what should be the true focus, which is electing Democrats or reelecting Democrats next year.
So I think that has happened, and hopefully, again, there are some changes one way or the other to make everyone get along, going for next year with that ultimate mission.
BRODIE: So Lorna, we have talked in the past about some dysfunction within the Republican Party. I wonder if you see parallels, especially between — I think back to I forget which year it was — but when Kelli Ward was leading the Republican Party and a lot of the fundraising went through the county Republican Party, not the state party. I wonder if you see any parallels between this and some of those other incidents.
ROMERO FERGUSON: There’s definitely parallels. And I appreciate Roy’s optimism about the Democratic Party’s ability to recover from this quickly before an important election next year. The AZ GOP, as you mentioned, there have been Republican candidates that were not supportive of the leadership and went elsewhere to fundraise and to do all of the typical party efforts that you need to do in order to support candidates.
You also saw third-party party organizations emerge. You saw, as Roy mentioned, that either way Katie Hobbs is going to have the infrastructure she needs. You saw statewide elected officials that were Republicans that just built up their own grassroots infrastructure, that were registering voters and doing door knocking, stuff that traditionally the party should do.
I do think that coming off the heels of the 2024 election and that being devastating for Democrats and then having this public infighting for the actual party is not helpful. I think there’s this internal crisis happening of, “What is the identity of the Democratic Party?”
And yes, you might be unified in getting Democrats elected in this next election cycle, but what kind of Democrats are we talking about? The (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), (Sen.) Bernie Sanders crowds that are doing rallies across the nation? Or are you trying to get more moderate folks?
And so I think this is going to be a continued issue for the party. It wouldn’t surprise me if folks start funneling money elsewhere like they did with the AZ GOP. But I don’t think this is going to be as quick of a recovery just because I think there is an identity crisis amongst the party, and everybody has a different idea of what the direction should be for Democrats going into 2026. And I’m just not as optimistic as Roy, that there is going to be this kumbaya so quickly before that election cycle.
BRODIE: What is the role of the parties anymore? Especially with super PACs and so many other ways for candidates to fundraise and to get their messages out and everything, are parties still as important in elections as they once were?
ROMERO FERGUSON: I would say that they are. And from the standpoint that you do want to see this cohesiveness and this coalition of Republicans coming together to support other Republicans, right? But as we’ve seen with Republicans and Democrats, there’s a lot of internal infighting that usually goes against that mission and that role.
There’s also the question of how the leadership decides to use those dollars. Are they using them most effectively in the best races possible, etc.? Are they helping downballot candidates, etc.? And obviously people disagree with some of that strategy.
So I think they play an important role. It is not the most important role because obviously candidates need to run a good campaign. There’s outside groups now. There’s just a lot that goes into it.
So having a strong party and a healthy party is helpful. But as we’ve seen over the past 15-20 years in Arizona, people figure out a way to still be successful even if they’re not functioning properly.
