KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about the resignations of two state agency directors, next year’s gubernatorial campaign hitting the airwaves and more, The Show sat down with former state schools superintendent Jaime Molera of the firm Molera Alvarez and Mike Haener of Lumen Strategies.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Mike, let’s start with the resignations of two of the agency directors that Governor Hobbs had appointed, not confirmed: the AHCCCS director and the director of the Department of Health Services. Basically, their resignations were kind of an acknowledgment that they weren’t going to be able to get through the state Senate, the so-called DINO committee. What do you make of the fact that these are not the first that have had this?
MIKE HAENER: Well, what I make of that fact is that, again, an indicted fake elector is making these hearings hyperpartisan, and it’s creating chaos in the system. And what the governor is trying to do is, again, bring continuity and sanity to these agencies so that they can run efficiently and effectively to the best degree that they can.
And this partisan outburst by the senator is is causing problems throughout the business community, the health care community, all of these agencies that impact everyday Arizonans.
BRODIE: Jaime, the Hobbs administration has referred to this committee over the last couple of years as a political sideshow — that’s one of the nicer things, I think, that they have that they’ve said about it. And Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), who Mike referenced, and some of the other Republicans on this committee have expressed concerns about political viewpoints or policy viewpoints of some of the agency directors.
I guess this all kind of gets down to the question of, what do you think the role of an agency director is? Are they the ones implementing policy, or are they doing what the person who won the election is asking them to do?
JAIME MOLERA: Well, it’s certainly a new standard now because the confirmation process was really to vet the qualifications of individuals, also to look at things that might keep them from doing those jobs in an impartial and effective manner. But now it’s become very hyperpartisan. I agree with Mike.
But the one criticism I would lay on the governor’s office is that a lot of times when these nominations are put forward, they’re usually backed by the governor’s office getting coalitions in the industries to support their nominations.
You’ve seen that with a couple of the nominees, but that was done pretty much on their own. Alec Thomson was also kind of a controversial, Jake Hoffman had indicated. He’s the state director of the lottery department. And Hoffman had said, “Well, we don’t want him because of other things that occurred.” Well, he organized a very effective coalition of business leaders, tourism industry folks that benefit from the lottery. And they came out in droves like an army.
And that’s the kind of thing that really didn’t happen with the other agency directors. I think a lot of folks approached the governor’s office early on saying, “How can we be of help to get these nominations through?” But there was really no follow-through.
And I think that was a big mistake, because a lot of times, these kinds of nominations — if you would have had a lot of these, like for Carmen Heredia, for instance —
BRODIE: The AHCCCS director.
MOLERA: If you would have had a lot of the health care organizations, the hospital CEOs and even some of the business groups I think would have been willing to support the governor. There really wasn’t that effort to coalesce those interested to back her up.
BRODIE: So, Mike, the governor tried to sort of get around this committee by creating new positions and just appointing these people to those positions. The court said she couldn’t do that. So they had to go back through this committee.
At this point, is there anything the governor can do to try to make sure she has the agency director she wants? We’re now three years into her term.
HAENER: Well, I think the one thing that you can do — as an example, Cara Christ, the former director of the Department of Health Services resigned during the Ducey administration about 18 months before the end of Gov. (Doug) Ducey’s term. They appointed an interim director and said they were going to do a national search. They never appointed anyone to that position.
He remained the interim director until Gov. Ducey’s term ended. No one in the Senate brought up this issue. No one said, “Hey, you, you don’t have a confirmed director.” So what I would do if I were the governor’s office is I would appoint interim directors for the rest of her term and not send anyone else to the Senate.
BRODIE: Do you think there’s any chance that Jake Hoffman and the other Republicans in the Legislature wouldn’t try to call her out on that?
HAENER: Oh, I’m sure they would. But there’s no other option because, again, as Jaime said, this isn’t just vetting you to make sure that you’re qualified. There is a current director that has not been confirmed yet that was told he might not get confirmed because he has negative tweets about President Trump.
That’s a First Amendment right to criticize the president of the United States. And so if you’re not going to confirm somebody because of that, it says a lot about that process.
BRODIE: Jaime, let me ask you about, we heard a little clip of new ads from gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson. She is going up with a multi-million dollar ad buy. We are still what, 15 months away from the primary? We know that in her campaign, money is not going to be a problem for her. The fact that she’s up this early, is it in any way surprising to you?
MOLERA: Well, first off, welcome to the 2026 election cycle.
BRODIE: We’ve been there for a while, I feel.
MOLERA: No, it does not surprise me. However — and I’ve said this before, I believe here and in other forums — that if she, if Karrin Taylor Robson employs the same strategy she did the last time she ran for governor, which is commit a bunch of money, raise a bunch of money and just go on the airwaves and not really do the ground game that I think is necessary — particularly in the primary — then the the outcome is going to be the same.
BRODIE: Ground game, meaning like going out and shaking hands, meeting people?
MOLERA: Building coalitions and really going to the grassroots, activities that you need to do, especially in the Republican primary or even the Democratic primary. You really have to build those coalitions and entities that are willing to support you. But just going on the airwaves, Mark, it doesn’t connect you with the grassroots and the heart of the party that I think is going to be needed to get over the finish line.
Andy Biggs is going to be a formidable candidate. He’s seen as a very hardcore Republican, very tied to the MAGA interests. She’s touting her endorsement from President Trump. Well, guess what? A week ago, President Trump endorsed Andy Biggs, too. And I think most people, most Republicans, especially the activists, would think that that’s the real endorsement.
So that’s where Robson needs to identify herself a little bit better and be more aggressive in building those kinds of relationships that could be a benefit in the primary. And right now, I just haven’t seen that yet.
BRODIE: Well, it’s interesting. In her campaign ad, the whole thing was basically about how President Trump endorsed her toward the end of last year. Do you think that’s sort of telling about what we’re going to be hearing from her for the next year-plus?
MOLERA: Well, I think there’s been a couple of polls that have been released that show that already, she’s falling way behind Andy Biggs.
BRODIE: Correct.
MOLERA: And so I think what they want to do is trying to inoculate themselves early on, before it gets to the point where a lot of Republicans saying, “Well, she’s not really a Republican. She’s not the kind of Republican we need.” So they’re going on the airwaves. They’re going to spend a lot of money to say, “Not only am I a Republican, but I’m endorsed by President Trump, who’s the be-all, end-all for a lot of these candidates.
So I anticipate that they’re going to continue to do that because they’re going to have to. But if they don’t combine that with what I just said, then I think it’s going to be just like what happened with Kari Lake. (Taylor Robson) spent a lot of money, trounced her in fundraising. But at the end of the day, the heart and soul of the Republican Party just wasn’t with her.
BRODIE: So, Mike, I love asking you to wade into internal Republican politics. I know it’s an area in which you like to reside. Would you agree with Jaime that we’re just going to be hearing about the Trump endorsement from Karrin Taylor Robson? I mean, we’ll hear it, of course, from Andy Biggs as well, but he’s not on the air quite yet.
Is this something we’re going to be hearing from Karrin Taylor Robson from now until at least through next July?
HAENER: Yeah. Essentially it’s her only play. As Jaime said, the base of the Republican Party is already for Andy Biggs. She has to try to convince them that Donald Trump supports her more than he supports Andy Biggs. That’s a tall task. It’s going to take a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of effort.
And again, as Jaime pointed out, you have to go out into that world. She’s got to go to LD meetings. She’s got to go shake hands with the precinct committee people, who are all 100% MAGA focused. And if she doesn’t do that, she can spend $100 million, and she’s not going to win.
BRODIE: Do you think it makes a difference when you get to the general election — whether or not it’s Karrin Taylor Robson or Andy Biggs — if the primary has been mostly a fight over who President Trump endorsed more? Does that in any way affect the general election, do you think?
HAENER: I think it does, because — I hate to say this — but in the old days as a Democrat, you might run a little bit to the left in the primary. As a Republican, you might run a little bit to the right, and then you try to come back to own the center.
BRODIE: You pivot to the center.
HAENER: Right. That doesn’t happen now. And it’s not going to. Karrin Taylor Robson cannot pivot back to saying, “Oh, I’m a McCain Republican now.” It’s not going to work. Andy Biggs will never do that. So now it’s just two people fighting over the MAGA coalition. How do you then pivot to the center? You can’t.
BRODIE: Well Jaime, it’s interesting. We read a piece this week from Bob Robb — longtime political observer, writer on Substack — about how in his mind, maybe Karrin Taylor Robson should have been running as an independent, which would have allowed her to sort of be who he thinks that she is.
Do you think that if the primary election is basically “Who does President Trump love more?” — does that affect the general? Does that maybe give Katie Hobbs an opening?
MOLERA: Oh, it sure does. I think that, candidly, if Karrin Taylor Robson gets out of the primary, she’ll be almost impossible to beat in the general election. Because I think she’d be able to develop that kind of a coalition of Democrats, independents especially, and Republicans to get her over the top.
But having said that, Andy Biggs is going to be tough to beat in the primary. I think Gov. Hobbs’ best bet would be to face somebody that’s much more of a MAGA, much more hard right, which Andy Biggs is, of course.
But one of the things I’ve told folks is that Andy Biggs is not Kari Lake. I think Andy Biggs is a very sharp candidate. I think he speaks very, very well. And he’s not going to make the kinds of blunders that Kari Lake did, in particularly offending the McCain wing party. I don’t think he’s going to have those kinds of bombastic statements that she said about abortion or things like that.
So while I think it’ll be a much tighter race, I still think that Andy Biggs has a chance of being the next governor.
HAENER: I’m going to disagree with Jaime here. Regardless of who wins that primary, the headwinds against the Republican candidate are going to be very, very strong based off of the way that the economy is performing, based off of the way the administration is ...
BRODIE: National headwinds.
HAENER: National headwinds. And that’s going to make it very difficult for either of them to defeat an incumbent governor who’s going to have a ton of money herself.
