KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
Former state lawmaker Regina Cobb and Dawn Penich of Agave Strategy joined The Show to talk about the GOP gubernatorial primary getting a little less crowded, more lack of consensus on tax conformity and more.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Regina, let’s talk about Karrin Taylor Robson. (Thursday) afternoon, she sent a press release saying that she was suspending her gubernatorial campaign. What do you make of the fact that she’s calling it quits?
REGINA COBB: Well, to begin with, I was totally surprised. And I love the statement she made. I admire Karrin and respect her very much. I’m hoping that it isn’t anything personal, that it is just what she said, that this is something that she’s trying to bring the party together.
If you read between the lines, I kind of wonder if Andy Biggs is getting a little more intelligent and there’s a possibility of Karrin Taylor Robson maybe being a lieutenant governor. I mean, that’s a possibility. I don’t know, but I was floored by it.
BRODIE: In her statement, as you alluded, she wanted to avoid a messy, contentious intraparty primary. Does her getting out of the race achieve that?
COBB: I don’t know if it does or not. Depends on whether or not Schweikert’s still staying in the race or not. You know, the rumor out there is that he’s possibly getting out of the race. This could be a single-person primary. If Schweikert gets out of the race and gets back into the congressional race in District 1, then we’re sitting with one candidate.
So it wouldn’t be a messy primary. I don’t think it was going to get messy. I think everybody was still being pretty respectful at this point, but I think that she just didn’t want to split the party.
BRODIE: Dawn, what do you make of the fact that Karrin Taylor Robson, who seemed, the conventional wisdom was that sort of the non-MAGA Republicans or the traditional, establishment, business-oriented Republicans would go to her. Now that she’s out, where does that leave the primary, do you think?
DAWN PENICH: Well you know, I think that we saw in her initial run and in the last recent several months that she was struggling to try to walk that line of the Trump endorsement that she was the first to get, but still also maintain this like “I’m the more moderate candidate that the general election will be able to support.”
And that’s a really hard line for someone to walk, for any Republican to walk these days. But I think I was a little less surprised because from one perspective, as soon as Schweikert and Biggs started jumping in, I think you really saw a lot of momentum immediately gravitate in that direction of two very established, very talented politicians.
A lot of funding was going that way, and it just felt like Robson was losing kind of that spotlight that she had had before. So I was less surprised by this.
But looking at it from Gov. Hobbs’ perspective, any incumbent wants their opponent’s primary to be as expensive and as messy as possible.
And so her stepping out of this, even if the two gentlemen left in don’t unite — as the calls for them to do are — it will be less expensive, potentially, and less toxic with one less person in. And so from Hobbs’ perspective, that’s unfortunate. You want that to get as nasty as possible over there.
And so for sure, they’re rooting for nobody else to drop out and for this to be expensive.
BRODIE: But Dawn, when you talk about money, Andy Biggs is supported by Turning Point. So it would stand to reason that money is probably not going to be an issue, even if the primary is ridiculously expensive, right?
PENICH: That’s right. That’s right. And that’s what I refer to is he’s got that support. As soon as he jumped in, there was this groundswell and financial support behind him, and that will remain.
BRODIE: Regina, do you anticipate that Karrin Taylor Robson will ultimately endorse one of the candidates? Assuming that both Biggs and Schweikert stay in, do you think that ultimately she’ll endorse? Because she didn’t yesterday.
COBB: She did not, but I think she will. Yeah. I don’t see her staying out of the race. I think that her influence that she’s had up to this point is probably going to be needed.
But I agree with Dawn. It’s not going to get as messy. Does not bode well for Hobbs.
And we’ve been saying along these lines if it does get messy, Hobbs has a good shot at winning. So hopefully this reduces that for the Republican Party and they can come together.
BRODIE: So Dawn, if you are Gov. Hobbs’ team right now — and again, assuming that both the candidates who are in today stay in — do you have a preference as to which one you face going into November?
PENICH: Oh gosh. Well, I think the general feeling is that Biggs is the stronger candidate of the two, the strongest in the field. And so Gov. Hobbs’ team is just going to focus on that general electorate that maybe will be persuaded by sound clips or transcripts of Biggs having said things in his long career that are too extreme for the average American independent, Arizona independent in particular.
You’re going to stay focused on her needing to stop some of the more extreme efforts coming out of both Washington and the Legislature. So you’re going to focus on her platform and bank and invest that she is the candidate that will appeal to more of that middle, and that they won’t be able to get footing with Biggs as the moderate he’ll need to pivot to being for the general.
BRODIE: Is Congressman Biggs able to make himself into a moderate, or does he need to be?
COBB: No. Congressman Biggs could never be a moderate. And I think that if I was Hobbs, I would want him to be my opponent because I think there’s going to be a strong distinction between the two of them. And if Biggs gets in, it’s going to be a lot like with Kari Lake, the same type of race that you ran with Kari Lake. If I were Hobbs, I would want Biggs — even though he’s the stronger candidate — I think that Schweikert could shift that direction. He could go to more moderate.
BRODIE: He’s won very close races in kind of a swingy district.
COBB: He did. He did. Last year, I think the last election cycle was one or two points over Amish Shah. And I mean, that was really close. So he has won a moderate district.
So if I were Hobbs, I wouldn’t want to go against that. I would probably want to go against Biggs.
BRODIE: OK, so the primary is coming up over the summer. A little bit sooner for Arizonans, we’ve got to file our income taxes. And right now we don’t really know what the rules of the road are for filing Arizona income taxes. The state Legislature this week passed their second tax conformity bill. Gov. Hobbs yesterday issued her second veto of this.
Regina, is there any hope for the sides coming to an agreement on what from the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act Arizona will adopt?
COBB: Well, they’re going to have to come to an agreement pretty soon here because the taxpayers do need to know this. This is something we’ve done every year. We’ve had to conform every year. This one’s a little bit more difficult, I think.
BRODIE: There’s more to it.
COBB: It’s divisive. And so I think that that’s why it’s taking a little bit longer.
But they’re going to have to, just like they have to come up with a budget every year. They don’t always agree at the beginning, but guess what? They’ve come up with it. So the taxpayers need to know. And as it gets closer to April 15, it’s going to be a D-Day for these guys. They gotta come together.
BRODIE: Well so Dawn, as Regina has said — and she knows from her experience on the Appropriations Committee — yes, the Legislature and the governor do ultimately come to agreement on a budget. That, though, can take months to do. Right now, they don’t have that time, right? They have to get this done. People are starting to file their taxes now.
PENICH: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel it. Outside of the political insider stuff, I’m just someone who wants to be able to file my taxes and know that I’m not going to have to do it again because I hate it.
BRODIE: Yeah.
PENICH: But the governor has been extremely clear that she is going to continue vetoing these full conformity bills that get to her desk. And I believe her. The tax cuts that she wants to put forward are in the hundreds of millions. They are going to impact a good swath of Arizona families and taxpayers.
And I think she’s going to stick to her guns. And Republicans are going to need to look at this year and say, “OK, we didn’t get everything this year.” And they’ll need to turn that into a talking point for their own campaign trails that everyone wants to get to because, as you said, their clock has been turned back two weeks and they want to hit those campaign trails.
BRODIE: Well, so do you get the sense that there’s any give in the governor’s stance here? Like, is it “my way or the highway,” or is there some room for negotiation with Republicans?
PENICH: Well, there’s been some issues out there that — people are saying like Prop. 123, so school funding being clean funding and not wrapping in the private school scholarships — that there are some negotiation points out there.
But again, the ninth floor is messaging very strongly: “Nope, we’re not doing it. We are not expanding these tax cuts and doubling the hit to the Arizona general fund.”
BRODIE: Regina, do you think that’s a wise stance by the governor to sort of draw this line in the sand? And seemingly so far there, it doesn’t seem as though there have been a whole lot of talks.
COBB: Yeah, I don’t think it’s a wise stand. I think the public is going to eventually get into this. And the private person is going to say, “Hey, I can’t file my taxes. Get something done.” And everybody’s going to take a little bit of a hit on this.
There has to be compromise.
I mean, there’s. There’s no way that you can just say, “It’s my way or the highway.” So, yeah, I don’t, I think at the beginning, you start out that way. But then you have to start moving.
BRODIE: Well, and Republicans have now passed two bills that the governor has said before they passed them that she was going to veto. So I guess both sides really seem to need to get in a room together and figure this out.
COBB: We’ve passed a budget for the last five years on June 27-30, because we don’t want that. So there’s gonna be a deadline, and they have to get in a room and do things before that deadline. I think they will.
