AZ Gov. Hobbs has once again declined to debate her Republican opponent. Is opting out a trend?

Televised debates are not just an effort of media outlets in our state. They are part of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission’s mission, which was created by voters in 1998.

But, every year, there are a number of major candidates who do not debate. The top of the list is obviously Gov. Katie Hobbs, who refused to debate Kari Lake in 2022 and has said again she will not take the stage to debate Republican opponent Andy Biggs this year.

But there are more. From several members of our state’s congressional delegation, to a host of incumbents in “safe” legislative districts — six incumbents in what are considered pretty competitive legislative districts won’t debate either.

The reasons are often political. If you are in a highly partisan district, or are way ahead in the polls, why open yourself up to attacks?

But Tom Collins says debates are about civics. And they still have value today. Collins is executive director of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission. He came into KJZZ's studios recently and The Show asked him about the number of candidates opting out of debates this year. Is this out of the ordinary?

Full conversation

TOM COLLINS: No, I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary at all. I think if you look at the — at the congressional level, we will have had debates that feature incumbents. We’ve already had Adelita Grijalva, Representative Ciscomani. We will have had Representative Stanton. We will not have had Representative Hamadeh, Representative Crane, Representative Gosar or Representative Ansari.

Now, let’s take those four. Representative Ansari does not have a Republican opponent on the ballot. The other three candidates I mentioned, I’m not sure they’ve done any joint appearances with their opponents at all, right? So it’s not as if this is some like, “Oh, debates, oh, we’re not doing that.” No, it’s more along the lines of, “We made a tactical decision. We don’t want to engage in this kind of thing.”

LAUREN GILGER: Well, and it is normal, I think, more normal, right, for people in noncompetitive races in kind of gerrymandered districts to not debate. But should they?

TOM COLLINS: Well, I mean, I’ll give you a perfect example. I think on the legislative level, where the districts are going to be the most disparate, right, like the percentages are what they are, there are districts like we had LD11 recently, where the leader of the House Democrats, Oscar De Los Santos, debated along with his seatmate two opponents who were Republicans. That’s not really a competitive district, but everybody was there and it was a good discussion.

It wasn’t fireworks. It wasn’t name-calling. It was a really kind of an earnest discussion between the Republican opponents and the Democratic incumbents who wouldn’t necessarily have been there. There are obviously some competitive legislative races where we don’t see folks show up. And I think that, again, has more to do with tactical decisions by those candidates.

Some candidates in — especially in those crucial districts — they are and have been for the last, I think, at least decade, operating under the assumption that the less they say, the better, in general. And then at the state level, you know, we will have had the incumbent secretary, the incumbent attorney general, Kimberly Yee, who’s running for superintendent, but effectively an incumbent, and Kevin Thompson, incumbent corporation commissioner, and Les Presmyk, incumbent state mine inspector, all will have appeared. I think that’s consistent with the past, and I think that it’s solid.

LAUREN GILGER: Well, so let me ask you about that, because what you’re basically saying here is that when it’s a campaign strategy, those people are not going to debate if they’re not going to engage with the candidates on the other side in general.

TOM COLLINS: That’s my impression. My impression is not debating is tied to a broader strategic decision rather than an “I don’t like debates” decision.

LAUREN GILGER: But I mean, this has come to the fore in lots of ways, particularly with the gubernatorial debate, right? Governor Katie Hobbs says she will not debate again this year. Neither will her lieutenant governor nominee, John Giles. And that’s a strategy she used in the past, and that’s, you know, worked for her in the past. I wonder, does that example, right — this high-profile top-ticket candidate saying, “I’m not going to debate, it’s not useful” — does that make it harder to convince other folks to do it?

TOM COLLINS: Not so far. I mean, the evidence is that that’s not been the case, that most candidates, including the other incumbent Democrats, are participating in debates. The fact that they’ve felt successful with that, you know, that ratifies their decision. But I haven’t seen that spread to other races. And I think there’s an important distinction to be drawn there, right?

There’s a tendency, especially if sort of you spend too much time online, which maybe everybody does, to blur the two categories: whether or not debates are fading in relevance or popularity, and whether or not specific candidates are going to make a decision not to participate. Those are different things, and I really haven’t seen them augmenting each other, right?

LAUREN GILGER: So you think debates still are relevant today.

TOM COLLINS: Well, I think they are. I think the coverage they generate demonstrates that. Print, broadcast media and online media are covering these debates. Our surveys that we’ve done in the past show that people want those debates. And I think that, look, we’ve had a presidential election in recent memory that had a key debate moment. We’ve had debates generate news in other states.

So I think what voters get out of that is they get to see how a person is, right? So if a person comes in and they say, “I’m going to show how tough I am,” or “I kind of want to have an attitude in the way that I present myself at debate,” voters get to see that. That’s what they want to present.

On the other hand, you know, we broadcast our Corporation Commission debate. That was all substance. Both parties’ candidates had real ideas on how to address things like data centers, how to address rate cases, and the ongoing role of the Corporation Commission there, how to deal with small water company regulation. I mean, these are important issues for ratepayers on an everyday basis.

And both sides had substantive discussion about that. Now, was that exciting? Probably not. But —

LAUREN GILGER: Depends on your definition of exciting.

TOM COLLINS: Right. Similarly, we had a mine inspector debate for the first time, I think, in like 10 years.

LAUREN GILGER: Very interesting.

TOM COLLINS: And that debate, you learned more about what mining means to the state, why we have a state mine inspector that’s elected.

I mean, that’s all, I think, designed to provide voters with a richer and broader information than they might otherwise have. And, you know, my own observation is that the press itself is not getting the access to candidates that they did either. So —

LAUREN GILGER: This is absolutely true. So relying on debates in a way.

TOM COLLINS: Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. But let me ask you about the overarching narrative there, right? Because those are some specific races that may not be as political in nature, right? Many of these debates are political, though, or would be if they were happening.

And the governor has said, for example, and other folks have said this as well who are opting out of debates, you know, it’s just political theater, the debates are about sound bites, you know, it’s not as effective as directly engaging with voters. They’re avoiding the press as well, as you’re saying. But do you think that there’s something lost in that for the voters themselves? Like, this is a required, a mandate for the Clean Elections Commission to hold these.

TOM COLLINS: Well, the voters when they created the Clean Elections Commission wanted the commission to be the debate sponsor, and so that’s a statutory obligation and that’s what the commission is implementing. I do think, though, I want to push back a little bit. The governor has a specific point of view on this, and she and her spokespeople have articulated what you said. I don’t hear it from other candidates if they’re saying it. Where it’s being said is by consultants who purport to represent the view of candidates.

LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, you’re here to defend this as a — not something that’s a bygone practice of an old era, but like something that really serves not just the public, but our democracy.

TOM COLLINS: Well, I’m not sure why the narrative that seems to have been constructed by a lot of political consultants — and this is the distinction between tactical decisions and institutional framing. The tactical decisions of candidates are one thing, but the consultant-level effort to say debates are not relevant is a little odd because it’s not consistent with the facts on the ground.

It’s not consistent with what voters have said. It’s not consistent with what the broadcasters, who have the choice to run this or not run it, are choosing to do. And then it also raises this different question, which is, you know, we, people who listen to this show, are incredibly pro-civics. I know them, I know them all, and I go to meetings with them even and talk about civics. And so too are some of the consultants who have really been out there leaning into this “debates are not necessary” narrative.

But this is information for everybody. And so I don’t really understand, if you want to make a big push in civics, why would you want to undermine a specific program that’s designed to make a public policy discussion available to anybody that wants to view it? It’s a public good.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. Tom Collins, executive director of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission. Tom, thank you so much.

TOM COLLINS: Thank you.