Andy Biggs wins Arizona GOP gubernatorial primary, Trump ally faces Governor Katie Hobbs in November
The hard-right congressman and Trump ally defeated Rep. David Schweikert on Tuesday to secure the Republican nomination, setting up a closely watched general election against Democratic incumbent Katie Hobbs in the pivotal swing state.
Andy Biggs won the Republican nomination for Arizona governor on Tuesday, easily defeating fellow Representative David Schweikert and two other challengers. By securing the GOP nod, the Trump-endorsed lawmaker advances to a November showdown with Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who flipped the seat in 2022 and is seen as one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the 2026 midterms.
Biggs clears the primary field
Biggs, a former chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, entered the race early last year and became the clear favorite after receiving President Trump’s endorsement and backing from the conservative group Turning Point USA. He prevailed over Schweikert, who argued the party needed a more moderate nominee to win back statewide offices. Schweikert, first elected to the Arizona House in 1990 and now serving his eighth term in Congress, gave up his toss-up House seat to run for governor. Businessmen Ken Miceli and Scott Neely also appeared on the ballot. Biggs’s margin of victory was not reported in detail, but he was described as winning easily.
Trump’s candidate, with a pragmatic twist
Despite his far-right credentials and central role in the effort to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss, Biggs has sought to recast himself as a pragmatic conservative capable of reaching across the aisle. On the campaign trail he highlighted work with Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Kyrsten Sinema, and he avoided the abrasive posture that hurt the party’s 2022 nominee, Kari Lake. Biggs lacks Lake’s combativeness and has built bridges with groups she antagonized, including supporters of the late Senator John McCain.
He’s not polarizing. He’s not an all-or-nothing guy.
Paul Betz, an Arizona-based Republican pollster, said Biggs has run a disciplined campaign and kept away from the traps that tripped Lake.
Biggs has run a very disciplined campaign. He has not taken the bait on a lot of things that would have tripped Kari Lake up. We’ll see how it goes in the general.
Biggs pledged to transform Arizona into “the Florida of the West” and said he would overhaul the state’s tax structure, including eliminating its flat individual income tax.
A toss-up general election in a shifting state
Arizona has evolved from a Republican stronghold into a competitive battleground. Since 2016, Democrats have captured the governorship, both U.S. Senate seats, and the offices of attorney general and secretary of state. Yet Republicans retain a structural advantage, with a voter registration edge of about seven percentage points, and Trump carried Arizona by five points in 2024 after losing it in 2020. Hobbs and her allies plan to paint Biggs as an extremist, while his supporters argue he can unite the party. No incumbent Arizona governor has lost re-election since 1966, adding pressure on the race.
A messy House primary and the end of a career
The same day, Trump-backed Mark Lamb, a former Pinal County sheriff, won the GOP primary for Arizona’s 5th Congressional District, which Biggs is vacating. Lamb overcame a late push from self-funding candidate Daniel Keenan, who spent nearly $2 million of his own money and made Lamb’s alleged sexual misconduct central to the race. Lamb denied the allegations and enters November as the heavy favourite in the deep-red district. Schweikert’s loss likely ends a political career that began in 1990. Both parties are now bracing for a state-level battle that will shape the national midterm landscape.
