Same State, Same Trump Margin, Different Forecast for the Republican

Trump carried Arizona by 5.5 points in 2024. Andy Biggs just won his primary with roughly 70% of the vote. Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball both still call the governor's race Lean Democrat.

Same state. Same electorate that voted for Trump twenty months ago. Different forecast for the Republican nominee.

The forecasters aren't hedging on why. Cook's own language calls Biggs "a potentially polarizing and deeply conservative nominee," and notes Republicans themselves "sound less optimistic" about this matchup than they would with someone else at the top of the ticket. Hobbs isn't ahead because Arizona moved left. She's ahead in spite of an electorate that just reelected Trump by five and a half points, running against the specific Republican running against her.

She vetoed SB1051, SB1055, SB1421, and SB1520, all immigration bills. Three of the four are governor-contingent in the most literal sense. A different governor's signature plausibly changes their fate: hospital reporting on patients' immigration status, arrestee status reporting, restrictions on financial services for undocumented residents. If Biggs wins in November, those three go back to a governor's desk that says yes instead of no.

SB1520 doesn't work that way. It's the one that would let the state hand over any data the federal government asks for on a person's immigration status, no limits, no exceptions for health or child-welfare confidentiality. That's not a policy disagreement Hobbs had with the bill. It runs into federal confidentiality law the state can't override, regardless of who's governor. A Biggs signature doesn't fix a Supremacy Clause problem. That one stays dead no matter who wins.

Immigration isn't what's deciding this race, and that's the honest part of this. It's polling well behind the economy as the top issue for Arizona voters, 18% to 34%, and that gap hasn't closed. If the goal is persuading an undecided voter to cross over, immigration isn't the argument that does it.

But persuasion isn't the only job a bill like this can do. Three real, concrete bills sitting on the other side of one election is exactly the kind of stakes that gets a voter who already cares about this issue to actually show up, especially in a race the forecasters already expect to be closer than the state's overall lean would suggest. You don't need to convince anyone that immigration matters. You need the voters who already think it matters to believe their vote is the difference between these bills staying vetoed and getting signed.

That's what SB1051, SB1055, and SB1421 are for. Not changing minds. Turning out the ones already made up.

This is our read of the race and the bills. We encourage you to check the polling and the bill text yourself and reach your own conclusions. The sources are public and cited below.