Katie Hobbs is Toast in 2026 - Here’s Why

Three major reasons “Cartel Katie” is destined for early retirement in a state that never should have had her in charge anyway.

This weekend, I was subjected to a brief video posted on X featuring Arizona’s insufferable governor, Katie Hobbs, prattling on about how secure mail-in voting is. Hobbs, who presided over her own rigged election to the state’s top office in 2022, was so adamant in her positions supporting mail-in voting, which happens to be the only balloting method by which she can hope to win reelection, she punctuated her rant with a good, old-fashioned, girl-boss-empowered “full stop” for added impact.

Here are the major Stalin-esque lies in her recording, which she clearly read from a script:

· “Voting by mail is a trusted, secure tradition of our democracy…”

· “In 2020, as Secretary of State, I delivered a historically safe election…”

· “…defended Arizonans’ right to vote in the dangerous aftermath of ‘the Big Lie’…”

· “Voting by mail is safe and secure, full stop.”

I have written extensively in this newsletter about Hobbs’ third-world election victory over Kari Lake in 2022, which also squashed every Republican top-of-the-ticket candidate except for the Treasurer, Kimberly Yee. Abraham Hamadeh, who “lost” by 280 ballots to vindictive Attorney General Kris Mayes, moved on to run for the U.S. House and win in 2024, and Lake ran for Senate in 2024 and was closing the gap before the big mail drops started turning hard in favor of Ruben Gallego, who was recently spit-roasted in Iowa as he was likely testing the waters for the 2028 presidential race.

A reminder from that fateful 2022 race:

Onlookers have correctly stated in that what amounts to a “high hurdle” of proof for Lake’s team to show, Count IV is the best shot. Recently, a Runbeck whistleblower has alleged as many as 300,000 ballots were added to the count, with no transparency available to determine fact from fiction, and plenty of fluctuation present in election reporting.

From my original lawsuit article:

Pages 45-51 outline the countless chain of custody failures in the 2022 election, and further implicates Runbeck. An example of the pathetic misconduct is below, from page 50:

Throughout the 2022 election cycle Runbeck printed duplicate ballots. These are duplicates of ballots that had been damaged in some way or could not be read by the tabulator. The selections from the voter were supposed to be filled in and a new, duplicate ballot printed. The Runbeck employee stated that there were at least 9,530 duplicate ballots printed. When these ballots were picked up by Maricopa County, there was no documentation – no delivery/shipping receipt, no chain of custody document, no signature. They were simply handed over to the delivery driver.

Page 51 highlights an increase of 25,000 in Maricopa County’s tally after Election Day, which highlights a critical chain of custody failure.

Peter Thompson’s trials in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 election were a farce, allowing Maricopa County to get away with signature verification not even Superman could pull off with any degree of accuracy, and underscoring Hobbs’ persistent support of the mail-in balloting process. Republicans passed a bill in the 2025 legislative session that would have sped up the counting and drastically enhanced the legitimacy of forthcoming elections, but Hobbs vaporized it with an instant veto.

Still, even with all the pandemonium associated with shoehorning Katie Hobbs, Kris Mayes, and Adrian Fontes, the Secretary of State, into statewide office, the governor’s race was decided by a mere 17,117 ballots out of nearly 2.6 million tabulated. As a new campaign cycle churns, the temperature on Hobbs’ seat intensifies. As I see things today, there are three key reasons why I think “Cartel Katie” is headed for an early retirement:

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I. Policy

Hobbs is infamously known as the “veto queen.” She vetoed a whopping 174 bills passed through the GOP legislature, which Mrs. Rachel Keshel is a member of (House), topping her own record of 143 from the 2023 session. Arizona is consistently reddening by registration, but until recently, most people considered Arizona to be roughly a third Democrat, a third Republican, and a third independent. The Republican base of Maricopa County, which casts about 3 out of every 5 votes in a statewide election, is far more moderate than Republicans in other counties, and have been instrumental in making some elections closer than they otherwise should have been and in range for the Maricopa Magic to steal statewide races after prolonged counting periods. Her unwillingness to work with the GOP legislature in a state that is much redder than when she was first elected is damning for her reelection prospects.

Arizona State Rep. Rachel Keshel

Hobbs vetoed House Bill 2017, sponsored by Rachel, which would have abolished countywide voting centers and returned the state to precinct voting. Most notably, the veto queen used her pen to strike down House Bill 2703/Senate Bill 1011, which would have adopted Florida-style elements to speed up the counting of mail-in ballots, which account for roughly three-quarters of all ballots statewide, and requiring voters to confirm their addresses every election cycle, which would ensure only real, living voters at real addresses received mail-in ballots. This measure was critical in streamlining election counting in Florida and cracking down on fraudulent practices that manipulate the ballot count. This suggests to anyone with a functioning brain that Hobbs relies on phony mail-in ballots to have any hope at all winning statewide races.

On paper, Hobbs has practically no shot at being reelected. In practice, with nearly a decade behind us since Arizona’s elections went to hell, she hangs by a thread. Arizona has a third the population of Florida but takes two weeks to finish counting ballots while Florida has 99% of their votes tallied by the end of Election Night. This is not an accident, and it persists in Arizona for the sole purpose of stealing close elections.

The Maricopa moderates, fickle as they may be on issues of national survival and the culture war, are certain to note that the Grand Canyon State has plunged to 47th in new job growth under Hobbs, when it was only recently near the top nationally. I am confident this decline is owed to the fact that business leaders and companies draw back when they fear a state is on the verge of turning into a Democrat-run cesspool. Hobbs has consistently been embroiled in ethics scandals and has shown no hesitation in foiling Republican objectives to secure the border in tandem with Mayes, her right hand who does her dirty work in persecuting Republicans who are actively resisting the cartel takeover of the state. Hobbs does not, however, go after Republicans who act as lobbyist mules and carry water for corporations who steamroll city residents wishing to have a say in local government, as was the case in the Axon debacle in the 2025 session: