By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- The four Republicans hoping to be their party's nominee for governor squabbled Wednesday night over tax policy, vouchers and mail-in voting.
But the underlying theme of the hour-long televised debate was each trying to show that he is the only one who can defeat incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs in November. And that often left Congressman Andy Biggs, who has so far been leading in the polls going into the July 21 primary, on the defensive.
The broadest attack came from fellow Congressman David Schweikert who pronounced Biggs as unelectable.
"Fellow Republicans: Are you tired of losing?'' Schweikert said, addressing the viewing audience directly.
He said there are more Arizonans registered as politically independent than those who affiliate with either the Republican or Democratic parties.
That's not exactly true.
Republicans have a slight edge -- about 50,000. But that disappears when those registered with the Libertarian, No Labels and Green parties are added in.
Still, Schweikert said, the results of the last few elections show that those who have been nominated have often gone on to lose because they fail to attract independent voters -- and even some GOP faithful don't vote for them.
And Schweikert, without actually calling Biggs a fringe candidate, said the same will happen in November if he is the nominee.
The clue, Schweikert said, is that Biggs is "wholly owned'' by Turning Point, the organization set up by Charlie Kirk. It has endorsed many candidates who tend to be more on the periphery of the GOP, not always with electoral success.
"TP and I are not what you would call 'bedfellows,' '' Biggs responded in speaking to reporters after the debate, But he acknowledged that Turning Point Action, the political arm of the organization is backing him.
And what about the fact that Hobbs managed to outpoll Lake four years ago, losing not just independents but also the support of some Republicans?
"I think I'm a very different person than Kari,'' he said.
Schweikert has his own history, having been fined $125,000 in 2022 by the Federal Elections Commission over misappropriated campaign funds. That followed his accepting liability for 11 campaign violations charged by the House Ethics Committee and a $50,000 fine.
But Schweikert said that has not hurt his electability, noting he has continued to get reelected every two years to the U.S. House in one of the most politically competitive congressional districts in the state.
Businessman Scott Neely, for his part, said he is the one who can get the votes in November, more so, he said, than either Biggs or Schweikert. And he brushed aside the fact that he only picked up 3.1% of the vote in his own 2022 bid for the GOP nomination.
"My opponents have spent years in government,'' Neely said.
"We still have a water crisis,'' he said. "They've spent years creating red tape and regulation that's made it hard on Ken and my businesses,'' Neely said, referring to Ken Micelli who rounds out the foursome of GOP gubernatorial contenders.
Micelli had his own pitch.
"People want a political outsider,'' he said.
The contenders also took varying positions on the ability of Arizonans to vote by mail.
That has been Arizona law since 1991 when the Republican-controlled legislature agreed to no-excuse early voting. Prior to that, ballots would go out early only to certain people like those who were homebound and those who were working on Election Day and could not get to the polls.
The measure has proven immensely popular, with upwards of 80% of all votes cast by people who got their ballots in the mail.
But the practice has been under fire in the GOP, starting with President Trump insisting it can lead to fraud.
Republicans in the current legislature voted just a week ago to put a measure on the ballot that could impair the practice, including a requirement for all voters to provide identification. Proponents, however, could not say how that would work -- or if it even could -- for those who vote by mail, leading to charges that this was a back-door way of getting rid of early ballots.
Meanwhile, a separate group is gathering signatures to amend the Arizona Constitution to guarantee the right to vote by mail.
Neely said he wants to kill no-excuse early voting except for veterans who are overseas or out of state.
"And I support mail-in ballots for the disabled, the handicapped,'' he said.
And for everyone else?
"One day, one vote, on paper, in person,'' he said.
Schweikert disagreed, saying he recognizes the popularity of the current laws. But he said that there need to be some changes to ensure that ballots are being mailed only to those who are eligible -- and are alive.
He said his mother, who died in 2010, was still getting ballots mailed to her house, which Schweikert said was given to this brother, for at least a decade.
What that means is updating the voter rolls and some form of identification, though he did not spell out what that might be.
Biggs said if the state is to keep early voting, it needs a system like Florida.
There, anyone who has gotten a ballot by mail and wants to drop it off at a polling place must do so by the Friday before Election Day.
That avoids what happens in Arizona where people can walk in to a vote center on Election Day and drop off their sealed ballot envelopes. More than 290,000 voters in Maricopa County alone did that in 2022.
The result is that those envelopes cannot be opened and votes counted until the signatures are checked against examples on file. And that can't occur until all the ballots cast in person on Election Day are counted, one factor in why it can take a week or more to find out who has won.
Micelli sidestepped the question of early voting, saying he wants to use biometrics to determine if someone is eligible to vote. He acknowledged that would require a method to verify each person's unique identification but said it wouldn't affect privacy because all that data would remain with the state.
But he said there is a problem.
"Do you know how many people that have passed away have voted last year?'' Micelli asked, though he provided no estimate.
And what is the basis for his claim?
"Have you heard of something called AI?'' Micelli responded, providing no more details.
Schweikert also took a shot at Biggs for his claim that Arizona could eliminate the state income tax. The problem with that, he said, is that income taxes bring in close to a third of all state revenues, about $18 billion a year. And Schweikert said that making such sharp cuts, politics aside, is impossible because much of the state spending actually is protected by voter-approved measures that lawmakers cannot alter.
"You'd have to double Arizona's property tax,'' he said.
Still, Schweikert said, there are ways to generate more money to provide some tax relief.
One is that Arizona has about 8.5 million acres of state trust land, much of it in urban areas -- areas that already have water and sewer and are ready for residential development. He said the state should be selling that off quicker than it does, a move that also could help with housing affordability.
Biggs also touted "dormant assets'' like trust land. But he also said that curbing waste and fraud in programs like Medicaid could save billions.
Neely wants to cut taxes for businesses across the board and eliminate property taxes for those 65 and older.
The contenders all said there need to be constraints on new data centers.
"Where's the power going to come from, and where's the water going to come from?'' asked Biggs. And Neely even suggested requiring them to obtain their own sources of power, like small nuclear reactors.
Of note is that Biggs said these data centers should not get any kind of tax break.
That actually aligns him with Hobbs who in January asked lawmakers to eliminate tax exemptions for data centers. It was Republicans in the legislature who balked, resulting in a final deal where no new breaks would be approved -- but only for three years -- and prior existing exemptions would remain.
All four Republicans expressed general support for giving vouchers of taxpayer dollars to parents to send their children to private or parochial schools or to teach them at home.
Neely said there need to be some restrictions on how the money can be spent. But he also said it would make sense to allow these Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to be used for students to attend trade schools to be trained for the jobs of the future.
"It's an important component in the future economy because the present economy is going to be consumed by robots.''
Biggs said he wants to make vouchers "more accessible to more people,'' also mentioning trade schools. But he provided no specifics about how that would work, saying only that state Rep. Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu City, is coming up with a "concept.''
Wednesday's televised event, sponsored by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission and the Arizona Media Association, did not go unnoticed by Copper State Victory, a fundraising arm of the Arizona Democratic Party. A minute after it ended, a spokesman emailed a statement saying the debate made clear that neither Biggs nor Schweikert, the two front-runners, are what Arizona needs, saying they represent "the same cost-hiking Washington agenda.''
The irony, however, is that Hobbs herself has repeated refused to commit to doing her own debate with whoever wins to give voters a chance to compare and contrast her views with whoever is the GOP nominee -- as well as possible participation by minor party candidates.
Hobbs has a record in this area. In 2022 she refused to debate former Nogales Mayor Marco Lopez in the primary and then would not agree to share a stage with Lake ahead of the general election.
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