Kathleen Marie Hobbs (born December 28, 1969)^[1][2] is an American politician and social worker serving as the 24th governor of Arizona since 2023. Hobbs is the first social worker to be elected governor of a U.S. state and is Arizona’s fifth female governor. A member of the Democratic Party, she was secretary of state of Arizona from 2019 to 2023 and a member of the Arizona Legislature from 2011 to 2019.

Born and raised in Arizona, Hobbs holds degrees in social work from Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University. She specialized in domestic violence and worked for one of the nation’s largest domestic violence centers. Inspired to run for office by her involvement with Emerge Arizona, Hobbs was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2010 and to the Arizona Senate in 2012. She served as Senate minority leader from 2015 to 2019 and was elected secretary of state of Arizona in 2018.

Hobbs won the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, narrowly defeating Republican nominee Kari Lake.^[3][4] Hobbs is the first Arizona governor since Rose Mofford to be born in Arizona, and the first since Bruce Babbitt to be elected governor as an Arizona native.

Hobbs was born in Phoenix, Arizona.^[5] She has a twin sister, Becky.^[6] A first-generation Arizonan, Hobbs was raised in Tempe in a middle-class family that sometimes relied on food stamps.^[7] She comes from a Catholic family and volunteered at her church as a child.^[8] She went to Catholic schools throughout her childhood and graduated from Seton Catholic High School in 1988.^[9]

Hobbs attended Northern Arizona University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in social work in 1992. She later attended Arizona State University, where she received a master’s degree in social work in 1995.^[10] She paid for college through scholarships and work-study programs.^[8]

Hobbs has been a social worker since 1992. She specializes in domestic violence, mental health, and homelessness.^[11]

Hobbs was the chief compliance officer for Sojourner Center, one of the nation’s largest domestic violence centers.^[12] She is an adjunct faculty member of social work at Paradise Valley Community College and Arizona State University.^[13]

Hobbs is affiliated with the National Association of Social Workers professional organization.

Before seeking elected office, Hobbs participated in political leadership programs in multiple organizations, including Valley Leadership, Emerge Arizona, and the Center for Progressive Leadership.^[14] She was a delegate for Hillary Clinton at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.^[15]

Hobbs served on the Phoenix Women’s Commission and the Phoenix Human Services Commission.^[16]

Hobbs was the executive director of Emerge Arizona from 2013 to 2019.^[17]

Hobbs was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2010. She represented the 15th legislative district alongside Lela Alston.

Hobbs credited her interest in politics to her involvement with Emerge Arizona and was inspired to run for office by the people she assisted as a social worker, believing they were not being heard by the government.^[18] She advocates ending domestic violence.^[19]

Hobbs served one term in the House of Representatives and ran for state senate in 2012.

Hobbs was elected to the Arizona Senate in 2012 and reelected in 2014 and 2016.^[20] She represented the 24th legislative district. She originally did not want to run for state senate but did so due to redistricting.^[21] Hobbs became minority leader in 2015 and served two terms in that position.^[22]

In 2015, during her first term as minority leader, Senate staffer Talonya Adams, a Black woman, complained to Hobbs about her concerns about racial and gender-based discrimination and was later fired in part by Hobbs.^[23] In November 2021, Adams won a discrimination lawsuit related to her firing and was awarded a judgment of $2.75 million.^[24]

Hobbs did not run for another term in the State Senate, deciding to run for Secretary of State. She was succeeded by Alston.

On March 8, 2017, Hobbs announced her candidacy for Arizona secretary of state.^[25] In the 2018 election, she faced Republican nominee Steve Gaynor. On November 6, 2018, the Associated Press prematurely called the race for Gaynor.^[26][27] With the race as close as it was, neither Hobbs nor Gaynor initially claimed victory.^[28][29] In the days to come, Gaynor’s lead narrowed as more and more ballots were counted. On November 16, Hobbs was officially declared the winner by a margin of 20,000 votes.^[30][31] She was the first Democrat to hold the post since Richard Mahoney left office in 1995.^[31]

Hobbs was sworn in as secretary of state on January 7, 2019. Because Arizona has no lieutenant governor, Hobbs stood first in the line of succession to Governor Doug Ducey.^[32]

In 2021, the Arizona Senate Republicans provided $150,000 to fund an audit aimed at contesting the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County. In a six-page letter, Hobbs wrote that the audit’s chain of custody was lacking, calling it “a significant departure from standard best practices”.^[33] She added that the audit procedures appeared “better suited for chasing conspiracy theories than as a part of a professional audit”.^[33] In response, Hobbs received death threats, and the Arizona Department of Public Safety assigned personnel to guard her and her staff.^[34]

Hobbs’s complaints were echoed in a letter to State Senate President Karen Fann from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which had a 4-1 Republican majority. Fann, referring to one of Donald Trump‘s claims of election fraud, contended that the county had deleted an entire database. The board of supervisors responded in a letter calling the accusations “false, defamatory, and beneath the dignity of the Senate”. It accused the Arizona Senate of “conspiracy theories that fuel the fundraising schemes of those pulling your strings”.^[35][36][37] Fann responded that the audit would continue when the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum site was next available.^[38]

After consulting with the Department of Homeland Security and the Election Assistance Commission, Hobbs said she was told that it was impossible to know whether the voting machines the county turned over in response to the Senate subpoena had been compromised and that Dominion Voting Systems should recertify them for future use.^[39] While the Arizona Senate’s contractor was in possession of the machines that had been subpoenaed, the county spent over $20,000 to lease other machines to conduct two local elections, and the costs of recertifying the surrendered machines after their return would be in the six-figure range; however, the Senate signed an agreement with the county that said the county is not liable for any damages to the equipment while in the Senate’s custody, so it is unclear whether the county would be liable for the costs.^[39]

The audit was conducted by Florida-based company Cyber Ninjas, which had no previous experience in election audits and had not been certified by the federal government to conduct election audits.^[40] Cyber Ninjas’ owner, Doug Logan, supported Trump and promoted Trump’s claims of election fraud.^[41] The auditors released a report in September 2021, finding no proof of fraud and that their ballot recount increased Biden’s margin of victory by 360 votes.^[42][43]

On June 2, 2021, Hobbs announced her candidacy for governor of Arizona in the 2022 election to succeed term-limited Republican incumbent Doug Ducey.^[44][45][46]

Hobbs ran against former Customs and Border Protection chief of staff Marco Lopez and former state representative Aaron Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Despite declining to debate her opponents, she won the Democratic nomination with 72.3% of the vote.^[47][48]

Hobbs faced the Republican nominee, former KSAZ-TV news anchor Kari Lake, in the general election. Hobbs limited access to reporters, sometimes going out of her way to avoid them, and held small-scale campaign events.^[49][50] She declined to debate Lake, saying she wanted to deny Lake the opportunity to spread election denialism.^[51][52] Hobbs narrowly defeated Lake with 50.3% of the vote.^[53][54] After the election, Lake refused to concede, and assembled a legal team to contest the election results.^[55][56][57] In March 2023, the Arizona Supreme Court declined to hear Lake’s lawsuit concerning the election,^[58] and in May reaffirmed its decision after a trial.^[59][60]

Hobbs was sworn in on January 2, 2023, in a private ceremony, followed by a public ceremony on January 5.^[61] Upon taking office, she became Arizona’s fifth female governor, a record for U.S. states.^[62][63] In December 2022, she selected Allie Bones, the Arizona assistant secretary of state, as her chief of staff.^[64][65] Bones resigned on May 25, 2023, and was replaced by Chad Campbell, the former minority leader of the Arizona House of Representatives, on May 31.^[66][67][68]

Since taking office, Hobbs has issued several executive orders, including those prohibiting state agencies and all new state contracts or subcontracts from discrimination based on traits of sexual orientation, gender identity,^[69] hair texture and protective styles,^[70] and has established several commissions, including an independent prison oversight commission;^[71] a commission on homelessness and housing that was abolished in 2020; a bipartisan elections task force;^[72] and a task force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.^[73]

On April 18, 2023, her 100th day in office, Hobbs set a new record for the most vetoes issued by an Arizona governor in a single legislative session, with 63 vetoes of bills passed by the Republican-majority legislature. The previous record was set by former governor Janet Napolitano, who vetoed 58 total bills in the 2005 session.^[74]

Three of the bills vetoed on April 18 passed with a bipartisan supermajority in both the Arizona House and the Arizona Senate.^[75] One of them, concerned with cottage foods and colloquially known as the “tamale bill”, became a topic of national conversation after multiple Democratic legislators voiced their opposition to the veto.^[76] Although the bill passed with a bipartisan supermajority, a vote to override the veto in the Arizona House of Representatives failed, with only five Democrats voting to override.^[77][78] The other two bills Hobbs vetoed that passed with supermajorities, SB1091 and SB1101, have not been brought forward to an override vote. On May 19, Hobbs vetoed 14 bills passed by the state house and senate, surpassing 100 vetoes in only five months; among them was HB2377, which would have restricted officials from being registered lobbyists while holding public office.^[79]

In her 2022 gubernatorial platform, Hobbs pledged to remove the illegal border wall made of shipping containers that is being built in the Coronado National Forest without authorization from the United States Forest Service.^[80] In her January 9 State of the State address, Hobbs proposed expanding the Arizona Promise Scholarship Program to make it available for undocumented immigrant students to attend state universities and colleges.^[81]

In May 2023, ahead of the repeal of Title 42, Hobbs announced that the state will establish five new bus routes to transport migrants from small border communities to Tucson.^[82] On December 17, 2023, Hobbs issued an executive order ordering the Arizona National Guard to the border with Mexico to help federal officials manage an influx of migrants.^[83]

On May 2, 2024, Hobbs signed a bill to repeal a near-total abortion ban from 1864 that the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated on April 9, 2024.^[84] The ban was not enforced by Attorney General Kris Mayes, and the repeal took effect on September 14, 2024.^[85]

An opponent of capital punishment, Hobbs has halted executions and was to appear alongside Ryan Thornell, Arizona’s prison director, in Maricopa County Supreme Court.^[86] On January 20, 2023, she ordered a review of the state’s death penalty protocols.^[87] Arizona conservatives have criticized Hobbs for not cooperating with the court-ordered execution of Aaron Brian Gunches.^[88]

In May 2023, the Russian government added Hobbs to a list of people permanently banned from entering Russia.^[89][90] The banning came after the Biden administration imposed further sanctions on Russia; others banned from entering Russia include U.S. Representative Eli Crane and Arizona State University president Michael M. Crow.^[90]

In March 2024, Hobbs announced that Arizona would use $30 million of federal COVID-19 relief funds to forgive Arizonans’ medical debts. Using the funds from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, Arizona will task the RIP Medical Debt organization to buy medical debt held by hospitals and collection agencies. An RIP Medical Debt board member said that up to $2 billion of debt could be forgiven.^[91]

In March 2024, Hobbs vetoed bipartisan legislation to increase Arizona’s housing supply.^[92][93][94] The bill would have reduced red tape around housing construction by preventing Arizona municipalities from requiring homeowners’ associations, minimum home sizes, and certain building setbacks.^[92] She said the bill was “a step too far” and had “unclear outcomes”.^[92] The legislation’s sponsors criticized Hobbs for not offering any guidance on the legislation when it was being negotiated, as they could have adjusted the bill’s language to make it more in line with her preferences.^[92]

Hobbs is married to Patrick Goodman, whom she met at church in 1992 and married in 1996.^[15] Goodman is a child therapist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.^[95] They have two children and live in Phoenix.^[96][97][10]

Hobbs is Catholic.^[98] She is a triathlete and has been an avid cyclist since high school.^[15][99]

• Governor Katie Hobbs official government website
• Katie Hobbs for Governor campaign website
• Appearances on C-SPAN

• Profile at Vote Smart