Hourihan Attacks Biggs in Arizona Governor Debate as Hobbs Skips Again and Lombardo No-Shows

PHOENIX — Longshot gubernatorial candidate Teri Hourihan turned Tuesday night’s hourlong Citizens Clean Elections Commission debate into a sustained assault on Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, hammering him over his 2025 vote against releasing the Justice Department’s Epstein files, his backing of Medicaid work requirements in H.R. 1, and a 2013 Colorado City policing bill from his tenure as Arizona Senate president — in an exchange that at times turned tense, according to azcentral’s post-debate report.

The 6 p.m. debate, staged on the eve of early voting in Arizona, was missing the race’s central figure. Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs declined to attend, repeating her 2022 stance of skipping debates — that year she bypassed both Republican Kari Lake and her Democratic primary challenger Marco Lopez, as FOX 10 Phoenix noted. Both candidates who did show up made the frontrunner’s empty podium a centerpiece of the night.

The third invited candidate never reached a podium either. Green Party nominee Risa Lombardo, who had said she would take part, was unable to attend, with debate staffers announcing her absence less than 15 minutes before the event began, azcentral reported. Just hours earlier, the Clean Elections Commission had voted to continue investigating whether Lombardo was truly qualified for the nearly $2 million in public financing she has received, after Executive Director Tom Collins found a “suspicious” number of her claimed qualifying supporters were duplicated with two other candidates. FOX 10 Phoenix separately noted that the Arizona Green Party lists her candidacy as “actively opposed” and asked the secretary of state in August to strike her from the ballot.

Hourihan, a 41-year-old licensed professional counselor who has never held elected office, used her opening statement to cast both Hobbs and Biggs as the career politicians she said broke the state, azcentral reported. She said she had spent all 41 years of her life in Arizona and had never seen it in worse shape, blaming elected officials — including, she said, the man sharing the stage with her and a governor she portrayed as hiding from voters. She won a surprise upset for the No Labels Party’s nomination in July after campaigning in social-media videos that aired grievances with the Hobbs administration, azcentral noted.

The sharpest policy clash came on Medicaid. Hourihan said her behavioral healthcare business was flagged in the Hobbs administration’s sweeping 2023 crackdown on Medicaid fraud and later cleared of wrongdoing — an experience she said motivated her run for office. She said she supports the program but offered few specifics as it faces sweeping changes under President Donald Trump’s 2025 H.R. 1. Biggs backed that bill and has previously declined to answer questions about his past votes to curtail Medicaid enrollment, azcentral reported. Asked to define who counts as “truly” in need — his own phrase for who should receive help — his answer was murky, drifting into the bill’s provisions: he said nobody on traditional Medicaid would be cut, single working adults would be asked to meet work requirements, and families would not be affected.

Hourihan also repeatedly reminded viewers that Biggs voted in 2025 against releasing Justice Department files related to convicted financier Jeffrey Epstein. Biggs noted onstage that he ultimately voted to release the files, azcentral reported.

On border security, Hourihan argued Biggs could not be trusted, pivoting to a controversial 2013 bill that died while Biggs was Arizona Senate president. The measure would have allowed police to take over law enforcement in Colorado City, home to a polygamous sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Hobbs campaign has spent millions on advertising tying Biggs to that vote. Biggs said onstage the bill was poorly written and opposed by law enforcement at the time, and that he voted for a slimmed-down version a year earlier, azcentral reported.

Biggs, in turn, went after Hourihan’s command of the issues. Biggs said he was “baffled” that Hourihan had “such little knowledge of either the legislative process or even water policy in this state,” adding, according to azcentral, that her attacks said more about her character than his. The report flagged at least one clear stumble: Hourihan said Biggs’s running mate Sine Kerr had been part of the Hobbs administration until 2023, when Kerr was in fact a state senator — a separate branch of government that frequently served as a check on the governor’s office. Speaking to reporters afterward, Hourihan framed the exchange as proof of how the political class treats outsiders, saying elected officials treat people like her as nobodies.

For all the Biggs–Hourihan sparring, the absent incumbent absorbed sustained fire from both sides. “Under Katie Hobbs, achieving the American dream has become almost impossible,” Biggs said. “She’s been a failure.” He called it disqualifying that Hobbs has not debated publicly in more than eight years, arguing it deprives Arizonans of the information they need to decide. Hobbs, who won in 2022 by less than a percentage point, dismisses debates as political theater and soundbites; before becoming governor she served four years as secretary of state and eight as a state lawmaker, azcentral noted.

The no-show strategy had already drawn mockery. Days earlier, actor and comedian Rob Schneider hosted a mock “debate” with Biggs before an audience of Grand Canyon University students, repeatedly offering a microphone to an empty podium for Hobbs as cricket chirps played, the Arizona Agenda wrote. The Agenda’s analysis: with Hobbs leading in the polls, her campaign calculated that absorbing ridicule is safer than risking a viral moment — “You can also just not do it.” An ABC News analysis cited by the Agenda found 21 of 36 gubernatorial races this year will feature no general-election debate at all.

The calendar now takes over. Early voting begins Wednesday, Oct. 7, and Election Day is Nov. 3; the deadline to register to vote was Oct. 5, FOX 10 Phoenix noted. Previously previewed Tuesday’s debate this morning — and with ballots about to go out, Maricopa County’s ballot-mail dispute is another race to watch.