PHOENIX — As the head of the conservative Freedom Caucus in the U.S. House, Rep. Andy Biggs was one of the Republican Party’s most hard-line brawlers in Washington, championing President Donald Trump’s agenda while frustrating establishment leaders.
U.S. Rep. David Schweikert says those uncompromising tactics are a losing recipe in Arizona, where Republicans have watched their power erode as voters rejected nominees seen as too extreme.
After decades coexisting in the fractious Arizona Republican Party, Biggs and Schweikert are on a collision course in Tuesday’s primary for governor. The race has become a clash of competing visions for reviving the once-dominant GOP to take on Katie Hobbs, the most vulnerable Democratic governor in the country.
Biggs, endorsed by Trump and backed by Turning Point Action, built his political career as a skilled Republican infighter, but he’s never faced a tough campaign against a Democrat. Schweikert, meanwhile, is trying to resurrect a version of the party that is becoming increasingly anachronistic.
“Biggs lives in a district where if he were a turtle running as a Republican, you’re going to win it,” said Kathleen Dunbar, 75, a former member of the Tucson City Council who plans to vote for Schweikert on Election Day. “Schweikert lives in a district that’s very much like the state of Arizona, where he has to win the independents. And he’s done it eight times in the last 16 years.”
Republicans have struggled in Arizona
Biggs’ biggest asset is his alliance with Trump. But Trump’s endorsement is a double-edged sword in Arizona.
No Republican has lost a statewide primary here with Trump’s backing. But since 2018, only one of them, former Gov. Doug Ducey, has managed to win a statewide general election. As a result, in a state where registered Democrats are outnumbered by both Republicans and independents, the Democratic Party holds both Senate seats and the top three state offices.
In 2022, a Trump-backed slate of Republicans – led by former local news anchor Kari Lake as the party’s nominee for governor – refused to moderate their message in the general election, convinced that a fired-up MAGA base would propel them to victory. They lost.
Biggs rejects comparisons to Lake, and he’s been sanding down the edges of his no-compromise persona.
After backing Trump’s push to block the 2020 election certification, Biggs now refuses to say whether Biden’s win was legitimate. He’s also talking up examples of working across the aisle.
Biggs voter Kathy Babits, 71, a retired occupational therapist from Scottsdale, said she wasn’t swayed by Schweikert’s warning that Biggs is too toxic for a general electorate.
“As long as people get behind him and as long as things don’t change too much, I’m in favor,” Babits said.
The primary reflects a changing Republican Party
Biggs and Schweikert are both fiscal conservatives from neighboring districts in Phoenix’s suburban East Valley, the two whitest and wealthiest districts in Arizona.
On style, however, they’re starkly different.
Biggs brags about having a direct line to Trump. He built a national profile in the House as a bulwark against compromise with Democrats, playing a key role in taking down Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy and joining an unsuccessful rebellion against his successor, Mike Johnson.
He has taken hard-line, sometimes lonely stances against government spending. He was one of a handful of House members to vote against economic stimulus early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a state legislator even proposed eliminating the state’s Medicaid program.
He has thrived in the younger, rapidly growing, family-oriented suburbs on the sprawling fringes of metro Phoenix.
“I like his style and his policies and his mannerisms,” said Don Dobie, a Biggs supporter from Scottsdale. “And he looks like a trustworthy guy.”
Schweikert, meanwhile, has not been photographed with Trump. Though he’s been a reliable supporter of Trump’s priorities and avoids publicly criticizing him, he’s strived to cultivate a public image as a budget wonk obsessed with the federal deficit.
He has persevered among the genteel, country club set in one of the nation’s most highly educated congressional districts. He managed to hold onto his House seat even as many of the wealthy, highly educated Republicans in his district abandoned the party under Trump.
Schweikert needs voters like Jeff Clark, a retired telecommunications engineer from Scottsdale who has been dismayed by his party’s embrace of Trump.
“Once they say they’re Trump-sponsored and everything, I’m sorry, it’s just not going to work,” Clark said.
But Clark sat out the gubernatorial race, declining to vote for anyone because he’s convinced Biggs has a lock on the nomination and didn’t see Schweikert “do much of anything for anybody” in Congress.
Republicans are struggling in Arizona because they aren’t aggressive enough in pushing Trump’s priorities, like the SAVE America election bill, said Michael LoBello, a 79-year-old retiree from Scottsdale. He voted for Biggs.
“Stand up for the people,” LoBello said. “Just stand up for us. They’re forgetting who they represent, and that’s the people.”
Crowded primary for a battleground House district
Both parties have hotly contested primaries for Schweikert’s House district, which is a top battleground in the fight for a congressional majority.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has controversially thrown its support behind Marlene Galán-Woods, a former television news anchor who used to be a Republican. Her late husband, Grant Woods, was the Republican attorney general in the 1990s and later became a vocal Trump critic.
Woods’ chief opponent, Amish Shah, is an emergency medicine doctor and former state legislator who was the party’s nominee in 2024 but lost narrowly to Schweikert.
“I like his background in medicine,” said Jeff Cohen of Cave Creek, 69, an attorney who voted for Shah. “And he actually came to my door and I met him. It made a difference. Old-style politics.”
On the Republican side, former Arizona Cardinals kicker Jay Feely has Trump’s endorsement. He’s been dogged by criticism for living outside the district – he lives in Biggs’ district and originally was running there until Trump endorsed a rival.
Feely faces Joseph Chaplik, a former state legislator popular with many of the party’s grassroots activists, and businessman John Trobough.
