Key Findings
Katie Hobbs leads Andy Biggs by 5.7 points in Arizona’s governor race, 48.9% to 43.2%. Her advantage is larger among independents and moderates, while Biggs leads among men and voters 65 and older. The ballot is clearer than the candidate images: Hobbs’s favorable and unfavorable ratings are almost even, and Biggs’s unfavorable rating exceeds his favorable rating by 8.6 points.
Hobbs’s lead is not a broad endorsement of the political environment. 43.8% say their finances have gotten worse over the last year, compared with 16.7% who say they have improved. Trump’s job approval is 10.2 points underwater, and both parties in Congress receive net-negative ratings.
The issue findings add a second tension. A majority supports state and local cooperation on immigration enforcement, and the education-return question produces a strongly negative assessment. Hobbs nevertheless leads the head-to-head ballot. The survey measures those attitudes separately; it does not show that any one of them determines vote choice.
Hobbs’s Lead Is Larger Outside the Partisan Bases
Hobbs leads among independents by 12.8 points, 48.7% to 36.0%. Among moderates, her advantage expands to 52.9 points. Both candidates are strong within their own parties: Hobbs receives 96.9% among Democrats, and Biggs receives 91.5% among Republicans.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
Women and younger voters favor Hobbs; older voters favor Biggs
Hobbs leads by 14.1 points among women and 32.8 points among voters ages 18–34. Biggs leads by 3.7 points among men and 10.8 points among voters 65 and older. The age contrast is substantial, but the younger group’s weighted base is only 204, compared with 598 for the oldest group.
The unsettled vote is also unevenly distributed. 12.5% of younger voters and 8.9% of independents are undecided, compared with 4.5% statewide. Those groups support Hobbs more strongly today, but their final preferences are less fully settled.
Hobbs is better defined, while Biggs has more room to change his image
Hobbs’s favorable rating is 47.1%, compared with 47.8% unfavorable. Biggs is 40.2% favorable and 48.8% unfavorable. His 11.0% no-opinion share is more than twice Hobbs’s 5.1%.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
The image gap is sharper among independents. Hobbs is 46.0% favorable and 46.4% unfavorable, nearly even. Biggs is 33.3% favorable and 53.6% unfavorable. More exposure could help Biggs become better known, but this survey cannot tell us whether that exposure would improve his standing.
Steve Montenegro is less defined than either governor candidate: 57.6% express no opinion or uncertainty. That is a different kind of image problem from the substantial unfavorable ratings Hobbs and Biggs already carry.
National Disapproval Reaches Both Parties
Trump’s approval is 44.5%, compared with 54.7% disapproval. JD Vance is less negative, at 45.2% approval and 50.6% disapproval. Congressional Republicans and Democrats are both viewed substantially less favorably on job performance.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
Among independents, Trump’s disapproval exceeds approval by 22.6 points. Among moderates, the gap is 56.4 points. Older voters move in the other direction: Trump receives 54.9% approval among voters 65 and older.
The national pattern is consistent with the broad age and ideological divisions on the governor ballot. It provides context for the race, though the survey does not establish how much presidential approval contributes to Hobbs’s lead.
Financial Strain Does Not Produce a Simple Partisan Answer
Financial deterioration outpaces improvement by 27.1 points statewide. 38.8% report no change. The worse-minus-improved gap is larger among independents, at 32.4 points, and among moderates, at 41.3 points.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
The Harris counterfactual runs in the opposite direction
Asked how their finances would compare if Kamala Harris had been president instead of Trump, 45.2% say worse and 37.9% say better. Another 10.6% say about the same. The worse-minus-better gap is 7.3 points.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
Voters’ assessment of their own finances and their view of the alternative administration answer different questions. Dissatisfaction with the past year does not automatically mean voters believe the Democratic alternative would have delivered a better outcome. The counterfactual is a stated belief, not an estimate of what would actually have happened.
The Policy Findings Complicate the Governor Ballot
A majority favors cooperation on immigration enforcement
57.9% say Arizona state and local police should cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, compared with 36.9% who say they should not. The cooperation advantage is 21.0 points. Among independents, 55.2% support cooperation; moderates are more divided.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
Community assessments are more negative than positive
42.5% say recent “mass migration into America” has made their community worse, compared with 19.7% who say better. 33.1% say it has not made much difference. This describes the response to the question’s wording, rather than a measurement of migration’s effects.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
The separate question about “mass migration of Muslims” produces 49.3% negative opinion, 16.1% positive opinion, and 29.1% neither positive nor negative. Its subject and wording differ from the community question; the two should not be combined into one immigration measure.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
The education prompt produces a broad negative assessment
After respondents are told that 25% of Arizona eighth graders are proficient in reading, 78.3% say taxpayers receive a poor return on public education. Only 14.4% say good return. The poor-return share reaches 78.8% among independents and 71.5% among moderates.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
The finding is conditional on the supplied proficiency premise, which is part of the questionnaire rather than an independently verified fact in this article. It is not an unprompted school-performance rating. Separately, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts receive 44.1% favorable opinion and 28.3% unfavorable opinion, with 27.6% expressing no opinion.
The veto description draws a negative stated reaction
After the questionnaire’s description of Hobbs’s veto of a bill prohibiting “sex transition procedures for children,” 44.9% say they are less likely to support her and 27.5% more likely. 24.4% say it makes no difference.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
Among moderates, “makes no difference” is the largest response at 36.9%. That matters because Hobbs’s ballot advantage is especially large within that group. The veto item is a stated reaction to supplied wording, not a before-and-after ballot experiment; its negative margin is not a measured reduction in Hobbs’s vote share.
Data centers face more opposition than support
Data centers are 57.8% unfavorable and 31.8% favorable, a 26.0-point negative balance. The release does not measure how important that opinion is to vote choice.
Weighted percentages; spreads calculated before rounding. Table retains source response order. Smaller voter groups have greater uncertainty.
On economic systems, capitalism draws 64.1% favorable opinion, compared with 27.9% for socialism. Taken together, the policy findings describe an electorate whose opinions extend beyond the governor ballot. They do not supply a substitute ballot result.
The Pollster’s Read
What follows is interpretation of the survey, rather than an additional measured result.
Hobbs’s lead is supported by her position with independents and moderates, but it is not an expression of broad enthusiasm. Her statewide image is nearly even. Biggs is more negative, particularly among independents, where his unfavorable rating exceeds his favorable rating by 20.3 points. Our read is that the head-to-head choice is working better for Hobbs than a simple favorable-opinion test. For Biggs, improving the comparison among those voters looks more consequential than relying on Republican consolidation alone.
The policy environment offers Republican openings, but they have not erased Hobbs’s ballot advantage. Immigration cooperation wins majority support. The education prompt produces widespread dissatisfaction, and the veto description draws more negative than positive reactions. Yet Hobbs still leads. The mistake would be to assume those opinions transfer automatically into votes. The next useful question is how strongly voters connect each issue with the candidates, rather than how large the statewide issue margin looks.
The unsettled vote gives both campaigns work to do. Biggs has a larger no-opinion share, especially among younger voters, where it is 28.2%. Hobbs leads that age group strongly, but 12.5% remain undecided. A follow-up should test whether Biggs becomes better known without unfavorable opinion growing, whether Hobbs retains her independent advantage, and where undecided voters move. This survey supports a current Hobbs lead; it does not establish its direction of travel.
Methodology
The Arizona survey was conducted October 3–6, 2026, via SMS-to-web using a voter-file sample of likely voters. The weighted sample size is 1,513. The release reports a margin of error of ±2.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
All article percentages, combined categories, and spreads are calculated from unrounded weighted shares in the published crosstab workbook. Charts and tables show one decimal; rounded components may differ from displayed totals by 0.1 point. Subgroup bases are weighted and subgroup estimates carry more uncertainty. No new significance tests or turnout forecast are presented. The public materials used here do not provide the complete weighting specification, design effect, or exact likely-voter screening threshold.
The resource links provide the released results and question wording, interactive crosstabs, and published weighted workbook. Only questions from that public edition are used.