Journalists’ Roundtable: Hobbs announces reelection bid and more

It’s Friday, which means it is time for another edition of Journalists’ Roundtable. This week, “Arizona Horizon” host Ted Simons was joined by Jessica Boehm of Axios Phoenix, Wayne Schutsky of KJZZ and Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services.

Top stories this week include:

• Hobbs Announces Reelection Bid
• GOP Candidate Possibilities for CD1
• Brnovich Ambassadorship Nomination
• Grijalva Still Waiting
• Campaign Funds for Security Expenses
• Judge Denies Sanctions vs. Wadsack

Hobbs Announces Reelection Bid:

Jessica Boehm: “I don’t think it was a surprise, everybody knew it was coming…but this is her chance to finally start to frame the conversation, and she’s doing so by trying to paint herself as this kind of pragmatic, not ideological person…essentially setting herself up to have a big difference from whoever her Republican opponent will be.”

Wayne Schutsky: “She’s done some stuff on border security…definitely not as aggressive as Republicans would like…she’s kind of hitting all the hits, everyone who lives in Arizona knows housing prices, for instance, are going out of control…and so she just kind of wants to paint herself as a champion, of kind of the working class voter, the middle American voter.”

Howie Fischer: “The other big difference is this ain’t 2022, she’s not running against somebody who was…universally despised if you all, who tended to annoy Republicans…I think the state is moving somewhat to the right…this will be a very different race than 2022.”

Brnovich Ambassadorship Nomination:

Howie Fischer: “He had an on-again, off-again relationships with Trump…Trump criticized him for not doing more to find out about the fraud in the election…it was a perfect escape for him, I don’t know what happened…he said someone within the deep state…didn’t want him.”

Jessica Boehm: “It’s been weirdly quiet…I find the whole thing a little bizarre.”