PHOENIX, Arizona – Although the 2026 election is 16 months out, Turning Point Action (TPA) held a rally on Saturday for Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05), who is running for governor against incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs. The event at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa featured multiple top officials in both Arizona and nationally, including Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL-19), as well as Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk.
State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) opened the rally criticizing the mainstream media, gesturing at the “fake news” in the back of the room. “The media will never tell you some things about Andy Biggs. They will never tell you that he has one of the biggest hearts and he is full of kindness and compassion and that he loves the people of this state more than anyone I have ever known.”
Garret Lewis (pictured here), host of The Afternoon Addiction on 550 KFYI, spoke next, referencing Arizona’s Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. “We have a Ukrainian senator in this state,” he said. “All he kept telling us is that we need some kind of a fake border bill that legalizes illegal immigrants. Only if the media, which is back there — don’t know if I’m the media, but I’m better than them — would actually ask him what he thinks about that.”
Lewis said it would be “nice” to have a governor who is “actually, smart, competent, can think.” He called Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes “flipping psycho” and “crazy.” He said, “She only wants to sue Donald Trump, do nothing else.”
State Treasurer Kimberly Yee (pictured here), who is running against Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne in the Republican primary due to his poor record on Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, said she is the “pro-student, pro-family and pro-school choice candidate.” She thanked Biggs for appointing her to chair a legislative committee as a freshman legislator, an “unprecedented” move.
State Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale), who is running for attorney general against Mayes, said, “My career as an election lawyer has been one big warm-up act for our collaboration, and it’s certainly given me plenty of practice for beating the hell out of Adrian Fontes as secretary of state. My priority will be crystal clear, ensuring that every legal vote counts and that votes by illegals don’t. I will fight relentlessly to clean our voter rolls, enhance election security and restore transparency, so that every Arizonan can clearly see how our elections are managed, and we will hold accountable any official that puts their thumb on the scale or tries to silence your voice.”
Two candidates running against Mayes spoke next. Rodney Glassman, a former Democrat who has held office as a Democrat and lost in the last primary for attorney general, received considerable booing during his speech. He criticized Mayes for suing the Trump administration over 20 times during her first six months. “Kris Mayes has such a callous disregard for the rule of law that she thinks it’s okay for illegals to come here drop a baby on the other side of the line, and that the baby should be a citizen, the mother shouldn’t be deported for breaking the law, and she’s going to sue President Trump for that too, because she drafts her lawsuit, she sends out a press release, and she asks her liberal supporters for money.”
Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) (pictured here), the other candidate for attorney general, received a warmer welcome, clearly a favorite of the crowd. Petersen held his campaign kickoff event a couple of weeks ago with Biggs. Petersen explained how Mayes has refused to defend the state against politically motivated lawsuits, so he has intervened with the Arizona Legislature instead, participating in over 60 lawsuits. His the lead defendant in the lawsuit over Arizona’s law prohibiting biological males in women’s sports, Jane Doe v. Warren Petersen.
Contrasting himself with Glassman, Petersen said someone told him he has to beat a Democrat in the primary and a Democrat in the general. He noted that unlike Glassman, he has never been endorsed by Planned Parenthood, and he endorsed Biggs.
Petersen said he was threatened with jail time for ordering the audit of the 2020 election. He went over his conservative credentials, which included numerous ratings near 100 percent from conservative organizations. He passed hundreds of laws including banning gender surgery on minors, and was the only legislator to his knowledge to DOGE a state agency, eliminating it.
TPA’s COO Tyler Bowyer, who previously served as chair of the Maricopa County Republican Committee, relayed how Trump contacted the organization 10 years ago asking to put on a rally about illegal immigration in Phoenix. It was the first MAGA rally in the country, he said. Trump figured about 200 would show up, but TPA got 8,000 to attend.
Former Representative Matt Gaetz said, “I honestly had to scratch my head because I’d forgotten who the governor of Arizona was. I think the last time I saw Katie Hobbs’ picture was on the back of a milk carton. We have seen people in the witness protection program more than we have seen Katie Hobbs. I think she, all she does is sit around vetoing the good bills that could actually unleash the prosperity we’re going to have.”
Donalds, who is running for governor of Florida, appeared by video. “I served with Andy the last four years, you will find nobody who’s more committed to the Constitution, more committed to doing everything necessary to bring Arizona back from the crazy Democrats,” he said.
Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO-04) (pictured here) said, “You deserve so much better than corrupt Katie Hobbs. … I have never seen Andy Biggs cower from the fake news media or for anything that he sees doesn’t benefit you, the American people.”
Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04), who represents mainly a rural district in the state, garnered some laughs when he began his speech. “I might be insecure about my talking ability following those three people, this hillbilly is going to give it a try.” He said, “ I’m a sidekick, or one of them, I should say, with Andy as our next governor.”
Representative Burgess Owens (R-UT-04), a former NFL player, amused the crowd by throwing MAGA hats into the audience. “Still got the arm!” he exclaimed. He said, “ I’ve always been a conservative, but I was a Democrat 40 years ago, and then Ronald Reagan came along, and I decided I was at the wrong party.” He concluded with another football reference, “We cannot control the scoreboard, but we can control the hustle.”
Lee appeared by video. “I’m a friend of Andy Biggs, like I got to know Andy Biggs years ago,” he said. “When he was first elected to the House of Representatives, a common friend told me that Andy Biggs and I were going to be great friends, that I’d love him because he would vote and think like I do, and they were wrong — he’s much, much better than me. He thinks it through and works harder than just about anybody you could ever meet in Congress, certainly, anybody who’s as devoted to the Constitution as Andy Biggs is.”
Former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who is reportedly considering running against Kelly in 2028, hinted at the possibility, stating that he’s missed campaigning. He cracked some jokes and talked about Arizona’s history as the Wild West. He said there was a deputy sheriff named Jim Roberts who was tracking three desperadoes with an assistant. When the assistant balked after Roberts told him to take down one of them, he responded, “Stay out of the way, son. I’ll take them all right,” and took all three down himself. “When I think of Andy Biggs running for office, I think of a man who is saying, ‘Stay out of the way, son, I’ll take them all,’” Lamb concluded.
Representative Eli Crane (R-AZ-02) said, “There is no reason that we should have an advantage of 300,000 Republican votes to Democrat votes and have a Democratic governor.” He said people criticize Biggs for being “too conservative,” and he responds to them, “If you ran your family or your business conservatively and didn’t spend more money than you had, people would be like, ‘yeah, he’s got a lot of common sense, right?’ Not in politics, not in politics.”
Kirk’s wife Erika Frantzve, a former Miss Arizona, spoke briefly in praise of her husband before he came out. Kirk criticized the Republican establishment, who said illegal immigration was “great” because “the golf courses run and the restaurants stay open. Meanwhile, a lot of your homes start to get broken into, and your friends start about to be hospitalized because of their DUIs.” A study from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office several years ago found that while illegal immigrants made up 9 percent of county residents, they committed 20.3 percent of felony DUIs.
“There’s something special about this state, and it’s not a coincidence that all the drama unfolds here, that over 10,000 votes short … in 2020,” Kirk said. “It just seems as if everything matters more in the state of Arizona, and that’s one of the reasons why we picked Turning Point to be the headquarters. … We have the pick of the litter of any city in the country, and we have decided consciously to double and triple down on this state I am raising my kids.”
He teased Donalds, “Don’t tell Byron Donald this, don’t tell anyone from Florida. But this is going to be the new Florida.” He alluded to the election fraud in the state. “All of a sudden, we have two Democrat senators, and we have a Democrat governor and secretary of state,” he said. “We’re going to make 2026 too big to rig.”
Kirk addressed Biggs’ conservatism. “I believe in a contrarian way that if you actually want to win the governorship in 2026 if you nominate a moderate, a lot of people are not going to stay. You want to keep this Trump movement going.” Biggs has a lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union of 97.
Biggs spoke last. He talked about how Trump is implementing federalism and returning powers to the states. New EPA administrator Lee Zeldin dissolved 31 rules to achieve much of that, he said. Biggs laid out his plans as governor, which include eliminating the state income tax,
He also took a shot at besting Donalds and Florida too, receiving wild applause. “Here’s the deal, my good friend, you’re going to win,” he said. “I’m going to win, and about 90 days after we win, in particular, me, you’re going to see the tail lights of Arizona screaming past. The idea was initially to be the Florida of the West, but we don’t want to be just the Florida West. We want to be the most free, most prosperous, safest state in the union.”
Biggs said he will bring back a real Border Security Task Force. “Once I got in the race, the governor announced she was going to reinstitute the Border Security Task Force, but it’s weak sauce,” he said. “It is like a wreath that you put on your door at Christmas time, and then you leave it up all year long.”
He said Arizona will have a border czar, and he has someone in mind already for the position. He criticized Hobbs for vetoing the Arizona ICE Act, a bill sponsored by Petersen. He also criticized her for vetoing another bill Petersen sponsored, which would have sped up the tabulation of ballots on election night, modeled after Florida’s law. Biggs said he will work with the Arizona Legislature to get those two bills passed during the first week of his administration.
Finally, he addressed the fact that Trump had endorsed both him and his moderate Republican opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson. “There’s a difference between being endorsed by President Trump and being endorsed by President Trump and having his personal cell phone number,” he said, followed by wild cheering from the audience.
The mainstream media posted photos on X of empty seats in the back of the auditorium, but failed to disclose it was not yet 2 p.m., when the rally was supposed to begin, or taken at the very end when attendees had started leaving early to avoid the parking exodus jam. Grassroots activist Merissa Hamilton responded to one of the photos, “I am here and it’s standing room only.” She included a video from TPA panning the entire auditorium, revealing no empty seats.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photos by Rachel Alexander.
