KJZZ: Hobbs plans to work through partisan divide on issues that Arizonans care about

Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs has been busy building a transition team and planning her legislative agenda in which she will have to work with a likely more right-wing Republican majority. The Show and KJZZ political editor Ben Giles spoke with her about all of it before the holiday.

Arizona Republic: ‘The race was about Kari, and that was fine with us’: Hobbs team details victorious strategy

Hobbs with a statewide win already under her belt from 2018, built a campaign team that deliberately set out to highlight Lake’s brash approach while centering its focus on drawing in persuadable voters. “We had a strategy that we laid out at the beginning, and we stuck to it no matter what, and we didn’t get distracted by Kari, by the national environment, by the press,” Nicole DeMont, Hobbs’ campaign manager, said in an interview Sunday. “We believed in our strategy, we knew it was the right one. And it wasn’t flashy and it wasn’t always exciting, and it was never reactive to Kari.”

Arizona Republic: Gov. Doug Ducey stands by election as Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs starts transition to power

In a meeting that lasted about 30 minutes in Ducey’s office, the outgoing Republican governor congratulated Hobbs and pledged to make the transition “as smooth and seamless as possible” to ensure Hobbs and her team “can hit the ground running and continue our state’s incredible momentum.”

[…]

On Jan. 9, a week after being sworn in, Hobbs will deliver her first State of the State address to the 90 members of the Legislature and deliver her budget proposal Jan. 13. Both speeches will set the tone for Hobbs’ agenda for her first year in office, offering road maps of her priorities. “I think you will see the priorities that Governor-elect Hobbs laid out in her campaign as the things that she focuses on in terms of moving the budget forward,” Bones said. “Obviously there’ll be things like in education, we’ll be looking at spending there, housing, the economy and jobs and ways that we can help support families that are struggling in this economy.”

The Center Square: Doug Ducey met with governor-elect Katie Hobbs as Kari Lake protests election results

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey met with his successor, Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Wednesday. Hobbs, a Democrat, won a tightly-contested gubernatorial race; her Republican opponent Kari Lake has not yet accepted the election results. “I congratulated Governor-elect Katie Hobbs on her victory in a hard-fought race and offered my full cooperation as she prepares to assume the leadership of the State of Arizona,” Ducey tweeted.

Cronkite News: Hobbs presses steadily toward transition, even as challenges swirl

Allie Bones stressed that after Hobbs is inaugurated in the first week of January, the new administration will work to serve everyone in the state, even those who didn’t support her.“We plan to build an administration and policy platform that is reflective of the needs of all Arizonans and we’ll continue to work in that manner,” Bones said. “Obviously, there are people in the state who did not vote for her, but that does not mean that she is going to govern for only those who did.”

Villalobos, a Republican, said that starts with diversity on the transition team and in the roles the administration is looking to fill. “The transition committee is committed to making sure that we are providing as much as possible and bringing the best and brightest to the table for the governor-elect and her team to select,” Villalobos said. “This is a brand-new administration that’s going to look, feel, sound a lot more like Arizona lives.”