PHOENIX – As Washington’s cost-hiking policies continue driving up prices for Arizona families and small businesses, Gov. Katie Hobbs hosted an affordability roundtable in Tucson alongside 6th Congressional District candidate JoAnna Mendoza to hear directly from Arizonans about the impact of tariffs, healthcare cuts, and rising costs.
Joined by small-business owners, healthcare advocates, food bank workers, and school and community resource employees, Hobbs and Mendoza discussed how Washington’s reckless tariffs are raising the price of groceries and everyday goods, how healthcare cuts are increasing insurance costs, and how conflict in Iran is driving up gas prices for Arizona families and businesses.
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KOLD: Arizona Democrats discuss affordability at Tucson roundtable
Payton May
May 30, 2026
- Governor Katie Hobbs held an affordability roundtable in Tucson at the IBEW Hall on Saturday. She was joined by Democrat JoAnna Mendoza, who’s running for Arizona’s 6th Congressional District seat.
- “I mean we’re hearing a lot about the rising cost of utilities, rent, groceries, and now gas with the war in Iran,” Mendoza said.
- With inflation reaching its highest level across the U.S. since 2023 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some Arizonans say they’re struggling to stay afloat.
- The roundtable featured local business owners, healthcare advocates and food bank workers as they discussed the cost of living, including tariffs and gas prices, which have spiked since the conflict in the Middle East began more than three months ago.
- “Even if the national average is going down, here in southern Arizona, people are still having to pay a lot, way more, for gas,” Mendoza said.
- The group also discussed health insurance costs, which single mother Fabiola Bedoya says has left her with a difficult choice.
- “I’m probably gonna go to Mexico to get healthcare because of affordability, and it really shouldn’t be that way, there should be an in-between” Bedoya said.
- The conversation comes as Arizona lawmakers stare down a June 30 deadline to negotiate a state budget deal. Despite weeks of back and forth with the Republican-controlled legislature, Governor Hobbs said they’re within weeks of a final agreement that she said will prioritize Arizonans and help keep costs down.
- “In times where Arizonans are feeling the impact of Washington’s cost-hiking and job-killing agenda, that we’re doing everything that we can to mitigate that,” Hobbs said.
