Arizona's far-right Freedom Caucus issues their 'single most important task' in 2026

The far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus set a contentious tone for the start of the new legislative session, vowing to unseat the state’s three top Democrats in the next election and making clear that is the top priority for the group as lawmakers return to work.

“The single most important task that we will work on over the coming two years that will produce the greatest positive benefit for the people of Arizona possible is our effort to fire Katie Hobbs, Kris Mayes and Adrian Fontes in the 2026 election,” Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, the group’s chairman, said during a news conference highlighting its priorities on Monday morning.

The 2024 general election saw Arizona’s Republican majority expand its influence in both legislative chambers, gaining an extra seat in the state House of Representatives and two more in the Senate, despite an aggressive campaign from Democrats to topple the party from power. That success has emboldened conservatives who were bracing for an electoral sweep and inspired a bid to recapture the statewide seats lost three years ago.

Hoffman said Hobbs’ administration has been detrimental for Arizonans, singling out an executive order she issued in 2023 protecting the right of trans state employees to obtain gender-affirming surgeries and another move to pause new construction in the Valley — that would affect Queen Creek, which Hoffman represents — to help conserve groundwater. He criticized providing health care to transgender state employees as wasting taxpayer dollars.

The Freedom Caucus has been at the forefront of anti-LGBTQ legislation, with top members sponsoring legislation to criminalize drag shows and restrict the behavior of trans students.

Hoffman also lambasted the governor for her record-shattering vetoes of Republican bills, saying that the results of the 2024 election proved Arizona voters want the party’s proposals to be implemented.

“The 2024 election was the capstone of two hard-slinging years of political battle,” he said. “And it was the overwhelmingly positive electoral results that prove Republicans and the conservative agenda that we’ve pursued is winning.”

But while Republicans tout a mandate from Arizona voters, the reality may be more complex. Along with expanding the GOP’s legislative hold, voters also rejected Kari Lake, the party’s pick for U.S. Senate, and threw out seven of the eleven referrals Republican lawmakers sent to the ballot.

Hoffman waved away the fact that not all of the party’s requests were approved by voters, saying that the approval of two main goals — passing a border security measure and defeating the threat of ranked choice voting — constitutes a mandate.

Proposition 314, the GOP’s Secure the Border Act, which includes a provision that would give local police officers and state judges the power to arrest and deport migrants, won more than 60% of the vote.

The failure of Proposition 140, the Make Elections Fair AZ Act, which sought to overhaul the state’s primary elections and could have led to ranked-choice voting in some instances, is also counted as a win for the conservative agenda by Republican lawmakers, who campaigned against the proposal.

And while friction with Hobbs’ administration is inevitable — Hoffman heads the Senate committee that oversees her nominations for agency directors and which he said on Monday it will continue to weed out “radical partisans and puppets for the far left special interests who are controlling Katie Hobbs’ political agenda” — it’s unclear whether the caucus will work in step with the Republican majority, either. Hoffman said his caucus will seek to support the party’s goals, but its main focus is to ensure the “most conservative agenda” wins out.

“Sometimes we work in tandem, sometimes we have to pull them along,” he said.

Even with an expanded majority, the GOP’s hold on the legislature remains slim and the party can’t afford to lose votes without Democratic backing, which is rarely in supply with the two often at loggerheads. In the past, the Freedom Caucus has capitalized on that political reality to leverage its policy priorities, complicating negotiations over transportation taxes, threatening to hold public education funding hostage and even influencing procedural legislative rules.

For now, however, the group’s goals align with the Republican majority’s plan. Hoffman said the caucus will push for the implementation of the Secure the Border Act, support the federal deportation efforts of the incoming Trump administration, and propose ways to speed up and increase the security of the state’s election systems, which conservative politicians believe, without proof, to be vulnerable.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: [email protected].