“What was she thinking?” Katie Hobbs is taking heat from all sides after she flip-flopped on Title 42. In a new column, the Arizona Republic said Hobbs “must have really bad advisers or her campaign saw the writing on the wall” that her support for ending Title 42 was politically toxic. “She just handed Republicans yet more ammunition to attack her as a flip-flopper,” wrote Elvia Diaz.
Bottom Line: It is only April and the Katie Hobbs campaign is melting down under Republican pressure. Hobbs’ open borders stance and flip-flopping on key issues will follow her campaign until Election Day.
Read more here.
Why Did Katie Hobbs Flip-Flop On Title 42 Within Three Weeks?
Arizona Republic
Elvia Diaz
April 25, 2022
That was fast. In just three weeks, Katie Hobbs went from “Title 42 isn’t working” to lifting it without a plan “would be a disaster.”
Which one is it?
Not much has changed at the U.S.-Mexico border since April 3, when Hobbs told Politics Unplugged that the Trump-era “Title 42 isn’t working.” Any reasonable person would agree that means she supported yanking it.
Back then, there was already an uptick of asylum seekers, most of them expelled under Title 42, and everyone knew that President Biden was set to end that border restriction soon.
Yet this week, Hobbs told CNN that lifting Title 42 “without a clear plan to secure our border would be a disaster.”
Why the change of heart and why so quickly?
Katie Hobbs loses with a flip on Title 42
The Arizona secretary of state and Democratic gubernatorial candidate either must have really bad advisers or her campaign saw the writing on the wall, just like Sen. Mark Kelly and several other Democrats across the nation did when they urged Biden not to end Title 42 without a plan to deal with an uptick of asylum seekers.
Either way, this can’t be good for her.
Hobbs still has to win the Democratic August primary against former Nogales Mayor Marco López and former state Rep. Aaron Lieberman. Most political insiders consider her the frontrunner and the few polls done so far back that assertion.
Why then flip-flop on Title 42 if she already has the Democratic nomination locked in?
That only gave Republicans ammunition to attack her. They, of course, didn’t waste time doing so.
“After getting called out for backing open borders, Katie Hobbs thinks she can re-write her support for ending Title 42,” the Republican National Committee said in a Monday blog post. “Too bad, she’s on camera saying it. From now until November, voters will hear exactly what Hobbs said.”
What was she thinking?
She not only flipped over Title 42 but she did it without explanation, hoping, I suppose, that only anti-immigration hardliners would see it.
Why is Hobbs targeting those voters now?
Hobbs is already walking a tightrope with minorities because of the multimillion-dollar race and sex discrimination federal jury verdict stemming from a Black former Senate staffer’s lawsuit.
This flip-flopping won’t help her with some people of color, which brings me to another question. Who exactly is she targeting in the primary with her new immigration stance?
We don’t know Hobbs’ reasoning; she didn’t say. But she just handed Republicans yet more ammunition to attack her as a flip-flopper and further hurt her chances with voters who believe the health-related Title 42 is being misused in the name of border security.
Read more here.
