PHOENIX (AP) — Republican incumbent Jan Brewer and Democratic challenger Terry Goddard face off Tuesday in the race for Arizona governor. Brewer is running for a four-year term after being elevated from secretary of state in January 2009 when Democrat Janet Napolitano resigned to become federal Homeland Security secretary.
Goddard is a former Phoenix mayor who is finishing his second term as state attorney general. He ran twice unsuccessfully for governor in the 1990s.
Goddard was unopposed in the Aug. 24 primary election for the Democratic nomination, while Brewer easily won her party's contest after being buoyed by her April signing of Arizona's controversial law against illegal immigration, SB1070. And she was helped when voters on May 18 overwhelmingly approved a temporary sales tax increase she championed to help balance the state budget.
Brewer said during the general election campaign that Goddard was lax on illegal immigration because he said SB1070 was misguided. She also said she'd made tough decisions on Arizona's budget crisis, and she took advantage of every opportunity to trumpet economic development events bringing new jobs to the state.
Goddard said Brewer hadn't done enough to fix the state's budget troubles, and he said her administration went easy on private prisons like the one where three violent offenders escaped July 30.
Brewer and Goddard debated only once, on Sept. 1. They had to do that because each accepted public campaign financing.
Brewer had earlier said she wouldn't give Goddard additional face-to-face exposure, but her performance in the one debate solidified her decision.
It began with Brewer pausing for about 15 seconds during her introductory statement and concluded with her bolting from reporters asking her after the debate about her claim of headless bodies being found in the desert. She later retracted the claim.
Libertarian Barry Hess and Larry Gist of the Green Party also are on the ballot.
