Some people in Hobbs’s own party are worried about how she’d perform in a race against a candidate like Lake, who has significantly more media experience than Hobbs and who speaks much more forcefully about her agenda, even if it’s an agenda that repulses most liberals. (A poll released last week showed Lake beating Hobbs by one percentage point in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.) One state Democratic adviser, who has known Hobbs for years and who works for another candidate in the race, put it this way: “I couldn’t articulate what her vision for the state is beyond her MSNBC appearances to talk about election integrity. There’s not a lot else that’s there.” (Like several Hobbs critics I talked with, this person spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be candid.)

Highlighting Trump’s election lies hasn’t worked well for other Democrats so far this cycle. In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe spent most of his 2021 campaign for governor comparing his opponent, Glenn Youngkin, to the former president and warning about Republican extremism. Youngkin, meanwhile, centered his campaign on education, and became the first Republican candidate to win statewide in more than a decade. Hobbs’ focus on election administration is a gamble: Nationally, only 1 percent of voters ranked elections as their top priority in Gallup’s most recent survey of Americans’ biggest concerns.

Hobbs’s intraparty critics wish she would be more assertive about the issues that are top of mind for Arizonans, including jobs and school funding. “Of the three Democrats running, on some of these issues, [Hobbs] is the least prepared,” said a second state Democratic strategist. Hobbs will stand strong on election integrity, Erfle, the communications consultant, told me. But that isn’t enough to excite voters. “When you’re talking about what’s going to animate the base, it’s education,” she said.