Katie Hobbs and Andy Biggs are having a stupid beef about tacos

Want to be governor of Arizona? Are you willing to eat a taco on camera and, if so, can you do it while looking like a normal human being?

That’s the stupid political litmus test currently gripping the race between incumbent Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and her likely GOP challenger, Rep. Andy Biggs.

Taco-gate started with a March 26 interview that Biggs gave on The Conservative Circus podcast. Host James T. Harris started off with a hard-hitting question: “If you were ever in Tucson, would you eat a taco from a food truck on camera?”

Biggs responded with an immediate negative. “No,” the far-right congressman said with a chuckle. “I don’t think so.” Biggs doesn’t seem to have any enmity toward tacos in general, just the ungainly aesthetics of consuming one.

“I have a problem eating tacos, brother,” Biggs said. “Half of it ends up down my shirt.”

While that response raises some questions about Biggs’ taco-eating technique — bring the plate up, turn your head, not the taco — Hobbs decided to troll her presumptive opponent by doing what Biggs refused to: making ICE agents unmask themselves eating a taco on camera.

In a 15-second video posted to social media Monday morning, Hobbs stoically watches her phone as the clip of Biggs’ interview plays. When she reaches Biggs’ stunning admission — Egads! He won’t publicly perform taco eating? — she lets out a less-than-believably-spontaneous “WHAT?” before taking a large bite of a soft taco.

A decent, if imperfect, attempt at trolling. Hobbs doesn’t get any taco filling on her shirt but does lose some taco meat in the process. She hasn’t quite mastered the kayfabe that allows seasoned content creators to engaging seem like they’re actually reacting to something in real time. In the end, the viewer may come away thinking two things: Hobbs is certainly willing to eat a taco on camera, and watching someone eat a taco on camera is inescapably awkward.

The taco Hobbs chomped down on already had a bite taken out of it, raising the question of whether she’d needed multiple takes to make the video. But according to Hobbs campaign spokesperson Michael Beyer, the tacos were lunch, not just a prop. That taco was one of three Hobbs ordered from Mr. G Drive-In, a Mexican restaurant in Yuma.

Biggs’ taco-shyness left Hobbs “genuinely shocked!” Beyer wrote in a statement to Phoenix New Times. “What kind of Arizonan refuses to eat a taco? Tucson specifically is internationally recognized for its cuisine — UNESCO designated it the first Creative City for Gastronomy in the U.S.”

That is true of Tucson, which happens to be where Biggs was born. Though Beyer’s statement plays a bit fast and loose with the controversy in question: Biggs wasn’t refusing to eat tacos at all, just refusing to be filmed doing so.

Still, Biggs’ response even surprised Harris, who argued that the everyday working man wants to see the “taco grease dripping down your chin, your cheek and all that. Because that means you’re for real, Congressman.” 

“I am for real,” Biggs responded. “I just can’t imagine it’s good for anyone to see me doing that, that’s all I’m saying.”

Was it good for us to see Katie Hobbs doing that? Drew Sexton, Biggs’ senior campaign advisor, argues it was not. Sexton did not answer questions from New Times about whether Biggs likes tacos or knows how to eat them, saying only that Biggs “enjoys” Lulu’s Taco Shop in Gilbert. But Sexton did call out the awkwardness of Hobbs’ retort.

“As much as Arizonans were creeped out by this morning’s video, the thought of four more years of weak and ineffective Katie Hobbs as Governor doing nothing to help their rising cost of living is even more sickening,” Sexton wrote. He also touted some of Biggs’ policy goals — building affordable housing, signing a Republican-led tax conformity package that Hobbs vetoed and undoing Hobbs’ “Green New Deal-style policies,” which apparently means her effort to “Unleash Arizona Energy.”

“As a bonus,” Sexton wrote, “he’ll do it all without posting awkward dining videos. Everybody wins!”

Hopefully, the taco beef will simmer down soon. Stay tuned for our next dumb gubernatorial challenge: Who can most gracefully get out of a hammock.