With 1 year left as Arizona governor, what’s next for Doug Ducey?

PHOENIX – Doug Ducey for president?

It could happen, according to one Valley political analyst.

“I think what he wants to do is be influential on the national stage,” Stan Barnes of Copper State Consulting told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Monday morning.

“And if … the universe opens up and there is a vacuum in the race for the Republican nomination for president, maybe he’ll be a factor.”

Ducey, who gave his eighth and final State of the State address on Monday afternoon, is in his final year as Arizona’s governor because of term limits.

Barnes said that while Ducey has lost some support from his own party in Arizona over the last year, he is on solid ground nationally thanks to his work as chairman the Republican Governors Association.

“That makes a big difference to the money crowd and the Capitol crowd in D.C.,” Barnes said. “And so he’s a horse in the race if he wants to make it. That’s the truth.”

One position Barnes doesn’t see Ducey pursuing is a seat in the U.S. Senate.

“He had two opportunities with the Martha McSally appointment, etc., in recent years to make a play to be a U.S. senator and he didn’t take either one of them,” Barnes said.

Barnes said it’s telling that Ducey didn’t appoint himself to Sen. John McCain’s seat after the Arizona political icon died in 2018.

“He could have stepped out of the governor’s office into the U.S. Senate with some degree of ease because he was very popular in his first term and things were happening,” Barnes said.

“And so I don’t think he’s going to run for the U.S. Senate now or in the future.”

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