The future of America

Maricopa county, which encompasses Arizona’s capital, Phoenix, and blossoming

rings of surrounding suburbs, has nearly 4.5 million residents and dominates the
state politically. One third of Maricopa residents identify as Latino, according to
US census data.

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 Carlos Garcia, a Phoenix city councilmember, in south Phoenix, Arizona, 14 October 2020.
Photograph: Caitlin O’Hara/The Guardian

Over the past decade, demographic change, population growth and a cultural
shift seen across America’s suburbs has turned this sprawling desert metropolis –
a bastion of western conservatism for decades – into one of the most closely
watched and fiercely contested presidential battlegrounds in the nation.
Winning a statewide election in Arizona without Maricopa is nearly impossible.
And so it is likely that here, in the sprawl of stucco housing developments and
retirement communities, voters will deliver a referendum on Trump – and the
Republican party.

“If the president loses Arizona, it’ll be in large part because he lost Maricopa
county,” Jeff Flake, the former Arizona senator, told the Guardian.

The Trump administration’s failure to control the coronavirus pandemic and its
economic fallout has hastened the state’s political transformation – driving
moderates, independents and even some conservatives away from the Republican
party. Flake, a prominent Republican critic of Trump, has endorsed the
Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, for president along with Cindy McCain, the
widow of the late Arizona senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee,
John McCain.

Arizona has voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election but
one since 1952, but polling this year finds Biden with a narrow but steady
lead over Trump. While it’s mathematically possible, no Republican has ever won
the White House without the state’s 11 electoral votes.

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 A map of Maricopa county in Arizona. Illustration: Guardian Design

So voters here are poised to decide not only who wins the White House, but
which party controls the US Senate, which in turn will shape the national debate
around immigration, education, healthcare and the climate crisis.

“This state, whether you like it or not, could determine the future of America,” the
Phoenix-based rightwing activist Charlie Kirk warned Arizona voters at a Trump
campaign event last month. “If you would’ve told me that 10 years ago, I would’ve
thought you were joking.”

‘Our Arizona roots’

Four years ago, Trump carried Maricopa county by three percentage points – and
won the state by roughly the same margin, a significantly narrower victory than
previous Republican presidential hopefuls.

Just two years later, Kyrsten Sinema won the county by four percentage points to
become Arizona’s first Democratic senator in a generation.

Sinema’s success was due to a confluence of factors that are also in play
nationally this November: a surge in Latino turnout, plus support from voters in
Phoenix’s traditionally conservative suburbs. Sixteen per cent of Republican
women broke with the party to vote for the Democrat, according to exit polls.

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 The newly elected Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema in the US Capitol, in Washington on 13
November 2018. Photograph: Alexander Drago/Reuters

In a sign of Arizona’s importance, Trump has visited the state half a dozen times

in the past year, with another campaign stop later this week. Biden, who has been
more circumspect about travel because of the virus, visited Phoenix with his
running mate, Kamala Harris, for their first joint campaign appearance earlier
this month. Both campaigns are spending lavishly on Spanish and English
language advertising here, making Phoenix one of the most expensive media
markets in the country.
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Arizona is not only crucial in the presidential race, however. Democratic Senate
candidate Mark Kelly, the astronaut and husband of the former Arizona
congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, finds himself well ahead in a special election
to fill the seat once occupied by McCain. And Kelly’s Republican opponent,
Senator Martha McSally, has struggled to disentangle herself from an
increasingly unpopular president.

In Phoenix, meanwhile, Democrats also have their best chance of winning control
of the state legislature in more than a half-century. Arizona Democrats have been
waiting for this moment for years. The only surprise, some say, is that it has
taken this long to arrive.

“If you look at our history, we’re much more of a populist, independent state than
a quote, unquote, conservative state,” said Chad Campbell, a former Democratic
state House minority leader. “Unfortunately, for the past decade or so, we’ve had
some people, mainly from the Republican side, attract national attention with
very extreme policies, particularly around immigration.”

“Now,” he said, “I think we’re starting to get back to our Arizona roots.”
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 Lawn signs in east Phoenix on 14 October 2020. Photograph: Caitlin O’Hara/The Guardian

‘That’s not my Republican party’

When Arizona became a state in 1912, the final addition to the contiguous US,
Maricopa was a vast desert outpost, inhabited by Native Americans and
westward-bound settlers. Access to refrigeration and air conditioning in the mid-
20th century transformed the arid landscape into what is now one of the largest
and fastest-growing counties in the nation.

Maricopa was the most populous county Trump won in 2016. But like other
Republican-leaning metropolitan regions, it has become more competitive as its
suburbs increasingly resemble cities, becoming more crowded, more educated
and more diverse.
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A new generation of Latinos are moving further from Phoenix, buying homes and
starting families in the enveloping suburbs. Professionals and young families
from more liberal states across the country, are also moving to Arizona, lured by
the promise of year-round sunshine, low taxes and affordable housing.

These newcomers are softening the state’s conservative edge – and changing its
politics, strategists say.

“They are not these Arizona Republicans who think they’re cowboys and cops,”
said Josh Ulibarri, a Phoenix-based Democratic pollster. “They are fiscally-
conservative Republicans who have, over time, been pro-public education and
pro-choice, and they’re coming to this state that is still controlled by far-
right Republicans and thinking, ‘that’s not my Republican party.’”

 
The one thing we know is that there is no future with Trumpism – it’s a demographic
cul-de-sac
Jeff Flake