Bitter battle for Arizona centres on the border, the economy and abortion
Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020, a rare feat in the conservative state. While Donald Trump is ahead in the polls, the reality is this swing state is still very much in play as the border, economy and abortion weigh on voters’ minds | WATCH
As the sun sinks behind cactus-strewn mountains, Lara Trump strides into the Republican campaign headquarters in northern Phoenix to loud cheers and fires the latest salvo in the bitter battle for Arizona.
“This is the most incredible political movement that the world has ever seen – we’re never going to have another candidate like Donald J Trump” says the wife of Trump’s second son Eric and co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
The crowd of Republican women, many in cowboy hats and boots, and some wearing T-shirts saying “I’m voting for the convicted felon”, hang off Trump’s every word. “You guys are part of history,” she says. “This is not about Republican versus Democrat or left versus right anymore. It’s about good versus evil. It’s about lunacy versus common sense … and I gotta tell you something, the Democrats are terrified about what’s about to go down.”
Terrified may be too strong a word, but nervous, yes. Arizona is one of the seven key swing states that will decide whether Kamala Harris or Trump is elected to the White House. Joe Biden won this conservative state in 2020 for only the second time since the 1940s, but Arizona is shaping up to be a bigger hurdle for Harris and the Democrats than it was four years ago. Trump leads his opponent by an average of 2.5 percentage points (49.5-47) in the Grand Canyon state, his largest lead in any of the swing states. But the truth is that even this lead is still within the margin of error for the polls, meaning that Arizona remains in play for both Harris and Trump in next week’s election.
“I think right now, it’s a complete 50-50,” says Danny Carroll, a political fundraiser for the Democrats in Phoenix. “I think the issue that is clearly the biggest, where (Harris) is lacking is (on) the border and immigration. And for obvious reasons, the voters in our state are very keen on that issue, and they want to see a lot more action.
“But the big positive for Harris is the issue of reproductive rights, abortion. She has made it very clear that she stands for their rights while Trump has made it very clear that he does not want women to have a clear choice.”
Among those who turned out to see her was Jackie Centralla, who brought along her two children, aged 2 and 6. “I am here because I like a thriving economy, a closed border. I want my country to be safe and thriving again, and I definitely don’t want boys in the girls’ locker rooms,” Centralla says. “I honestly loved life when Trump was our president. I had bought my second house, we were thriving as a country. There were no new wars in the world. I mean, the world is just crumbling right now. So, yeah, we need a strong leader back in the White House.
“I think Kamala Harris is a joke. I don’t think she’s competent. And I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman or a giraffe, she can’t do the job. If she was a competent woman, I would be all for it, but she’s not.”
Winning Arizona and its 11 electoral college votes poses a unique challenge for Harris given that the biggest issues for voters in this state are the two on which she is perceived to be the weakest: border security and the economy/cost of living.
Arizona shares a 600km border with Mexico and is the third biggest migrant corridor into the country.
When illegal border crossings were at their peak nationally, at 10,000 a day in December last year, Arizona was on the frontline and its residents were frustrated and angry at the relaxed policies of the Biden administration.
The border crisis has since subsided after Biden belatedly introduced tougher policies this year and Harris has campaigned on the promise that she will be tougher on the border than was Biden. But for many voters in Arizona it has been too little too late.
“Our borders are out of control. We need to take back America,” says construction worker John Kincaid as he stands under the American flag in front of his home on the outskirts of Phoenix, in the key swing county of Maricopa.
“It is a huge issue. God bless everybody who wants to come to America to make a better life, absolutely, but we’ve got to do it the right way. We can’t just open up and let them flood in. It just isn’t working, you can see that on our streets.”
Kincaid says the cost of living has been a major issue for his own family just like for many others in Phoenix which, in 2022, had one of the highest inflation rates in the US. “The last 3½ years have been brutal,” he says. “The four years before that, I think everyone’s forgotten how good we had it: low interest, fuel prices, food prices, housing. Everything was perfect, and now we have just gone off the deep end. So we need Donald Trump for four and we need JD Vance for the next eight years okay?”
The soaring cost of living during the Biden-Harris administration is also why 38-year-old nurse Lisa Schniers is voting for Trump in next week’s election.
“I’m voting for Trump because inflation was better when he was in office,” she says as she buys a gold-coloured Trump cap from a roadside Trump merchandise seller in Phoenix.
“Everything was better. Housing. I can’t even afford to buy a house right now, and I have a really good job being a nurse. I make good money. I still can’t afford a decent house, so I’d really love to be able to live in my own place and to buy everything I need.
“He (Trump) has said prices are going to drop (under him) and he is a no-nonsense kind of person. He speaks his mind and if some people’s feelings get hurt, that’s their problem.”
Tim Millsap, a 67-year-old Vietnam War veteran says he is wary of who the real Kamala Harris might be if she becomes president.
“I’m concerned about Kamala’s background,” he says as he sits in a chair in his front yard at the foot of desert mountains on the edge of Phoenix.
“She was to the left of Bernie Sanders, but now making it seem like she’s middle of the road, but she’s not. You know, this is a ruse. She’s not being who she really is which, to me, is a problem. If you can’t be who you really are on the campaign trail, I’m not sure how you’re going to serve as president.”
The Trump campaign in these final weeks of the race is reaching out in Arizona to constituencies who would not normally vote Republican, such as Native Americans. Arizona has up to 400,000 potential Native American voters, and Republicans such as Navajo Mike Woestehoff are trying to make inroads into the mostly Democrat-leaning tribes across the state.
“We are finding more Indigenous conservatives now,” Woestehoff says. “We’re finding a lot of people that are really kind of frustrated with inflation, gas prices, so they’re interested in seeing what the conservative ticket looks like. High gas prices really impact our communities because of the long trips required from the Indian reservation down to Phoenix and other places.”
But Lisa Otondo, a Democrat who served in the Arizona parliament for a decade, believes support for Harris is stronger than the polls suggest in Arizona because moderate Republicans in the state prefer Harris to Trump.
“In all of my years being involved in Arizona state politics, and it’s been much more than 10, I’ve never seen this many Republicans that I know come out and vote for a Democrat, and they don’t agree with a lot of her policies or positions, but they simply refuse to vote for Donald Trump,” Otondo says in an interview at her Phoenix home.
Arizona was the home of the late Republican senator and former presidential candidate John McCain who famously fell out with Trump before his death and who was hugely popular in Arizona.
These so-called McCain Republicans – like many supporters of fellow moderate Republican candidate Nikki Haley who was defeated by Trump this year – pine for a more traditional Republican Party and say they will never vote for Trump.
“John McCain wouldn’t have agreed with a lot of what Trump is saying and doing, and especially his disrespect for veterans,” Otondo says. “I’m sure John McCain is rolling in his grave every time he hears something uttered by Trump.”
Otondo believes Trump has also damaged his standing with Latinos, including in Arizona where they make up one-third of the electorate, by having a comedian tell racist jokes about Puerto Ricans at his Madison Square Garden rally this week.
“I think it will definitely hurt him, a lot of Puerto Ricans and Hispanics have come out … it’s disgusting,” she says.
Otondo believes Harris’s greatest asset in the Arizona contest is over abortion where voters in the state on November 5 will also be given a separate question, known as Proposition 139, which would amend the state Constitution to enshrine the right to an abortion.
“That will pass with flying colours,“ she says, adding that it will also encourage women, especially, to come to the ballot on polling day. “You bet it will, and especially not only women, but men and especially younger voters,” she says.
The campaign manager for Proposition 139, Laura Dent, says there is support across party lines for the proposition to enshrine abortion rights in a state that currently has a ban on abortions over 15 weeks.
“We are seeing this as a really activating issue for folks that might be feeling disengaged from the political process,” Dent says in an interview in her Phoenix office.
“This is something that we’re seeing activates a lot of voters and we are also seeing that reproductive rights is not a partisan issue.”
This battle for the female vote in Arizona is why Lara Trump visited this week as part of her “national woman’s tour”.
Trump fan Vita Galore is doing twirls for the cameras, dressed in a USA-themed costume.
“Trump is to make our country safe again, loved again and protected again. He is also going to win, I’m 98 per cent sure of that,” she says.
But political fundraiser Carroll says Republicans would be foolish to underestimate Harris in Arizona.
“She has done a wonderful job of coalescing the base. She has been able to turn a sinking ship (under Biden) completely back on track,” he says. “We have seen more motivation and more enthusiasm than ever before – it’s been really impressive and I hope she is successful.”
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