Biden carries Arizona, flipping a longtime Republican stronghold - CNNPolitics - 0 views
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For just the second time in more than seven decades, a Democrat will carry Arizona in a presidential election, a monumental shift for a state that was once a Republican stronghold.
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Biden's win in the state that propelled Republican leaders like Barry Goldwater and John McCain to national prominence could foretell problems for the party going forward.
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Three key shifts in the state helped Democrats this year: a growing Latino population that leans Democratic, a surge in voters moving to Arizona from more liberal states like California and Illinois, and the way suburban voters have starkly broken with a Republican Party led by someone like Trump.
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Arizona, by going blue, is moving closer to its neighbor to the northwest -- Nevada, where Democrats have taken control of almost all aspects of government
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Maricopa is the fastest-growing county in the country, transforming over the last two decades into a sprawling mass of metropolitan hubs, sun-scorched planned communities and bustling strip malls.
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"Maricopa County won the state of Arizona for Mark Kelly and Joe Biden," said Steven Slugocki, chair of Maricopa County's Democrats. "Here in Maricopa, we committed our resources to contact voters of color, women and traditionally underrepresented groups throughout the state. Our strategy proved to be effective."
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Biden is just the second Democrat to win Arizona since 1948, when Harry Truman won. Bill Clinton narrowly won the state in 1996, but Arizona moved further right in the next two decades, electing hard-line immigration proponents like Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and passing laws like SB 1070, a controversial state law that required officers to make immigration checks while enforcing other laws if "reasonable suspicion" of illegal immigration exists.
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The Democratic victory builds on the work by grassroots organizations on the ground in Arizona, many of which focused on the state's growing Latino population by uniting around the opposition to Arpaio and the immigration crackdown
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"This year was a victory for the decade-plus of work in this state," said Laura Dent, the executive director of Chispa Arizona
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"It has been a decade-plus of building and the sustained work of organizing between electoral cycles have been critical."
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Dent said the organizing around SB 1070 was a "catalyst" for these groups to unify around something and "build that collective power" on display this year
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"I thought by 2024, Arizona would be for real a swing state," said Yasser Sanchez, an immigration lawyer who volunteered for Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and worked for McCain's 2016 reelection to the Senate before rejecting a Trump-led Republican Party and helping organize Latino voters for Biden. "Every time I heard it would be before, I thought that was wishful thinking."
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Looming over Biden's victory is the legacy of McCain, an Arizona stalwart whose "maverick" conservatism carried a coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans for years in the state.
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Trump to double down on his mocking attacks of the Republican senator, even after he died in 2018. This, along with comments Trump reportedly made about military members and veterans, spurred McCain's widow, Cindy McCain, to back Biden, an endorsement that was front page news in the state.
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But Arizona was considered so reliably red in 2014 that a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California-Los Angeles dubbed Mesa -- a sprawling suburb east of Phoenix -- the "most conservative American city."
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"Ten years ago, if you wanted to be politically relevant and if you wanted your vote to have an impact, you were foolish to be registered as a Democrat because they failed to field a candidate for some offices," said Mesa Mayor John Giles, a registered Republican in a nonpartisan job. "And even then, it was just volunteering to get killed in the general by the Republican."
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"I am hoping to change the state blue," Schaefer said after casting her ballot. "Believe me, I have tried to turn everybody that I can possibly turn."
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"Trump is dangerous for the country," Hudock said after voting days before the election. "In the last four years, Republicans have shown their true colors. ... I just wish there was a centrist party.
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That quickly changed as the virus spread throughout the state, with more than 160,000 cases and 3,600 people dying in Maricopa County alone.
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Biden's win in Arizona was not for a lack of trying on Trump's part. The President held seven events in the state in 2020. Biden held one event after the Democratic National Convention over the summer, a bus tour around Maricopa in October.