Battleground State Profile: Arizona
Who will win the Grand Canyon State's 11 electoral votes?
Formerly a bastion for the Republican Party, Arizona has begun to drift away from Republicans in recent years, becoming one of the most electorally competitive states in the country. In the 2024 presidential election, it is one of the “big seven” key battleground states, along with Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Political and Electoral History
From the beginning of its statehood in 1912 until the late 1940s, Arizona was dominated by the Democratic Party. The Democratic presidential candidate carried the state every cycle during that time period with the exceptions of 1920, 1924, and 1928 (all of which were Republican landslides). From 1952 to 1992, no Democrat would win the state at the presidential level. 1996 would see Bill Clinton win the state, the first time for a Democrat candidate since Harry Truman in 1948. After this, no Democrat would carry the state at the presidential level again until Joe Biden in 2020, a monumental shift for the state that gave birth to the political careers of iconic Republicans like Barry Goldwater and John McCain (more on the latter later). Previously in 2016, Donald Trump carried the state by 3.5%, which in turn was a major leftward shift from 2012 when Mitt Romney carried the state by around 10%.
And it doesn’t get much better for Republicans from here. In 2022, Democrats won all four of the major statewide elections, those being for Governor, Senator, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. Coincidentally, all four Republican candidates for those races were heavily aligned with Donald Trump. In addition to having a Democrat governor (Katie Hobbs), Arizona has two Democratic senators in Kyrsten Sinema (registered Independent but caucuses with Democrats) and Mark Kelly. Despite this, Republicans still have a plurality in voter registration at 35.41%, while Democrats are behind at 29.10%. So, what’s happening?
Demographics
Unlike other southwestern states like California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas, Arizona is not a majority-minority state (though it is expected to become one in a few years). Non-Hispanic whites remain a slight majority of the state’s population at 53.4%, followed by Hispanics at 30.7%. Mexicans, unsurprisingly, make up the largest ancestry group in the state at 27.7%. It is also worth noting that Arizona has one of the largest Native-American communities in the United States, as a large portion of the Navajo Nation is located in the state. The increase in Arizona’s Hispanic population may somewhat correlate with Arizona’s leftward shift as Hispanics are a key voting bloc for Democrats, but they have also trended right in recent years as seen by rightward shifts in Hispanic-heavy areas like Yuma.
Maricopa County, which consists of the state’s capital and largest city (Phoenix) as well as all of its major suburbs, is by far the most populous county in the state with over 4.4 million people. This accounts for over 60% of the state’s 7.1 million people. It is also the state’s only true battleground county, which makes winning the county crucial for winning the state as a whole. As the county has moved left in recent years, so has the state, meaning further leftward shifts in Maricopa County could make winning the state nearly impossible for Republicans in the future.
Current Republican strongholds in the state include Kingman, Prescott, and much of rural Arizona. Republicans are also dominant in parts of suburban and exurban Phoenix, particularly in the northwestern suburbs as well as Pinal County. Current Democrat strongholds in the state include inner-city Phoenix and Tucson, the college cities of Flagstaff and Tempe (the latter being a large Phoenix suburb), rural Hispanic-heavy areas close to the border, and Native reservations including the Navajo and Tohono O’odham.
How Can Trump or Harris Win the State?
Arizona is a must-win state for the 2024 election, and both the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns know this as they both have been campaigning heavily throughout the state (and particularly in metro Phoenix, which is Maricopa County).
Arizona, being situated along the U.S. border with Mexico, makes immigration and border security a hot topic in the state’s politics. Trump has tied the influx of illegal border crossings and fentanyl deaths together and has blamed the problem on the Biden/Harris administration. This may be proving to be a working strategy for the Trump campaign, as current polling shows him leading the state. Harris, on the other hand, has blamed Trump for worsening the crisis by defeating a bipartisan border security bill proposed by moderate Republican Oklahoma Senator James Lankford.
Going back to demographics, Trump will need to make gains among the Hispanic population and revert some of his suburban Phoenix and Tucson losses in order to win back the state. Trump will likely need to flip back Maricopa County in order to comfortably win the state. It may also help Trump if he were to improve his margins with Native Americans. As for Harris, even if Hispanics continue their rightward shift, she can easily make up for that with continued gains among white suburbanites in metro Phoenix and Tucson. Harris will mainly need to maintain or expand her ground in Maricopa County to comfortably win the state.
In addition, since Arizona tends to not be friendly towards “MAGA” Republican candidates (see 2022, for example), Harris’ endorsements from prominent moderate Republicans such as Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, and even members of John McCain’s family could result in crossover appeal to the more McCain-aligned Republicans in the state that have been voting Democrat more in recent years. This group, primarily located in Maricopa County, may be credited to Biden’s win in Arizona in 2020 and could be credited for Harris winning the state in 2024. But will she?
Polling
As of today, according to the RealClear Polling aggregate, Donald Trump currently has an average lead of 2% over Kamala Harris (this lead is subject to change as time goes on). This is a big improvement for Trump from 2020, when he trailed Joe Biden by 3.4% on this day that year, but it’s still a slight downgrade from 2016 when Trump led by 2.5% over Hillary Clinton on this day. Biden ended up winning the state in 2020 by 0.3%, while Trump won the state in 2016 by 3.5% as previously mentioned. Assuming polls once again underestimate Trump’s support, this will likely be a state that Trump flips back into his column, and it may be one of his easier states to flip.
My Predicted Arizona Winner: Donald Trump (R)
This is awesome! A fantastic introduction to one of the seven swing states--share widely with friends and family and keep up the good work. My only suggestion for future posts would be to have a "bottom line up front" sort of section so that people know what's coming, and can read the top paragraph to get the gist, which will let them decide what other parts of the article to read.