By Laurie Carrillo, Vincent Demonte, Mohammed Zain Shafi Khan, Payton May, Isobel Smith and Parkin So
PHOENIX — Arizona’s political landscape is much more complicated than deadlocked presidential election polls would suggest. Six college journalists from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism spent five days in the battleground state to learn about the people with outsize influence on the direction of the United States.
Their reporting revealed voters as similar as they were different. Some questioned the outcome of the 2020 race and saw the mailman as a potential agent of election interference, but they are just as worried about costs of groceries as the next person. Others said they will do anything to prevent former President Donald Trump from returning to the White House, and want to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution. They gathered in union halls, at the racetrack and in school gymnasiums to hear from candidates and surrogates making their case at the start of early voting here.
Covering the get-out-the-vote efforts was easy for the students, who hail from across the country and globe. Their assignment here, though, is to reflect back on their time in Arizona.
Here are the impressions from Laurie Carrillo, Vincent Demonte, Mohammed Zain Shafi Khan, Payton May, Isobel Smith and Parkin So.
On the ground
As campaigns up and down the ballot tried to court voters in the crucial battleground state of Arizona, they fought more than opposing ideology. Candidates and supporters alike withstood triple-digit temperatures at rallies, tailgates and canvassing events, all in pursuit of the state’s 11 Electoral College votes.
Messages of hope rang out across southern Arizona as both campaigns furiously attempted to maintain momentum in the critical swing state. Every candidate and their surrogate speakers took to podiums with zeal to repeat similar sentiments: Get out to vote early because “when we fight, we win” or that voters who do their civic duty will “make America a strong nation again.”
Underneath a thin layer of punchy patriotic one-liners was a common theme that voters across the state shared no matter where they land on the political spectrum. They waited in long lines and cheered for their candidate with faith in a positive outcome because they loathe to consider the alternative: that the other side may claim victory in November. They are afraid of what may happen if they do.
“No one will stop Trump this time,” said Angela Howard, whose family lives on Gila River Indian Community land outside the Phoenix area. “He will decimate the little guy. [People] have to care this time around.”
Talking with reporters and wearing an “indigenous voter” t-shirt at Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally in Chandler, Howard quickly pulled up a PDF she had saved on her phone that said Project 2025 will cut funding and reduce resources for Native communities, which would compromise housing, healthcare and education on reservations.
Trump has repeatedly denied association with the Heritage Foundation’s far-right presidential handbook, but voters like Howard aren’t quite convinced. She ended the night by telling a reporter she is “confident” Harris will win.
Tucson-native Naomi feels the same way about Trump. She’s a stay-at-home mom of two children who was hesitant to provide a last name. She waited in line to see Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance in 100-degree heat, corralling her young daughter while balancing two water bottles in her arms. This will be her third time voting for Trump, she said, because she believes he will help her single-income family of four and their economic situation.
“Our country has taken a nosedive,” she said. “I’ve cried twice in Costco because of how much we’re paying, but I feel like I can have my life from before again.”
She said her family moved out of Tucson, which is about 70 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, because they felt unsafe. She said she’s not against legal immigration but she’s witnessed the stress on local law enforcement when border patrol officers “lose control of the situation.”
Thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s lack of action on immigration, the country “feels like a free-for-all and it doesn’t feel safe,” she said.
Stories like these can be found across Arizona. Voters carrying “Steelworkers for Harris” signs said they fear what another Trump administration will mean for labor unions. Others in “Trump 2024” cowboy hats said they’re alarmed by Harris’ border policy.
Top issues in Arizona
So many Arizona voters told reporters that immigration was a standout concern. The candidates keyed in. “If you want to keep on with the open border and the flow of fentanyl, you know to vote for Kamala Harris, if you want to close down that border and deport illegal aliens, vote for Donald J. Trump,” Vance said at the Tucson Speedway, to applause and cheers.
Hours later, just 15 miles away but still in the Tucson area, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz delivered a different message, lauding Harris’ efforts on fentanyl. “We all know we want a secure border,” he said, adding that Harris “negotiated a tough but fair bipartisan border deal” that Trump opposed.
Reproductive rights also were top of mind for voters, who also are deciding on a ballot measure enshrining the right to an abortion in the state constitution.
Lynn Wilson, dancing in the stands at the Walz rally in Palo Verde High School, shouted about her passion for a future with Harris as president. From Tucson, she’s the mother of two grown daughters and has grandchildren. Talking with a reporter, she teared up describing losing her best friend due to abortion complications.
“We have to stop the madness on the other side,” Wilson said. “We can’t go back to the butchery. These are preventable deaths.”
In line outside the event, Ray Acunto showed up alone to the event. The 55-year-old software developer from Connecticut said he’d never been able to attend a campaign rally before.
“This is the first time I’ve lived in Arizona for a presidential election,” he said. “This is exciting because our votes matter [here].”
Acunto is one of tens of thousands who are migrating to the state from more liberal areas, upending its demographics and former status as solidly red turf.
Arizonans had so much campaign action this particular week thanks to early voting kicking off. According to the Maricopa County Recorder’s office, there are nearly 2 million active early voters in the county, the third largest in America and one of the nation’s fastest growing.
Just like you can’t avoid the heat here, everyone seems hyperaware the stakes are high for the presidential race. Arizona had the narrowest margin between Trump and President Joe Biden in 2020 — fewer than 11,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points.
On the first couple days of early voting, residents made their way to voting centers to cast their ballots in person. Many of them said they didn’t trust voting by mail.
Taylor Kinnerup, communications director for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, said that early votes cast in person still need to be put into envelopes and are processed in the same way as mail-in ballots and sent to the same tabulation center to get scanned and counted.
Voting concerns
In 2020, voters protested outside the Recorder’s Office, claiming mass election fraud in favor of Biden. Despite the multiple rounds of verification each ballot goes through, many Trump supporters still believe the election was “stolen” and distrust the system. That’s one reason the process is more transparent than ever before — with cameras continually livestreaming any areas where ballots might be for all to observe, Kinnerup said. That unease is also why the Trump campaign is encouraging early voting more than ever to increase turnout and make their win “too big to rig.”
That tracked for Richard Catlin, a retired race car driver at the speedway for the Vance event. “In Nascar, we believe in two things: God and Trump,” Catlin said.
Wearing his helmet that showed an American flag and holding a “Make America Great Again” sign, Catlin talked about his fear that a mail carrier would destroy his ballot, claiming a barcode on the envelope means people could look up which party you are registered for, and destroy ballots from voters they disagree with.
He said he was not sure which side of the “controversies” was true, but thinks it is safer to vote in person. The barcode falsehood is one of many that Kinnerup and other officials are scrambling to debunk (she points people to extensive fact checks on the website).
At events for both parties and within the county offices, people urged voters to sign up for text or email notifications to track their ballots through the entire process.
Catlin said he planned to vote early at a polling location, hoping that would also help speed up results being posted. In Arizona, county election officials can start counting early ballots immediately upon receipt.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley told the crowd at the Vance rally there were two things the party needed to do: “get-out-the-vote” and “protect the ballot.”
To thunderous applause, Harris reminded the crowd at a Thursday rally in Chandler to cast votes early and stay involved to convince others to do the same. There were 7,000 packed into the stands of the Rawhide Event Center — thousands more in line outside had been turned away with a QR code to be first in line the next time the nominee came to town.
Later, campaign boosters solicited the crowd with clipboards gathering voter numbers along with pledges to phone bank and knock on doors in the final weeks of the race.
Senate race
Voters also are deciding the outcome of another contested race that could flip control of the Senate to the Republicans. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake are vying for the seat being vacated by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, and both campaigns are trying to make inroads with traditionally low-turnout groups.
Before the ASU home game against Utah, the ASU College Republicans hosted a meet-and-greet tailgate for Lake. Turning Point also had a tent and people steadily showed up in the parking lot as a mix of country, classic rock and pop blared next to the Lake campaign bus.
The next day, Gallego first urged workers in a union hall to help elect Democrats. Then he spoke that afternoon to voters in a sweltering garage scattered with colorfully painted cars. The son of immigrants talked about his upbringing and Latinx identity, telling voters, “This is the world I grew up in,” while motioning to the autobody shop full of lowriders, a type of car customized with airbrush painting typically associated with Mexican American culture.
Shop technician Jeremy Jackson said he hadn’t heard of the congressman before but that Gallego’s background resonated with him.
“It’s just nice to have somebody that’s like us,” he said. “People look down on us, the Chicanos … to hear somebody say stuff like that it’s cool,” Jackson said about Gallego’s working-class upbringing.
While Democratic interest groups and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ campaign arm have poured millions of dollars into Gallego’s campaign, the Senate hopeful focused on himself at this intimate gathering in Phoenix. He spoke for just a few minutes but didn’t mention Harris or Trump once at the event.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus members and California Reps. Nanette Barragán and Linda T. Sánchez offered their encouragement to the crowd gathered.
Sánchez echoed the call of other candidates to vote early, and the lasting importance of voting at all. “ “If you want a functioning democracy you have got to get off your couch and vote. Politics is not a spectator sport, you have to get in the game,” she said.
Republicans and Democrats are working to turn out Latino voters and indigenous people who have long felt left out of politics.
Art Johnson of the Navajo Nation said too many from his community feel like they have to vote for Democrats. Even though he’s been a registered Democrat his whole life, the 60-year-old could not identify any Democrats he’d ever actually voted for.
Harris is “just condescending,” he said, adding that he first started to admire Trump decades ago as a businessman who owns a jet.
“Trump speaks to the heart of the issues that matter to us. He doesn’t sugarcoat things. He’s straightforward, and that resonates with me,” said Johnson, a small business owner focused on home improvements.
Johnson emphasized the importance of Trump’s focus on economic growth and job creation, particularly for Native American reservations struggling with high unemployment.
From the most fired up Democratic events to the ASU Republican tailgate, folks said again and again they felt vilified and wanted to communicate that they’re just normal people. People shared openly they have lost friends over politics, and they hope for something better.
On that hot Wednesday morning at the Tucson Speedway, Mary Dolciame stood under the shade of a collection of trees listening to Vance. “I don’t know how anyone could vote for Kamala Harris,” Dolciame said. She said Democrats have it wrong.
“[They] say we’re racist, we hate America and we say no to democracy,” she said. “That’s just not true. All the people here love this country and they want to see it better.”
Across town, the hundreds of people stretched far into the parking lot of Palo Verde High School waiting to hear Walz speak minced no words.
“[Trump] wants women to be barefoot and pregnant, men running everything… like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’” said Tucson resident Denice Walker-Powers, referencing Arizona’s near-reinstatement earlier this year of an anti-abortion law from the Civil War era. “He’s crazy.”
“Trump is an evil genius,” nurse and Tucson native Krista Hunter said, chiming into the nearby conversation. “He’s not dumb, he’s an evil genius.”
Inside the event, Walz stuck with a positive message instead, counting down the days (at that point, 27) until the election. “We’ve got 27 days … to choose decency, kindness and unity over the division we’ve seen,” he said as the crowd cheered in the crowded auditorium. “27 days to close the book and not have to hear about Donald Trump again.”
For Kaety Byerley, the Harris campaign’s message of joy and hope has resonated with her and she hopes it can resonate with a majority of Arizonans.
“It’s helped to humanize us, you know, the way we see each other, the way we look at each other,” she said. “It’s OK … to have a difference of opinion. Perhaps I don’t exist in the same factual reality as you, but I still see you as a community.”
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