Does Arizona have some of the most "liberal" Republicans and Independents of any state?

[Cyrusman]

Generally speaking, are Republicans and Independents in Arizona significantly more liberal than the average republican and independent in any of the other states?

Where I'm going with this is that this is now the 3rd consecutive election in which we have seen a Democrat win 10% of the Republican voters as well as win independents decisively.

Sinema won roughly 12% of Republicans in 2018 and won independents.
Biden won 10% of republicans in 2020 against Trump and again won independents .
This year, even Katie Hobbs in a favorable year to Republicans won 9-10% of Republicans and again won independents .

Winning 10% of the opposing parties voters in 3 strait elections is not normal for today's day and age with how much polarization there is. It's one thing if a Democrat doesn't vote for a Democrat or a Republican doesn't vote for a Republican and leaves that section blank or does a write in. Its another thing if 10% of republicans are consistently voting Democrat.

So are Arizona Republicans amongst the most liberal in the country or are the republicans in AZ "weaker republicans" in the sense that they really aren't that loyal to their party compared to other states?

[Cyrusman]

No. In fact Arizona has some of the most extreme Republicans out there, both on racial identity issues (like Gosar) and on fiscal conservatism issues (like Biggs, who was, I cannot stress this enough, Speaker of the state House). In an earlier generation they also had some of the most interventionist Republicans.

Then how would you explain 10-12% of AZ republicans consistently voting Democrat?

[Cyrusman]

No. In fact Arizona has some of the most extreme Republicans out there, both on racial identity issues (like Gosar) and on fiscal conservatism issues (like Biggs, who was, I cannot stress this enough, Speaker of the state House). In an earlier generation they also had some of the most interventionist Republicans.

Then how would you explain 10-12% of AZ republicans consistently voting Democrat?

Arizona's shift in recent years has been very much tied to suburbanites who were voting Republican as recently as 2012 or 2016, and plenty of them probably still identify as such, whether their views have changed or not. Same reason you'll find lots of self-IDed Democrats voting for, say, Alex Mooney.

Is it surprising through in today's day and age with polarization how many self identified republicans are voting democrat?

[Cyrusman]

Trump is a specific anathema to a certain type of AZ Republican who has always held contempt for the national GOP organization (i..e, maverick-y John McCain.)  You can quite easily place how well Kelly and Sinema did among Republicans in this context. 

So would you say you have to be a very moderate, socially more liberal republican to have success in AZ?