Arizona megathread

[ProgressiveModerate]

See, this is the same playbook that Oz, Mastriano, etc. are all employing. They try and get out their "first" with nonsensical debate requirements before debates have even been solidified, and either request too many (Oz wants 5) or ridiculous specifics (Mastriano and Shapiro both picking a moderator each)... stuff like this is can't even be taken seriously. It's literally just to cause waves, and so when Hobbs or whoever doesn't respond to Lake's whacko video in 24 hours, they act like their opponent is scared to debate or something. It's the same old lame play

https://twitter.com/KariLake/status/1561413925496713216

Lowkey for some reason this brought back the days of the ice bucket challenge where celebrities would challenge other celebrities to participate.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/KariLake/status/1562282937915170816

Republicans have a stunning lack of empathy.

The homeless issue is getting out of control. It used to just be in Phoenix/Tempe, now you can start seeing homeless people near the overpass exit ramps of suburbs and even upscale ones. People moved into these places to get away from this type of stuff and now it is slowly creeping back. She's offering some help, but no we aren't going to be like California and allow homeless drug addicts to keep injecting themselves at the taxpayers expense (Luckily Newsom vetoed).

As someone who lives in NYC, I've had experience with tons of homeless people on the streets, on the subway, and loitering in stores for as long as they can get away with.

Most homeless folks fall into 3 categories:

1. This is the bigger category but folks who are not mentally competent where they can't get a job or even get the help they need even if they want it. Many of these people are visibly very out of touch with reality and often which deterioates them further as a person. These people need help but in most cases you can't just expect them to get it on their own. There are def many who may be able to become functioning members of society with proper help

2. People who are competent but have some debilitating life issue. This group is smaller but it def does exist and a lot of these people have some sort of disability, usually that manifests in the physical way, that makes it impossible for them to work or function. Unlike group 1, these folks are aware of their situation and often due try to get help but are unable to *because* they are competent. We are failing this group as a society

3. People who are at a bad place in their life at the current moment but will be able to get back on track. Maybe they just got fired from their minimum wage job so don't have income for a month and don't really have savings to work with. You can often tell these folks cause they are generally a bit cleaner and have reasonable clothing and stuff compared to the other 2 groups. This more leads to a discussion about the stability of lower- and middle-class folks but I think this is most often the category that is dependent directly on life choices.

And ofc you have a lot of crossover between groups, especially groups 1 and 2.

Homelessness is a problem but Lake clearly has no clue how to deal with it.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I am quite worried about Hobbs tbh. A poll came out today which had Kelly leading by 50-43 but the same poll had Hobbs trailing by 44-46. I know Masters is a poor candidate and Kelly is an incumbent but still I didn't expect Hobbs to be running so much behind Kelly.

Some of it could be name recognition imbalance. It'd say Kelly is likely more well known to Arizonan's than Hobbs by virtue of his 2020 campaign and the sense I get is that Lake has slightly more name recognition than Masters for a variety of reasons. Both races may really be like 50-46.

[ProgressiveModerate]

For the first half of the decade the AZ Dems built up their base with hispanic support and turnout. It wasn't enough obviously but the hope was that population growth and demographic shifts would eventually carry that coalition through. That's how they knocked out Arpario, and Clinton nearly took Yuma county in 2016. They never even imaged the suburban shift until 2016, where while Hillary was stuck at around Obama's vote share, Trump fell sharply and only got 48% or so. They saw an opening in the suburbs and in 2018 started attempting to win over those voters. They were able to combine those coalitions and Sinema finally broke through due to Trump's massive unpopularity with both groups at the time. Then 2020 comes around and Biden focuses almost exclusively on the suburbs and succeeded. He managed to flip Maricopa county and win the state for the first time since 1996. However, Trump improved upon his 2016 performance with hispanics in Arizona and across the country. It didn't really help because the turnout was very high that year across the board, and Biden still netted more votes with them than Clinton did in 2016 and managed to win the state.

However, the shift should be concerning for Democrats, because hispanics are the lowest racial/ethnicity turnout group and the Dems still need them be successful statewide. And in 2022, in a midterm environment with a bad economy, along with the lack of a polarizing Trump as there was in 2018 hispanic turnout likely will decrease as it is an extremely low propensity voting group. And if Lake/Masters continue to improve upon Trump with them there might not be enough votes for Dems to win the state anymore as hispanics overall are still a more D group than college whites. The only cure is to improve margins with these voters, which is possible but difficult, because Biden already already maxed out among the Gary Johnson voters or anyone repulsed with Trump. Now their strategy is just wait for migration to increase the college white share of the electorate now that "demographics is destiny" has gone out the window after 2020.

Yeah I agree with this post and I think this is what folks were missing. Even in the 2018 blue wave, Sinema had to run up pretty insane margins in other parts of the state to only win by 2 cause of low Hispanic turnout. The only thing that's a slight positive is it seems like the highest turnout Hispanics tend to be the most Dem whereas lower turnout ones begin to skew more R.

And unlike a lot of swingy states, there are very few high propensity white pockets that outright lean D.

What's interesting though is you say Biden won over virtually every moderate/person who had issues with Trump in 2020 yet Kelly outran Biden by 2%. That might not seem like a lot but in a close race it could be the difference. Looking at the swing map, Kelly had a slight overperformance of Biden everywhere except Scottsdale (which is your stereotypical white high education swingy anti-Trump suburb). I think on Atlas we tend to have too narrow of a perception of who potential swing voters or ticket splitters are.

[ProgressiveModerate]

For the first half of the decade the AZ Dems built up their base with hispanic support and turnout. It wasn't enough obviously but the hope was that population growth and demographic shifts would eventually carry that coalition through. That's how they knocked out Arpario, and Clinton nearly took Yuma county in 2016. They never even imaged the suburban shift until 2016, where while Hillary was stuck at around Obama's vote share, Trump fell sharply and only got 48% or so. They saw an opening in the suburbs and in 2018 started attempting to win over those voters. They were able to combine those coalitions and Sinema finally broke through due to Trump's massive unpopularity with both groups at the time. Then 2020 comes around and Biden focuses almost exclusively on the suburbs and succeeded. He managed to flip Maricopa county and win the state for the first time since 1996. However, Trump improved upon his 2016 performance with hispanics in Arizona and across the country. It didn't really help because the turnout was very high that year across the board, and Biden still netted more votes with them than Clinton did in 2016 and managed to win the state.

However, the shift should be concerning for Democrats, because hispanics are the lowest racial/ethnicity turnout group and the Dems still need them be successful statewide. And in 2022, in a midterm environment with a bad economy, along with the lack of a polarizing Trump as there was in 2018 hispanic turnout likely will decrease as it is an extremely low propensity voting group. And if Lake/Masters continue to improve upon Trump with them there might not be enough votes for Dems to win the state anymore as hispanics overall are still a more D group than college whites. The only cure is to improve margins with these voters, which is possible but difficult, because Biden already already maxed out among the Gary Johnson voters or anyone repulsed with Trump. Now their strategy is just wait for migration to increase the college white share of the electorate now that "demographics is destiny" has gone out the window after 2020.

The thing though when it comes to migration to Arizona is a lot of it are right leaning people from California or your more libratrian  types. This was definitely accelerated during covid as California had some of the strictest lockdowns while AZ was open. I went to bars in AZ in December 2020 while at the same time Newsom had a cerfew law in California. Lots of right leaning Californians went to AZ for “freedom”. AZ also isn’t really a culturally liberal state that’s attractive to left leaning people. That whole Wild Wild West culture isn’t a big attraction for liberals. Now Colorado on the other hand, that’s a state o can see more and more left leaning people from the west coast moving to. Not saying it’s only republicans moving to Arizona but this isn’t a situation like northern Virginia where you have a bunch of D.C. Democrats and government works moving to NOVA.

This has been discussed before but migrants from Cali to Arizona are still extremely unlikely to skew R as a whole, even if they prolly are more conservative than Cali as a whole. I think folks overestimate the number of folks who choose to move in large part because of politics. I do agree though Pheonix has always been more conservative than places like Denver and Austin and will likely continue to be more conservative for a variety of reasons. It was one of the last major metros that still net Rs votes until very recently (even Dallas and Houston metros net Clinton votes in 2016).

Just think about it logically. Moving is a huge deal that takes a lot of time and money. Most people just don't ahve the means to move even if they're very very unhappy with state politics. People only tend to move for work, family, or when they've moved signigicantly on the economic latter.

[ProgressiveModerate]

For the first half of the decade the AZ Dems built up their base with hispanic support and turnout. It wasn't enough obviously but the hope was that population growth and demographic shifts would eventually carry that coalition through. That's how they knocked out Arpario, and Clinton nearly took Yuma county in 2016. They never even imaged the suburban shift until 2016, where while Hillary was stuck at around Obama's vote share, Trump fell sharply and only got 48% or so. They saw an opening in the suburbs and in 2018 started attempting to win over those voters. They were able to combine those coalitions and Sinema finally broke through due to Trump's massive unpopularity with both groups at the time. Then 2020 comes around and Biden focuses almost exclusively on the suburbs and succeeded. He managed to flip Maricopa county and win the state for the first time since 1996. However, Trump improved upon his 2016 performance with hispanics in Arizona and across the country. It didn't really help because the turnout was very high that year across the board, and Biden still netted more votes with them than Clinton did in 2016 and managed to win the state.

However, the shift should be concerning for Democrats, because hispanics are the lowest racial/ethnicity turnout group and the Dems still need them be successful statewide. And in 2022, in a midterm environment with a bad economy, along with the lack of a polarizing Trump as there was in 2018 hispanic turnout likely will decrease as it is an extremely low propensity voting group. And if Lake/Masters continue to improve upon Trump with them there might not be enough votes for Dems to win the state anymore as hispanics overall are still a more D group than college whites. The only cure is to improve margins with these voters, which is possible but difficult, because Biden already already maxed out among the Gary Johnson voters or anyone repulsed with Trump. Now their strategy is just wait for migration to increase the college white share of the electorate now that "demographics is destiny" has gone out the window after 2020.

The thing though when it comes to migration to Arizona is a lot of it are right leaning people from California or your more libratrian  types. This was definitely accelerated during covid as California had some of the strictest lockdowns while AZ was open. I went to bars in AZ in December 2020 while at the same time Newsom had a cerfew law in California. Lots of right leaning Californians went to AZ for “freedom”. AZ also isn’t really a culturally liberal state that’s attractive to left leaning people. That whole Wild Wild West culture isn’t a big attraction for liberals. Now Colorado on the other hand, that’s a state o can see more and more left leaning people from the west coast moving to. Not saying it’s only republicans moving to Arizona but this isn’t a situation like northern Virginia where you have a bunch of D.C. Democrats and government works moving to NOVA.

This has been discussed before but migrants from Cali to Arizona are still extremely unlikely to skew R as a whole, even if they prolly are more conservative than Cali as a whole. I think folks overestimate the number of folks who choose to move in large part because of politics. I do agree though Pheonix has always been more conservative than places like Denver and Austin and will likely continue to be more conservative for a variety of reasons. It was one of the last major metros that still net Rs votes until very recently (even Dallas and Houston metros net Clinton votes in 2016).

Just think about it logically. Moving is a huge deal that takes a lot of time and money. Most people just don't ahve the means to move even if they're very very unhappy with state politics. People only tend to move for work, family, or when they've moved signigicantly on the economic latter.

I mean I'm not saying they are overwelmingly Republican, but this notion that all migrants are going to skew Democrat is not accurate either. There has definitely been a number of right leaning Californians who have moved to neighboring states especially during and post covid and I know AZ is one of the main states they move too. These are probably more so So Cal people. Again not saying its highly skewed towards Republicans but I don't think by any means its skewed towards Democrats. Probably a wash at best and that was just in response to the previous poster assuming migration is automatically a plus for Democrats everywhere.

It's really something impossible to say. But consider Biden voters outnumber Trump voters 2:1 in Cali. That would mean that Biden voters, including those who are pretty a-political, would have half the chance of moving to AZ than Trump voters.

Also generally, Dems tend to be more transient than Rs cause they skew younger and lack families. Like literally most every growing part of the US (including Pheonix) has shifted D in the past 2 decades while nearly every shrinking area has shifted R. That's not a coincidence.

I don't doubt there may be some folks who moved from Cali to Arizona cause they don't like Cali's politics, but are they really enough to outnumber your folks moving for more "normal" reasons?

[ProgressiveModerate]

In Hobbs case, a lot of this could be on her campaign staff rather than *her* (though her a bad campaign staff is still kinda her fault. Many of the problems R candidates such as Dixon, Walker, and Oz have are based on things they’ve said or done unfiltered. Hobbs flaws are more about how she campaigns.

The Hobbs campaign seems to believe that winning in AZ basically means contrasting Lakes insanity with sanity, however, that doenst mean you shouldn’t campaign and stay on the low to the point where you don’t debate. That just comes across as you being out of touch or not caring.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm gonna go off on a limb here and say that I think it's possible for Kari Lake to narrowly take Maricopa county if she wins. A 4+ win likely sees her carrying the county while 2-3% it's tossup. There is still enough juice for a Trumpy candidate to squeeze out a win here although it is fading. Since Masters will run behind Lake, I don't see him winning it unless Lake is winning by 5+.

Is it possible for a Republican to lose Maricopa but still win the state? Trump barely lost it by 2 points and that was enough for him to lose the state even though he did well elsewhere.

Given that Maricopa has been moving left faster than the state, there def is a window for it. Another way to think about it is Arizona outside of Maricopa is pretty likely to vote R anyways, so Dems winning Maricopa by at least a point or two is prolly necessary.

Another factor to consdier too is that in midterms, small town or rural Hispanics tend to have the biggest drop-off in turnout which won't help Dems in non-Maricopa AZ.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly Hobbs should just pay for these videos to be run nonstop on TV at this point. Lake does the work for her

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1567693142987513856

Obama-Trump voters are weirdos, news at 10.

I don't mean this in the wrong way, but I think a lot of Obama-Trump voters are very vulnerable to messaging. The common theme between both Obama and Trump is they were good messengers to common folks. I think this also is why they're more vulnerable to conspiracy theories if they can be messaged well.

[ProgressiveModerate]

As utterly deranged as her words are, I HATE how familiar and comforting her voice is.  My parents watched Fox 10 religiously, so I heard her voice every weekday while I was doing my homework and even later when I was visiting.  I keep expecting to hear about "record temps" or "Suns/Cards fever grips the Valley" and then this demonic crap spews out.

Ballots get mailed Oct 12, and AZ is a huge VBM state.  I really hope Hobbs can kick it into gear here.

To add on to this, there def is somewhat of a double-standard in politics where women, particularly attractive younger women of smaller stature are automatically perceived to be more moderate, caring, or just in touch than men. I think this is why a lot of the attacks that work against Mastriano, a big muscular bald dude, fall flat against Lake who falls into the aforementioned category.

[ProgressiveModerate]

As utterly deranged as her words are, I HATE how familiar and comforting her voice is.  My parents watched Fox 10 religiously, so I heard her voice every weekday while I was doing my homework and even later when I was visiting.  I keep expecting to hear about "record temps" or "Suns/Cards fever grips the Valley" and then this demonic crap spews out.

Ballots get mailed Oct 12, and AZ is a huge VBM state.  I really hope Hobbs can kick it into gear here.

To add on to this, there def is somewhat of a double-standard in politics where women, particularly attractive younger women of smaller stature are automatically perceived to be more moderate, caring, or just in touch than men. I think this is why a lot of the attacks that work against Mastriano, a big muscular bald dude, fall flat against Lake who falls into the aforementioned category.

I would say that, probably, most female candidates are net benificaries from gender-related double standards in politics.

For other things, def, but it’s easier for a woman to come off as less threatening. There have been studies which have shown folks percieve female politicians to be more bipartisan for instance.

[ProgressiveModerate]

What is the rationale for Hobbs not debating? If you really believe your opponent is incompetent or extreme, a debate is a great way to show that.

I was watching a few Arizona news clips I could find online and some phrased it as Hobbs not wanting to debate while others painted it as if neither could agree to the style of debate with Lake wanting a more traditional debate and Hobbs wanting a townhall style debate.

Also, does anyone know to what extent Hobbs has done Hispanic outreach? That is very improtant for any Dem running in the Southwest, especially if they aren't Hispanic themselves. I can def see a scenario where Hobbs roughly matches Biden in most suburbs but poor Hispanic turnout costs her.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Bro all Hobbs needs to do is call lake a Sussy Baka

Then she has this in the bag 100%

[ProgressiveModerate]

Why did 538 give Hobbs such a big boost in their ratings the last two days? Is it literally just because of one poll by echelon insights showing Hobbs +10 which we all know is not true? If so, their method sucks and bases almost everything on these polls.

We hav to rmbr though 538 is a model, not a person or some god that can see the future. If a model DOESN’T shift in Dems favor after a D+10 poll then it probably is a poor model and honestly so far 538 model hasn’t gotten too carried away with favorable Dem senate polls

[ProgressiveModerate]

Well Hobbs is finally on the air, so that's a good thing.  Both she and Kelly are pushing border security - I don't know if that's the best place to fight this battle on.  I've said even before 2018/20 that AZ is actually a sort of purplish, live-and-let-live state (1st in the country to beat a gay marriage ban!) until you start in on immigration, and then a significant portion of the state simply goes insane.

I thought it was strange albeit understandable due to name rec that Lake is not on the air, now I think it's deliberate.  It looks like she's running a two-pronged strategy - 1, work the base heavily with rallies and insane rhetoric on right-wing social media, 2, stay quiet on a statewide level and bank on "low-info" voters filling in the oval for Fox 10 Sweetheart Kari Lake.

I guess it's to her credit(?) that she's not "moderating" like Masters and putting up tons of TV ads showing what a normal person she is.  But it's why so many people in AZ are concerned about the Hobbs campaign - she HAS to expose Lake as nuts to win.  I thought a debate would have been a great chance to do that.  Sinema vs McSally was certainly talked about quite a bit afterwards.

For all her flaws, Sinema was so chill during the 2018 Senate debate which I think def helped her in the end.

If you watch the debate it's actually kinda funny because McSally clearly wanted to go in to fight and get some one-liners in but Sinema was so clam and straightforward it made her impossible to accomplish and McSally ended up just looking kind of weird.

[ProgressiveModerate]

One very interesting thing is Lake's efforts with the youth vote. They are holding tailgates before ASU games, and have an impressive canvassing operation. During the primary she was also holding rallies in crowded bars. Last year, Lake was advocating for students to ditch mask mandates, while the university establishment was raising fees and prices. This is far different than the traditional AZ GOP operation, and it is worth watching how it plays out.

I actually think this is smart. Even though the youth vote tends to lean overwhelmingly Dem and that is unlikely to change in a place like AZ just a narrowing of the margin could be important and activating young R voters early means you are more likely to have them for longer in future elections (Rmbr too Lake herself is relatively young and would probably stay in politics after being Gov if she wins).

Furthermore, there's a lot of evidence to support not only that people are more likely to vote R as they age, but also R voters tend to be activated later. Generally, more liberal voters tend to activate by being involved in certain activities at college from an early age whereas Rs tend to not be involved in those activities or don't go to college at all. Just becuase they don't vote doesn't mean they don't exist.

It def helps that Lake herself is both a familiar face and relatively young for a politician. I think this makes it a bit easier for her to message to some of these more conservative younger folks.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Also, I think her name ID seems a bit overrated - she was only an anchor in one of the media markets.

That's like saying that all of Pennsylvania knows Jim Gardner just because he's a legend in the *Philly area*

You realize that Maricopa County is home to over 60% of the state's population...

I think Lake is insane and I don't want her to be the governor, but Hobbs really needs to get her s**t together.

Guess what? Democrats can and do run bad campaigns.

My point is that a lot of the conjecture around Hobbs running such a bad campaign isn't really backed up by a lot of evidence. Meanwhile, Lake is not even running ads on TV and yet she's supposedly running a better campaign for... reasons? Come on.

Stop… you say this every post. There IS evidence.

1) She’s typically under-running Kelly by 4-5 points.

2) If Kari is so weak and Hobbs is running a good/ not bad campaign, Lake should be posting Christine O’Donnell/Todd Akin numbers and Hobbs should be starting to pull away with this. She’s not. If Hobbs were running a decent campaign, Lake should be considered toxic/radioactive by now to the Sinema/Biden/Kelly voters of recent years… she’s not.

3) Almost every Arizonan here keeps saying Hobbs is a mediocre candidate and campaigner.

I say this and WANT her to win. I voted Robson in the primary since I knew this was not going to be a fun GE.

Well yes, Kelly is an incumbent so I don't expect her to match his numbers. Arizona is literally freshly purple, so why would Hobbs be "running away with this"? Lake is a psychopath but she's not going to get blown out - anyone thinking that is being delusional.

Please tell me where Lake is running a good campaign. Once again, this thread is trying to convince me that even things like Lake spending $0 on TV is a good campaign move that is helping her.

There seems to be this very odd thing of giving Lake so much credit when in reality she's running a horrific GE campaign.

To add on to this, I would argue that not spending TV money is equally costing to her as not debating is to Hobbs. By not running the ads early, it really gives Hobbs a chance to define both herself and Lake early and the longer that happens the more patchwork Lake has to do.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Finchem is up 5 points in the OH Predictive poll  . I imagine the Lake vs. Hobbs number is embargoed until tomorrow but it seems like non-federal GOP candidates are being given a benefit of the doubt that Masters isn't.

Awful! I guess this is a state Democrats need to write off. Let's be glad that Kelly at least looks favored to win. We're getting something out of this dystopian state at least.

Notice though how there seems to be more undecides in every poll for Gov, SOS, and AG when compared to Senate. This makes me think the actual overperformance of these downballot Rs is much smaller than polls suggest

[ProgressiveModerate]

If Cheney would be willing to do it, running a Cheney ad in places like Mesa and Sun City would be really smart. Not only do these areas have good number of ticket splitters who fall into the Romney-Biden bucket, but they also skew much older in terms of median age and hence may be more likely to recognize Cheney and understand why it's a powerful endorsement.

Again, this isn't some huge game changer but in a close race changing 1000 voters around the fringes can really matter.

[ProgressiveModerate]

We have our first Lake ad:

https://twitter.com/KariLake/status/1574810453762404355?s=20

The goal of this ad is to just paint her as a nice person. It doesn't explain any of her policy nor combat any sort of fringe positions she has been accused of holding.

[ProgressiveModerate]

One of the stranger attacks on Hobbs recently has been a story about her not reporting income from her Uber side gig in 2016.

I don’t know why Hobbs isn’t running with the story. It really humanizes her. Kinda blows my mind that our Secretary of State was chaffeuring people around Phoenix five years ago to support her family. I would like to see more of that side of Katie—I think it would endear people to her.

But Republicans are the party of the working class!!!!11111!!!

Of the white working class, but not of the minority working class - at least, not now. That would be a true realignment if that were to occur.

Perhaps, but 90% of the time in politics when people say "the working class" they mean 40+ white men without a college degree.

Well, that's one and the same as the white working class, is it not? I personally have not seen this kind of distinction. The distinctions I notice are usually made along racial lines.

Honestly it kind of annoys me a bit that "working class" is always synonyms with rural white voters of lower education levels. The fact is the vast, vast majority of this country is working class, even in states or communities often associated with wealth.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1575252480824291328

Sigh. Lol

Given that poll is an R+10 sample it's not that bad for the Ds lol

R+10 in terms of registration? Don't Rs still have a pretty big registration advantage in AZ anyways?

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1575252480824291328

Sigh. Lol

Given that poll is an R+10 sample it's not that bad for the Ds lol

R+10 in terms of registration? Don't Rs still have a pretty big registration advantage in AZ anyways?

Not really. Statewide it’s 35% R, 34% I, 31% D

Huh for some reason I thought the gap was larger.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1575252480824291328

Sigh. Lol

Given that poll is an R+10 sample it's not that bad for the Ds lol

R+10 in terms of registration? Don't Rs still have a pretty big registration advantage in AZ anyways?

Not really. Statewide it’s 35% R, 34% I, 31% D

Huh for some reason I thought the gap was larger.

I think it used to be, but the R's have lost a lot of ground to Independents (and D's have lost a little too, IIRC).

Its pretty close to where Colorado was when it started to be competitive. At about R+2, Republicans really started to struggle there.

Honestly, Arizona feels quite simillar to Colorado just with a more entrenched conservative/Republican history to it and also Colorado has higher level of education. Both states are dominated by 1 main city (Pheonix and Denver) and then have a secondary city (Tucson and El Paso), and both have notable Hispanic populations as well.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1575252480824291328

Sigh. Lol

Given that poll is an R+10 sample it's not that bad for the Ds lol

R+10 in terms of registration? Don't Rs still have a pretty big registration advantage in AZ anyways?

Not really. Statewide it’s 35% R, 34% I, 31% D

Huh for some reason I thought the gap was larger.

I think it used to be, but the R's have lost a lot of ground to Independents (and D's have lost a little too, IIRC).

Its pretty close to where Colorado was when it started to be competitive. At about R+2, Republicans really started to struggle there.

Honestly, Arizona feels quite simillar to Colorado just with a more entrenched conservative/Republican history to it and also Colorado has higher level of education. Both states are dominated by 1 main city (Pheonix and Denver) and then have a secondary city (Tucson and El Paso), and both have notable Hispanic populations as well.

El Paso has moved to Colorado?

I’m sorry Colorado Springs (I was thinking El Paso County lol)