Although I do see Maricopa County, and with it Arizona likely flipping in 2020 with Trump at the top of the Republican ticket, I'm not convinced that this will necessarily be a permanent phenomenon turning Maricopa County into some type of Democratic stronghold....
There are some structural advantages that both Democrats and Republicans have in respective parts of the County that indicate it will if anything tend to remain more of a "Purple" County over the next few Presidential Election cycles, although if it breaks hard Democrat in 2018 and 2020 there is a good chance that many of those Republican leaning Indies are gone for good...
Here are a few charts and graphs that I came up with last November for Maricopa County...
Where are the votes located at within Maricopa County?We see that Phoenix accounts for about 33% of the total votes in '16 (Which was basically unchanged from '12 > '16), and a number of medium sized cities accounting for about 57% of the County Vote, and roughly 10% of the votes coming from Unincorporated, and to a much lesser extent rural areas.
CITY 2016 % of Cty Vote Share
PHOENIX 32.9%
MESA 11.8%
CHANDLER 7.0%
GLENDALE 5.0%
SCOTTSDALE 8.0%
GILBERT 6.9%
TEMPE 4.1%
PEORIA 5.0%
SURPRISE 3.5%
AVONDALE 1.5%
GOODYEAR 2.3%
BUCKEYE 1.7%
Non Top 12 10.3%
How did these places vote in the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Election?So several things stand out here...
1.) Phoenix is starting to move in the direction of being a solidly Democratic City, as opposed to being a marginally Democratic City, and accounted for a huge chunk of the '12 > '16 Dem vote gains within Maricopa County from + 27.5k D in '12 to + 75.0k D in '16.
Although the margin swing was lower than in many other communities in Maricopa County, the sheer size of the Phoenix vote share more than made up for those numbers.
Now it should be noted that many of the places within Phoenix that saw the largest '12 > '16 Dem swings were in relatively affluent Anglo and Republican leaning precincts within the City, so despite the '16 "Latino Surge" in some of the more heavily working and middle class neighborhoods within the City, even if we see a comparable surge in 2020, as well as the addition of a number of younger Democratic leaning voters showing up to vote for the first time with the simplicity of a heavily Vote-by-Mail (VbM) electorate, that is clearly not sufficient alone to maintain a +15% D vote margin
(54-39 D) that we saw in 2016.
2.) Mesa is still a solidly large Republican vote basket accounting for a +40k R 'Pub lead in 2012 and +30k R lead in 2016.
Although Trump performed significantly worse than Romney, it still went almost +17% R, with almost all of the 'Pub drop-off going to 3rd Party candidates. Not that there weren't some Romney > HRC voters here, but one would certainly imagine that 'Pubs would be the net beneficiaries in this City if 3rd Party voting craters in 2020 and beyond.
3.) Chandler appears that it is starting to move heavily in a Democratic direction, and I suspect that trend will continue into 2020 with Trump leading the Republican brand.
Still again, much of the movement here was from upper middle-class voters in a relatively diverse and educated suburb of Phoenix, so will that trend hold in the Post-Trump era or will some of these voters return if the Republican Party sheds some of the extremist rhetoric that alienates these types of voters?
4.) Glendale did not swing nearly as heavily Democratic between '12 and '16, mainly because there was a smaller drop-off of Republican vote percentages compared to Chandler.
Still, Dem's managed to gain votes compared to '12
and we do have an additional data point in the form of the 2018 AZ-CD 08 Special Election, which I posted extensive a detailed analyses of that many of you read on another thread.
The portion of Glendale located within CD '08 was essentially the heavily Republican part of the City and we saw a massive Democratic swing in the '18 Special Election compared to the '16 Presidential Election....
Here's a link to a few posts that I made regarding the election results from CD-'08 that go into quite a bit of precinct results and demographic details on Glendale, as well as Peoria, Surprise, etc...
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=288717.msg6183143#msg6183143While one needs to be extremely cautious using data from a Special US House Election to extrapolate Presidential voting intentions into 2020, it is hard not to view this election as in many ways a referendum on the Trump Presidency, and when you see a +12.5% '16 Trump part of the City flip heavily Democratic in early '18 and then throw in the already heavily Democratic precincts NOT located within CD-'08 the trends start to look extremely bad for Republicans.
It should also be noted that most of the 20-25% Dem swing '16 PRES to '18 House Special election precincts within Glendale happened in overwhelmingly Anglo Upper-income Educated/Professional precincts.
Will these voters feel differently in November 2020 assessing the Trump Administration, looking at their tax bill, etc
5.) Scottsdale saw the largest Democratic swings in Maricopa between '12 and '16 with a +14.5% Dem swing and a net gain of +5.2% to the Dem vote share (From 60-38 R in '12 to 51-43 R in '16).
Have Dems maxed out their votes in Scottsdale or is there more room to expand?
There were relatively few 3rd Party votes here, compared to most other places in Maricopa County and even if we were to chop the 3rd Party vote by overall city percentages, it's difficult to see 'Pubs really gaining any significant raw vote margins compared to '16.
I haven't pulled the '08 PRES numbers for Maricopa, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were a decent number of Obama '08 > Romney '12 > HRC '16 voters in Scottsdale which tends to skew much older, Anglo, Educated, and Upper-Middle Class retirees contrasted against places like Sun City and Sun City West.
The Anglo retirees in Scottsdale appear to be much swingier and elastic than in some other parts of Maricopa County and we don't have any real election data to see how these voters are responding to the Republicans attempt to destroy the Affordable Care Act, which has become increasingly popular, especially among older voters.
6.) Gilbert is another Republican vote basket similar to Mesa, but even more Republican. There were larger swings here than in Mesa, not to mention a +1.9% increase of the Dem vote percentage between '12 and '16, but yet my gut says similar to Mesa a decrease in 3rd Party voting in 2020 would likely benefit the 'Pub nominee (Trump)....
Still, Gilbert skews more Middle-Aged than Senior, the Household Income remains high, but the Educational attainment level is pretty high for Metro Phoenix (#13 % overall for Bachelor degrees) so it's entirely possible that some of the Obama '08 > Romney '12 > Johnson '16 voters might break Dem in '20 without HRC at the top of Dem ticket and cut into Trump '20 raw vote margins and maybe shave another ~ 5k off the top of ticket race....
Wild Card???
7.) Tempe is a City where there is no place to go but up with Trump running as the 'Pub nominee in '20....
Tempe is the most Democratic City in Maricopa County of the largest 12 Cities voting for Obama '12 (56-41 D) and HRC (58-33 D).
Home Arizona State University (ASU) it's pretty safe to say that a large chunk of 3rd Party voters here would likely vote Democrat for President in 2020 without HRC at the top of ticket rather than a protest vote for Johnson or Stein or Bernie write-in.
It's entirely feasible to see a Dem Pres candidate in 2020 gaining a net +5k D vote margin, even with Trump maintaining 33-35% of the Total Vote.
8.) Peoria has long been a Republican stronghold with relatively minor changes in PRES % numbers between '12 and '16 and an almost +20k R raw vote margin in both elections.
Will the 2020 Pres numbers be closer to '12 and '16 % numbers or closer to the '16 "Sheriff Joe" referendum and the '18 House Special Election, roughly +4-5% R in both races?
As I posted shortly before the AZ CD-08 2018 Special Election: "How Will it Play in Peoria?"
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=288717.msg6145557#msg6145557Peoria, Arizona is a bellwether city within AZ CD-'08 when it comes to overall voting margins, and I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it is an important place to test the relative elasticity of Republican leaning Indies within Maricopa County at large.
Although a Democratic Pres candidate doesn't need to win or come close to winning Peoria, in order for a Dem to win Maricopa they need to keep 'Pub margins to no more than + 20% R.
9.) Surprise a fast growing exurban City in the far Northwestern corner of CD-08 was the real surprise of the 2018 Special House election.
Although it was the least elastic largest City within Maricopa County (+0.5% D '12 > '16), and
the most Republican City in the 2016 Pres Election (59-34 R), we saw some of the largest swings here between '16 GE PRES and '18 SE House....
Fast growing Exurban parts of Maricopa like Surprise and Buckeye are likely to continue to be extremely politically volatile over the next decade, and will likely determine the political trajectory of Maricopa County and indirectly Arizona well into the 2020s....
10.) Non Top 12 Cities in Maricopa County aka everything else accounts for 10% of the County Vote Share....
This includes a wide range of unincorporated areas, smaller communities, and even a few rural areas.
Obviously these places deserve a much more detailed analysis, since alone they accounted for raw +40k R vote margins in '16, +42k R raw vote margins in '12....
These places include the heavily Republican retiree communities of Sun City and Sun City West (See AZ CD '08 results) but also include Native American reservations, heavily Latino precincts of places like El Mirage where HRC wasn't especially popular especially after some of the Obama Anti-Immigration policies that caused him to be labeled the "Deporter in Chief" among many Spanish speaking communities, as well as extremely wealthy Uninc areas throughout Metro Maricopa, and then throw in some overwhelmingly rural precincts....
How do Republicans keep winning Maricopa County Arizona at a Presidential Level?It's actually really easy...
1.) Let go of the culture war issues such as scapegoating Latinos and Ethnic and Religious Minorities. Not only does this make it much more difficult for the 'Pub brand among Minority voters in Maricopa, it also alienates a ton of educated and Middle-Class Anglo voters as well.
2.) Demonstrate that Republicans can run as a
Moderate Center-Right Party of Government as opposed to tying to destroy funding for Government services such as Education, Entitlement Programs, Health Care, and Transportation.
3.) Change the focus from the negativity such as Trump's '16 Pres election campaign designed to appeal to WWCs in Northern States where job losses have continued to accrue as a result of Democratic/Republican Administration Free Trade policies alike over the past 30 years, to a more positive approach.
Arizona is a Sunbelt State and people tend to prefer optimism to pessimism in the Sunshine State....
Democratic and Republican politicians alike run campaign ads about gritty Northern Factory Towns and Cities where all hope is gone because the "Plant closed Down"....
That's not how voters in Maricopa County perceive their State and communities....
Metro Phoenix took a huge hit at the time of the Great Recession, as did Metro Las Vegas....
Not only did homeowners property values collapse, but all new home construction froze, and tons of skilled construction workers left and disappeared for good to retire, seek alternative employment, and in many cases go back to Mexico after 15-20 Years of living and working in the United States....
Now it is "Morning in Arizona" and Trump will need to contest this State hard to avoid losing and try to take something out of the Ronald Reagan playbook "Morning in America" campaign commercial where the official title was "Prouder, Stronger, Better"...
Link to the official Reagan '84 Campaign commercial from the Ronald Reagan Library....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn9fR_-X9uw
