Arizona megathread

[Cyrusman]

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

Republicans have a stunning lack of empathy.

No. They just don't want their streets to turn into San Francisco and LA. The homeless situation is a disaster in certain areas that are more "compassionate" towards them. People don't want their streets to be camping zones for homeless. It makes the city look dirty, and disgusting. Not everyone is okay with that, and if I had a business in an area where there were many homeless people I would gladly want my elected officials to " have a stunning lack of empathy"

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1563228007455526912

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1563228007455526912

That's actually pretty good. I'm sure it's within the margin of error, but a three point win in Arizona at all, if accurate, is a good showing and may suggest that Democrats could have a good chance at winning the statewide elections here this year-which is absolutely essential given how bats*** insane almost all the statewide nominees are, as much as they may try to hide it in thinking their state's voters are stupid (and Finchem isn't even bothering to do that).

[Spectator]

If Fontes is actually leading in the SOS race, Hobbs and Kelly are probably better positioned.

[SnowLabrador]

To the extent that the SoS race will be covered, I think most of the coverage will center around how crazy Finchem is. That could work to his advantage if it motivates Republican voters more, though.

[Spectator]

To the extent that the SoS race will be covered, I think most of the coverage will center around how crazy Finchem is. That could work to his advantage if it motivates Republican voters more, though.

Yeah, like the psychos weren’t already motivated.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

If Fontes is actually leading in the SOS race, Hobbs and Kelly are probably better positioned.

Yes and no.  Kelly is clearly in the driver's seat in his race and will likely lead the AZ Democratic ticket this year, but I think Fontes will probably outrun Hobbs by a few points.

[Utah Neolib]

If Fontes is actually leading in the SOS race, Hobbs and Kelly are probably better positioned.

Yes and no.  Kelly is clearly in the driver's seat in his race and will likely lead the AZ Democratic ticket this year, but I think Fontes will probably outrun Hobbs by a few points.

I don’t think a Lake/Fontes/Hamadeh/Kelly victory is impossible by any means. There’s probably some low info Lake voters who may vote D on some down ballot races.

[xavier110]

Hobbs is still kicking and screaming about the debate with Lake. Why is this campaign run by idiots? They should literally be like, “We are so ready to debate the fraud Kari Lake, who has lied for two years, spread mistruths about 2020, and lives in a world where Donald Trump is still president.”

Instead, they look pathetic. Sigh. If she loses, it’s on her, full stop. Grow a freaking backbone. I’m sick of these loser freaks running the Democratic Party.

[wbrocks67]

Hobbs is still kicking and screaming about the debate with Lake. Why is this campaign run by idiots? They should literally be like, “We are so ready to debate the fraud Kari Lake, who has lied for two years, spread mistruths about 2020, and lives in a world where Donald Trump is still president.”

Instead, they look pathetic. Sigh. If she loses, it’s on her, full stop. Grow a freaking backbone. I’m sick of these loser freaks running the Democratic Party.

How is Katie Hobbs "running the Democratic party"?

[Spectator]

If Fontes is actually leading in the SOS race, Hobbs and Kelly are probably better positioned.

Yes and no.  Kelly is clearly in the driver's seat in his race and will likely lead the AZ Democratic ticket this year, but I think Fontes will probably outrun Hobbs by a few points.

I don’t think a Lake/Fontes/Hamadeh/Kelly victory is impossible by any means. There’s probably some low info Lake voters who may vote D on some down ballot races.

If Lake wins it’s because it’s a wave. Let’s dispel with this fiction that her being a former news anchor will magically wave away all the stupid sh**t she’s done in the primary and beyond hollering about the election being stolen.

[Utah Neolib]

If Fontes is actually leading in the SOS race, Hobbs and Kelly are probably better positioned.

Yes and no.  Kelly is clearly in the driver's seat in his race and will likely lead the AZ Democratic ticket this year, but I think Fontes will probably outrun Hobbs by a few points.

I don’t think a Lake/Fontes/Hamadeh/Kelly victory is impossible by any means. There’s probably some low info Lake voters who may vote D on some down ballot races.

If Lake wins it’s because it’s a wave. Let’s dispel with this fiction that her being a former news anchor will magically wave away all the stupid sh**t she’s done in the primary and beyond hollering about the election being stolen.

I’m not underestimating the stupidity of voters. Hobbs seems to consistently underperform Kelly, and Lake actually has leads in some polls (albeit narrowly).

[SnowLabrador]

Lake worries me. She's completely insane, but she's good at making people think she's not completely insane.

[wbrocks67]

If Fontes is actually leading in the SOS race, Hobbs and Kelly are probably better positioned.

Yes and no.  Kelly is clearly in the driver's seat in his race and will likely lead the AZ Democratic ticket this year, but I think Fontes will probably outrun Hobbs by a few points.

I don’t think a Lake/Fontes/Hamadeh/Kelly victory is impossible by any means. There’s probably some low info Lake voters who may vote D on some down ballot races.

If Lake wins it’s because it’s a wave. Let’s dispel with this fiction that her being a former news anchor will magically wave away all the stupid sh**t she’s done in the primary and beyond hollering about the election being stolen.

I’m not underestimating the stupidity of voters. Hobbs seems to consistently underperform Kelly, and Lake actually has leads in some polls (albeit narrowly).

Hobbs is likely going to underperform Kelly simply b/c Kelly is an A+ candidate and an incumbent.

Also, Lake has only lead 1 recent poll

[Devout Centrist]

I don't really agree with Hobbs' decision to avoid the debates, but I can understand it. Hammering Lake on abortion is probably the best route of attack for her campaign.

[wbrocks67]

Did we ever get updates on how much Hobbs and Lake have fundraised? The entire race feels like it goes under the radar in that department, or even RGA/DGA investment?

[prag_prog]

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.

[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.

[Duke of York]

I don't really agree with Hobbs' decision to avoid the debates, but I can understand it. Hammering Lake on abortion is probably the best route of attack for her campaign.

Why skip debates? I have a gut feeling Lake is going to win. Hobbs seems to be running an awful campaign.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

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.

[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.

[Cyrusman]

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.

[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.

[Devout Centrist]

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.

Case in point: I moved from California to Arizona.

[jamestroll]

Let latinos in Arizona and not ones from communist or socialist countries. No cubans.. and give them voting rights immediately!!!!!!