What’s driving the change in Arizona?

[Sbane]

The reason Arizona was a red-leaning state was because of Maricopa county. In fact, Rs used to better there than they did statewide. The state outside of Maricopa county is only red enough to overcome Tuscon and Pima County by a small margin. If you were to remove Maricopa county, Trump only would have won the state by %. Remove Maricopa and Pima and he only wins it by 17 points. For a Republican state that is incredibly weak.
Nevada without Clark and Washoe is Trump+39 for example.

If Rs ever want to win the state-even in a squeaker-they have to limit the loss in Maricopa to less than 2 pts. If Dems ever start winning Maricopa county by 5+ consistently its over.

Flagstaff and Sedona aren't talked about as much, but they are critical in keeping the margins low for the Republicans outside of the big cities. Yuma, with its large Hispanic population, is another reason but things are starting to look favorable for the Republicans there, just not at a fast enough pace.

[Sbane]

AZ electorate remains amazingly white(CVAP is a little under 80%), so it's fair to say the issue for Republicans is college/urban whites. Phoenix used to be competitive, now it's like D+20, Pima county used to be competitive, now just about every Dem this year got over 60%. Republicans don't have the same spark with the state's educated class like they used to.
Add in that Western rural areas aren't enough of a factor and the red suburbs are shifting left faster than they're netting votes for Republicans(like most of the country and not like Florida or Texas), you can see why the state has been voting the way it has.

There are a few things which are countertrends in Texas which differentiate it from Arizona. There are more people in rural areas and has many small to medium size cities which vote hard Republican. Cities that size in Arizona basically cancel out each others votes. There is also a big oil and gas industry here which rightfully feels attacked by the Democrats. Lots of possible votes for the Democrats are out of reach due to that reason. And finally, Texas was always more Republican than Arizona. Even in 2004 it only voted by about 10 points for Bush.

[Sbane]

AZ electorate remains amazingly white(CVAP is a little under 80%), so it's fair to say the issue for Republicans is college/urban whites. Phoenix used to be competitive, now it's like D+20, Pima county used to be competitive, now just about every Dem this year got over 60%. Republicans don't have the same spark with the state's educated class like they used to.
Add in that Western rural areas aren't enough of a factor and the red suburbs are shifting left faster than they're netting votes for Republicans(like most of the country and not like Florida or Texas), you can see why the state has been voting the way it has.

There are a few things which are countertrends in Texas which differentiate it from Arizona. There are more people in rural areas and has many small to medium size cities which vote hard Republican. Cities that size in Arizona basically cancel out each others votes. There is also a big oil and gas industry here which rightfully feels attacked by the Democrats. Lots of possible votes for the Democrats are out of reach due to that reason. And finally, Texas was always more Republican than Arizona. Even in 2004 it only voted by about 10 points for Bush.

Texas is generally just a tougher carry for Dems because it is so much more diverse. In AZ, if you can do well in both Pheonix and Tucson, you've basically won the state. In Texas though, you have Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Hidalgo, El Paso, and a few of the more mid-sized communities you mentioned and each one has a lot of very specific racial/cultural enclaves so if you're a Dem, you may have to fine-tune your messaging for differnet places which can be tricky.

A good example would be Austin v Houston. Austin is very much the stereotypical educated white liberal city where you need to be pushing for a lot of these more progressive beliefs. Houston on the other hand is very much dominated by the oil industry and has some more culturally conservative Hispanics and Asians that you need to figure out how to message too.

One of the biggest suprises in 2022 was how much Abbott improved over Trump in rural Texas; I already thought Rs were getting physically close to their ceiling but somehow Abbott got Trump 85%+ counties throughout the state to swing another 5 points to him. On net though, the rural areas have pretty stagnant growth so I think eventually the cities, especially Austin, will push the state to be more competitive. It's really a matter of time but it's hard to see Texas still being GOP leaning by the end of the decade without a re-alignment (which is very much possible).

There just isn't too much more the Republicans can squeeze out of the rural areas. I guess we keep saying that every time but at some point you reach a limit. In particular this will hurt the Republicans in the state house of representatives.