Michelle Obama leads the charge of Hillary Clinton’s allies trying to turn a deep red state into a swing state, if not blue, in the year of Donald Trump

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Across bone dry Arizona, voters and pollsters have begun to ask openly about a change that seemed nearly impossible not so long ago: could Democrats take the American west?

Hillary Clinton’s allies charged across the region this week, led by Michelle Obama, who spoke on Thursday of hope, joy and possibility in this, the greatest country on earth. She told the screaming supporters packed into the Phoenix Convention Center that Clinton knows “our country is powerful and vibrant and strong, big enough to have a place for all of us.”

Then she got down to business. Arizona business. The kind that has political experts eyeing the Copper State and many of its neighbors and thinking that maybe 2016 could be different.

Four years ago, Obama said: “Barack lost Arizona, this state, by 200,008 votes,” as the sheepish crowd rumbled. “When you break that number down, the difference between winning and losing this state is only about 63 votes per precinct. Yeah. Just take that in. 63 … This year, we know it’s much closer here.”

The last time Arizona voted for the Democratic presidential candidate, it was 1996, the time before that, 1948. But an Arizona Republic poll released on Wednesday showed Clinton up by five percentage points, the first survey taken during the general election in which she was ahead of Trump by more than the margin of error.

The most recent poll in Nevada, another toss-up state, showed Clinton ahead by seven. She has an apparent lock on Colorado and New Mexico, and the entire west coast in her column. There are even questions about Trump’s strength in bright red Utah, where he has alienated Mormon voters with his comments about women, accusations of sexual harassment, three marriages and admitted affair.

“I could see Clinton sweeping the west,” said Samara Klar, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Arizona. “I don’t think that’s out of the question. Up until two days ago, I was, ‘Clinton is never going to get Arizona.’”

But with less than three weeks until election day, the Clinton campaign has sent some of its biggest names to energize Arizona voters. On Tuesday , Bernie Sanders stumped in Flagstaff. Chelsea Clinton talked up her mother’s education policies on debate day at Arizona State University in Tempe.

And less than 24 hours after Trump dismissed Clinton as “such a nasty woman” during their final debate, Obama urged turned 7,000 Arizonans to ignore the Republican’s “vision that is grounded in hopelessness and despair” and get to work.

She was introduced by the granddaughter of Arizona’s most famous Republican: the late Senator Barry Goldwater, who ran for president against Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and lost.

“My grandfather lived by some very basic values,” said Carolyn Goldwater Ross, “to respect others and to stand up for those who need a champion. There may be two candidates, but there’s only one choice. There’s only one candidate who will live up to my grandfather’s values.”

She closed with Clinton’s slogan: “I’m with her.”

So was another lifelong Republican, Nicole Phillips, a 44-year-old advertising executive from Phoenix who brought her 14-year-old daughter Lauren to the Clinton rally. “Sweeping the west for Hillary is pretty plausible,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nicole Phillips, a registered Republican who is voting for Hillary Clinton, and her daughter. Photograph: Maria La Ganga/The Guardian

“I crossed party lines,” she added. “I feel like the Republican party truly hasn’t addressed me in 12 years. Donald Trump is perpetuating the myth that all African Americans are poor, living in inner city neighborhoods, looking for a hand out.

“Some of us,” she said, “are gainfully employed, live in the suburbs and drive fancy cars.”

Democrats are outspending Trump on advertising in Arizona, and Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, recently campaigned in Phoenix, noted political strategist David Waid.

“We’ve really had everybody but Hillary Clinton,” he said. “This would be a 1,000% increase in the number of important Democratic surrogates that Arizona has gotten in a presidential election year. This is unheard of and unprecedented in Arizona, and it’s a sign of where we’re headed.”

The west’s turn blue, if not its full Democratic conversion, owes a great deal to demographics. Much of the region is growing, Klar said, and Arizona is attracting transplants from liberal enclaves who are slowly helping shift the political landscape.

A rapidly increasing Latino population is another part of the equation: since 2012, the number of eligible Latino voters has increased by four million nationwide, according to the Pew Research Center, accounting for 37% of the growth in eligible voters. Arizona has 992,000 eligible Latino voters, 22% of all eligible voters in the state, according to Pew. Nevada has 328,000, or 17%.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Betty Garcia and Dan Watts. Photograph: Maria La Ganga/The Guardian

“I am writing a book about the 1988 election, and one striking feature about that race is that [Republican George HW] Bush swept the west, except for Washington and Oregon,” said John J Pitney Jr, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “Since then, the map has gained a lot more blue. One major reason is the growth of the Hispanic vote.”



Not everyone is so willing to accept a blue tide across the west, that bastion of proud and ornery independence, and dissenters included men and women who gathered at the Arizona Republican Party headquarters on Wednesday to watch the final debate.

Many at the low-slung office, which was evacuated a day earlier because of a bomb threat, believe that the polls showing Democratic gains are rigged.

“Hillary is not going to win Arizona,” said Paul Gorman, a 61-year-old computer technician. “Every four years they trot out a poll saying the Democrats are gonna take Arizona, it’s going to turn blue. Not gonna happen. Arizona is gonna go for Trump. I can guarantee that.”

Dan Watts was doing everything he could to make Gorman’s prediction come through. Huddled in a conference room before the debate, he called a long list of registered Republicans to remind them to vote.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paul Gorman. Photograph: Maria La Ganga/The Guardian

Over and over again, the 64 year old read from the same script: “Hi, my name is Dan Watts. I’m calling from the Republican party to remind you that you’ll soon get your sample ballot.”

And then he got bored.

“Hey,” he said to his fellow volunteers, “can we do a limerick?”

Something snappy, Trump inspired, maybe taking a poke at party defectors like Arizona senator John McCain, who withdrew his support from the Republican standard bearer in early October.

“There once was a candidate named Trump,” Watts wrote,



“Who some said would never get over the hump.

“He wanted to make America great

“In spite of Republicans who decided to skate.

“In the end, Trump was nobody’s chump.”