Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

The Republic | azcentral.com

On the eve of the Nevada caucuses last month, he told thousands of cheering Republicans that Mexico could be coerced into paying for a wall along the U.S. border.

In his trademark straight-talking style, with his hair parted to the side, he told the Las Vegas rally: “When they say build a fence in Mexico, that’s a no-brainer – that’s nothing. They can do it in two days. People say it’s impossible. It’s not impossible, believe me.”

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was just warming up the crowd for Donald Trump, but it would have been easy to mistake his rhetoric and laser focus on illegal immigration for the GOP's presidential front-runner.

Despite the similarities, Arpaio's home-state Republican establishment has approached Trump very differently than it does the sheriff.

Many of the Republican politicians who have sought Arpaio's approval are the same ones now giving Trump the cold shoulder, as the state's voters prepare to make their will known in the 2016 presidential race. Arizona's presidential preference election will be held March 22.

Arpaio is colorful and politically popular, but his tenure as sheriff has been tarnished by a failed war against county officials and a federal judge finding his deputies racially profiled Latinos. Arpaio, 83, now faces allegations of federal contempt-of-court.

Arpaio hard to ignore

Still, Arpaio’s office is a standard stop for most of Arizona’s Republican establishment who court him for his name, his reputation as an illegal-immigration hardliner, and the votes he attracts – especially in primary elections.

Why, then, has much of the Arizona GOP establishment not embraced Trump, even while he shares Arpaio’s bombast, defiance, and disdain for mainstream Republicans they find so appealing?

Part of the answer is Arpaio is almost impossible to ignore in his own backyard.

“He (Arpaio) has got a lot of local connections that they have to pay attention to and it’s not so easy to ignore him or go against him,” said Richard Herrera, an Arizona State University associate professor of political science.

Meanwhile, Trump, a New York real-estate developer and reality TV star, is not only less known to Arizona Republicans, but also he's seeking the White House, where the stage is bigger and the stakes are much higher.

“The sheriff is a completely different political office than the presidency of the United States,” said Chad Willems, Arpaio’s campaign manager. “People have dealt with Arpaio for 22, 23 years and they know who he is and what he stands for. With Trump, it’s too much of a wild card. He’s sort of like the Howard Stern of presidential politics: You tune in because you don’t know what he’s going to say next."

Gov. Doug Ducey courted Arpaio’s endorsement during his 2014 bid for governor, and his first TV ad featured the sheriff. Back then, Ducey praised Arpaio’s “innovative ways of fighting illegal immigration and other crime.”

Ducey did not meet with Trump during either of his two stops in metro Phoenix and has tried to avoid talking about him.

Mainstream Republicans contend Trump – who has offended with remarks ranging from his initial refusal to disavow a White supremacist leader, to immigrants, and his male body parts – may lose to the Democratic nominee. And if Trump secures the party’s nomination, they fear he could drag down other Republican candidates – including Sen. John McCain, who is running for re-election – and ultimately cause the Grand Old Party to implode.

When Ducey was asked various times over the past eight months about Trump’s controversial remarks about banning Muslim immigrants to the U.S., about immigrants being rapists and criminals, or if he would back him as the GOP nominee, Ducey brushed the questions aside. After Trump dominated Super Tuesday elections, the governor refused to say who he’d back for president and appeared to deliberately avoid saying Trump’s name.

Ducey eventually said he would support whomever is the GOP nominee.

“I don’t want to see another four or eight years of the policies of Barack Obama,” he told reporters. “That’s very important to me.”

Arizona Senate President Andy Biggs, who just snapped up an Arpaio endorsement for his congressional campaign, has not said who he’ll support for president. He drew comparisons between Arpaio and Trump on illegal immigration, but when asked who he’ll support for president, said “I think they all have something to say.”

Robert Graham, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, couldn’t say whether the state’s party leaders would give a more full-throated endorsement of Trump should he become the nominee.

“I think it’s unanimous that everyone would like to have a Republican against Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders,” Graham said. “It’s hard to say beyond that and I wouldn’t want to answer for these guys, but it’s really interesting because Trump’s a very unusual candidate.

“I think it will be a wait-and-see kind of thing and see how it takes shape.”

Flake, McCain vs. Arpaio

U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Arizona Republicans, have been critical of Trump. They also are not allies of Arpaio.

McCain, particularly, has feuded with Arpaio for years; Arpaio backed then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush over McCain in the 2000 presidential race and endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney over McCain in the 2008 presidential race. Arpaio campaigned on Romney's behalf in the early presidential nominating states of Iowa and New Hampshire. The sheriff also strongly backed J.D. Hayworth, the former U.S. representative and immigration hardliner who unsuccessfully challenged McCain in his 2010 Senate primary.

Arizona went all Trump on immigration before Trump did

Likewise, McCain got into a bruising public spat with Trump last year. McCain also said he agreed with the scathing critique of Trump that Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, delivered on March 3, and that he shared concerns about Trump's "uninformed and indeed dangerous statements on national security issues." McCain continues, however, to say that he would support Trump if he becomes the GOP nominee.

Flake, who has endorsed U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in the presidential race, wouldn't answer whether he would support Trump as the Republican standard-bearer, only insisting that Trump won't be the nominee. "That's my story and I'm sticking with it," he told The Republic.

"The policies that he has put forward, like the Muslim ban, are not just incendiary, they are horribly counterproductive to fighting the war on terrorism," Flake said. "Then, ones like build a wall and make Mexico pay for it are so unrealistic. So his policies range from ludicrous to unrealistic."

Joe Arpaio's days as America's Toughest Sheriff are numbered

'You can't just dismiss this'

Others say Trump has breathed new life into the anti-establishment fervor, demonstrating just how angry voters are with the status quo.

Steve Voeller, a Republican consultant and Flake's former chief of staff, said it’s impossible for elected officials to ignore Trump’s success. Voters seem ready to roll the dice on an anti-establishment candidate, he said, and that sentiment will trickle down the ticket to other Republican candidates.

“If you’re a Republican elected official, you can’t just dismiss this,” Voeller said. “In order to get elected you need those people, too – at least some of them.”

Former Gov. Jan Brewer, who earned her own conservative credentials by signing into law a tough immigration law, said Arizona Republicans should fall in line behind Trump if he wins the nomination.

Trump won over Brewer, a long-time public official who termed out of the governor's office last year, as well as state Treasurer Jeff DeWit, a political outsider who of late has become a regular on cable TV news ripping the GOP establishment and touting Trump.

“They should listen to the people,” Brewer told The Republic and azcentral. “If they don’t, our party will be fractured. Totally.”

Conservative donors alarmed at a potential Trump nomination were furiously fundraising to unleash an eleventh-hour campaign against Trump. Donors include Arizona’s Randy Kendrick and her husband, Ken Kendrick, who owns the Diamondbacks. She told the Washington Post she is rallying conservative donors to fund anti-Trump efforts, and she has made a significant donation to a super PAC that is running ads against him.

She told The Republic on Tuesday she was spurred to action after Trump blamed a faulty earpiece for his refusals to disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. She also takes issue with Trump vowing to kill terrorists’ family members as well as his remarks labeling immigrants as rapists and criminals.

“When he wouldn’t denounce the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke, this was excruciating for me,” Kendrick said. “I said, ‘Is this the choice we all face? We’re supposed to support somebody blatantly saying things like this?'

“I take our values very seriously. I feel it is our moral duty to object. When we object to something morally, it’s time to stand up.”

Earlier this week, Trump took to Twitter to blast such critics, writing the “REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT, who could not stop Obama (twice)” was “failing” and warned followers to not believe “the millions of dollars of phony television ads by lightweight” Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and the “R establishment. Dishonest people!”

Republic reporter Dan Nowicki contributed to this article.

Follow the reporter on Twitter at @yvonnewingett and reach her at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4712.