Clinton campaign is optimistic of success in the west, though past experience suggests that is akin to Charlie Brown ‘believing Lucy won’t pull the football’

Will this be the year Arizona turns blue? It’s a question Democrats ask every four years, only for the state to stay a deep Republican red.

In 2016, they sense a real opportunity. Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, predicts states like Arizona and Georgia will remain fire-truck red – and that even to ask the question again is akin to “believing Lucy won’t pull the football” away from Charlie Brown.

But this has been a presidential election year unlike any other in modern history, and Democrats see an opportunity as golden as the hair atop the head of the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

“Anticipation is high this year,” said Enrique Gutiérrez, a spokesman for the Arizona Democratic party. “You can feel the excitement in our volunteers, at phone banks and training. It’s really boosting morale for Democrats and for our supporters here in the state.”

Opinion polls show Clinton within striking distance of Trump in Arizona and Georgia, traditionally conservative states now in the churn of major demographic change. Clinton trails Trump by just two points in Arizona; according to the RealClearPolitics.com polling average, a smattering of recent surveys show her with a small edge. In Georgia, the average has Trump leading by four.

Republicans see opportunities in Nevada, where averages show the race in effect tied, and Iowa, where Trump leads by more than four points.

Since the second world war, Arizona has given its handful of electoral votes to just one Democrat: Bill Clinton in 1996.

Hoping to re-create that magic, Hillary Clinton’s campaign recently opened two new field offices and launched a six-figure ad buy; the Democratic National Committee is expanding its presence in the state as well. Through a coordinated effort, Democrats have 27 field offices and 160 officers, not including volunteers.

“We thought it would be 2020 [when we had a chance], but the dynamics of this presidential race have just leapfrogged expectations,” said Gutierrez. “We did not expect Arizona to be in play this early.”



Over the past year, Democrats have outpaced Republicans in registering new voters. Since October 2015, Democrats have registered 100,000 and Republicans 80,000, according to data from the office of the Arizona secretary of state.

But there are still more Republicans than Democrats in the state and GOP voters have a stronger turnout record. There are 1.9 million Republicans registered in Arizona, just over 1 million Democrats and 1.6 million undeclared.

“Last month, Trump came here, to Arizona, to give his immigration speech,” said David Waid, a Democratic strategist and former state party chair. “You don’t come in and work a state if you think there’s no way can it can go into the Democratic column.”

Trump gave a fiery speech in downtown Phoenix on 31 August, dashing hopes among moderate Republicans and his Hispanic supporters that he would soften his views on immigration. He reasserted his plan to build a border wall paid for by Mexico and declared that criminals would be deported while everyone else would have “to return home and apply for re-entry”.

Waid said that if Democrats could improve Latino voter turnout in Arizona by a few percentage points, Republicans up and down the ballot would be in trouble. In 2012, Latinos accounted for 18% of all votes cast, up from 16% in 2008.

Republicans still hope to woo Latino voters by stressing values like the importance of family and religion that they believe can resonate.

Democrats have struggled to mobilize Latino voters, engagement failing to keep pace with the sharp increase in eligible Latino voters. But Trump has driven record-setting numbers of citizenship applications and a surge in voter registration among Hispanics concerned about his hardline stance on immigration or turned off by his remarks about a federal judge of Mexican origin.

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“Latinos want to vote this year. We’re seeing that across the state,” said Pita Juarez of One Arizona, a Phoenix-based coalition of Latino voter registration groups.

The group’s Viva the Vote campaign had hoped to register 80,000 voters before November. Juarez said the group has surpassed that goal and is on track to meet a new goal of 120,000.

“Arizona is in play if the Democrats want it to be,” said Chuck Coughlin, Republican strategist and head of the political consulting group HighGround.

In the short term, Arizona could swing in the presidential election depending on the resources Clinton and the Democrats invest, Coughlin said. But in the long term, whether the state goes Democrat or remains Republican will be determined by how the GOP remakes itself after the election – especially on the issue of immigration.

“The Arizona electorate is ground zero for the immigration debate,” he said. “We’ve been baptized in this issue; we know what real answers are.

“The wall is not real answers,” he said, adding that Mexico is the state’s biggest trading partner. “It’s about building a secure economic and social relationship with our neighbors. Voters here know that.”