Dan Nowicki

The Republic | azcentral.com

Arizona's political heart may be a deep red, but for years it has seemingly had a soft, blue spot for the Clintons.

In 2008, then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton won Arizona's presidential preference election, or primary, handily defeating Democratic rival and future President Barack Obama. She captured 13 of Arizona's 15 counties — Obama won only Coconino and Yavapai — and did particularly well among Latino voters.

Twelve years earlier, her husband, President Bill Clinton, became the only Democrat to carry red-state Arizona since President Harry Truman in 1948.

Clinton, subsequently Obama's former Secretary of State and the Democratic Party's 2016 front-runner, is hoping to continue her family's winning streak in the Grand Canyon State in this year's March 22 primary against left-leaning independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

While Clinton has racked up a large lead in delegates, Sanders has proven to be a dogged opponent, winning his latest upset victory in Michigan's March 8 primary, where Clinton had led in the polls by double digits.

Sanders supporters say Arizona has changed

In February, the Sanders campaign signaled it intended to compete in Arizona.

It unveiled its "coalition of Arizona leaders," including many Latino elected officials, opened a campaign headquarters, and hired an Arizona state coordinator and other staff members. Sanders won the endorsement of Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, a Latino-oriented group whose aim is to organize the state's lower-income and minority families in the pursuit of "social and economic justice."

Sanders' Arizona supporters say the state has changed since 2008, with Latino voters having lived through the controversy of Senate Bill 1070, the state's 2010 immigration law, and the disappointment in Obama and Congress' failure to enact immigration reform. Sanders' messages on the economy and income inequality also resonate in the Latino community, they say.

Sanders has held two well-attended and enthusiastic rallies in Arizona during the campaign, one in Phoenix and one in Tucson, where he accepted the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. Clinton has not made a campaign stop here.

"The collateral affection, or support, for Bill (Clinton) was still pretty strong in 2008," said Grijalva, who supported Obama over Clinton that year. "To some extent, the voters in Arizona are younger now, and the Democratic primary is about the base issues. I think if we continue to try to reach voters and turn out who we need to turn out, I think it's going to be very competitive, much more competitive than people think, and I think we're going to do very well."

Indeed, states that supported Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid haven't necessarily remained in her column this campaign.

'I think Arizona is Hillary country'

Clinton's supporters counter that she remains a good match for the state.

Polling in the race has been sparse, although an automated telephone survey released Feb. 29 by pollster Mike Noble of Phoenix-based MBQF Consulting found Clinton dominating. The poll of 739 "high efficacy" Democratic primary voters showed Clinton leading Sanders 56.2 percent to 21.5 percent, with 22.3 percent undecided. The poll, conducted Feb. 24, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

"Bill won Arizona and I think Hillary can also," said Carolyn Warner, a former state superintendent of public instruction and a pledged Democratic super-delegate for Clinton, whom she has known since 1979. "I think Arizona is Hillary country. Her support for education is unwavering. She has always been a believer in the future."

Jerry Emmett, a 102-year-old retired educator who lives in Prescott, also is enthusiastically supporting Clinton for president.

"You bet your life I like Hillary. I think she's going to be the second 'woman of the world' one of these days," Emmett said, alluding to Eleanor Roosevelt, who was known as "First Lady of the World."

Clinton campaign steps up outreach in Arizona

Despite the apparent strong poll position and her long history with the state, Clinton does not appear to be taking Arizona for granted.

In quick succession, the Clinton campaign this week has held a conference call with local Black leaders, held an "Arizona Women for Hillary" event on the State Capitol lawn and brought Olympic medalist Michelle Kwan to Phoenix for the launch of "Arizona Asian American and Pacific Islanders for Hillary."

The Arizona Women for Hillary Leadership Council announced Wednesday included state Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix; state House Minority Whip Rebecca Rios, D-Phoenix, former Arizona Corporation Commissioner Sandra Kennedy, and "dreamer" and activist Ellie Perez.

"During the first months of this campaign last year, Arizona volunteers and community leaders recruited hundreds of supporters, held dozens of house parties, and began putting together a diverse coalition that looks like Arizona," Tim Hogan, a Hillary for America spokesman, said in a written statement to The Arizona Republic. "Since then, our campaign has made tens of thousands of phone calls and contacted voters across the state. Now, we are ensuring voters mail in their ballots, are ready to vote on Election Day, and know that Hillary Clinton will fight to break down barriers holding them back.

"She will fight for comprehensive immigration reform and stop families from being torn apart, work to guarantee women equal pay, and make raising middle class wages a top priority," he added.

Going after Sanders

Clinton supporters also have not been pulling punches against Sanders.

At the "Arizona Women for Hillary" rally, Hobbs brought up a moment from the recent Democratic debate in Flint, Mich., when Sanders testily told Clinton, "Excuse me, I'm talking."

"I do take notice at a woman of such accomplishment being shushed on stage and having a finger wagged at her," Hobbs said. "We know that Hillary can handle it, and she won't be silenced."

The same day, Clinton's campaign in Arizona circulated comments from Clinton supporter Julian Castro ripping Sanders for voting against comprehensive immigration reform in the past.

"Time and again, the senator from Vermont has showed us firsthand that he doesn't understand our immigration system or what is at stake for Latino and immigrant families," said Castro, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former San Antonio mayor who frequently has been mentioned as a possible Clinton running mate.

At Wednesday's debate, Clinton attacked Sanders for, as a U.S. representative, voting for a 2006 amendment that her campaign says was designed to show support for controversial border groups such as the Minutemen, which Clinton referred to as "vigilantes" whose goal was to "hunt down immigrants."

The amendment would have prevented the U.S. government from sharing information about the civilian border groups with the Mexican government, something that some conservatives feared was happening.

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Sanders responded that he does not support vigilantes and called the charge unfair and "a horrific statement." In a follow-up statement, the Sanders campaign said lawmakers were assured at the time that the amendment would not have any impact on current law.

"He of course does not believe private militias are the way to police or protect borders," the Sanders campaign statement said. "What matters to him, and what he has said consistently, is that we need an immigration system that puts families first. (Republican presidential front-runner) Donald Trump opened the door of xenophobia and racism. It is our job to shut the door permanently."

But the Clinton campaign doubled-down on the accusation Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who supports Clinton, said Sanders can't run from his "bad vote."

"He can't say that, 'Oh well, it was meaningless vote.' No, these things matter," Gallego said. "You basically backed up a conspiracy theory that was being pushed by these right-wingers and you can't even say, 'I'm sorry, I was wrong, I shouldn't have done it.' That is what a mature politician does."

Sanders supporters defend opposition to 2007 immigration-reform bill

Grijalva defended Sanders' opposition to the 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill that was negotiated by then-U.S. Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. At the time, Kennedy was criticized by some in the immigration community for making too many concessions to Kyl and the Republicans. For example, it would have made cuts to the family-based immigration system that allows legal permanent residents and naturalized U.S. citizens to sponsor immediate relatives for family reunification purposes. Some critics believed the bill's pathway-to-citizenship process was too costly and many undocumented immigrants would not have been able to afford it.

The bill, which never cleared the Senate, also included a guest-worker program that caused some political consternation on the left because it didn't have meaningful labor protections and wouldn't have allowed foreign workers to bring their family or settle permanently.

"It was opposed by labor (the AFL-CIO), it was opposed by human-rights organizations, it was opposed by national Hispanic organizations, LULAC (the League of United Latin American Citizens) being the primary one," Grijalva said. "It never came to the House, but if it had come to the House, I would have voted against it. And I think many of the members of the Hispanic Caucus would have voted against it, although some of them are the ones now making the accusation."

Do young women owe Clinton their votes, just because they are women?

But while the 2007 bill split the left and organized labor, the compromise still would have provided legalization and a pathway to citizenship and received bipartisan backing from immigration-reform supporters such as Clinton and Obama, who was then a U.S.senator from Illinois, and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Other groups on the left, including the Service Employees International Union and the United Farm Workers, backed it, too. Reform supporters say the then-Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives could have improved the legislation if it had gotten out of the Senate.

Sanders did vote in favor of the bipartisan 2013 "Gang of Eight" immigration bill that passed the U.S. Senate but went nowhere in the GOP-run House of Representatives. He also supports continuing the Obama administration's deferred-action programs that shield many undocumented immigrants from deportation and has said he would extend them even further until Congress acts.

Grijalva lamented that Clinton's campaign has "a cavalcade of stars as their surrogates and they have been sent out to deal with this immigration issue," but he hopes Arizona Democrats will take a serious look at Sanders, who has indicated that he will stay in the race until the Democratic National Convention.

"Bernie's a fighter and we need a fighter now," he said.

David Berman, an Arizona State University professor emeritus of political science, said it's likely that the Clinton-Sanders race has tightened in Arizona.

The best thing Clinton may have going for her, he said, is a perception that she is the inevitable nominee and would probably be the stronger contender in the general election against Trump or whoever the GOP presidential nominee is.

"Her advantage, probably, is electability," said Berman, a senior research fellow at ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy. "Most people probably think that she's more likely to withstand the contest and the election, even though Sanders polls very well against Trump. But the Republicans haven't spent much time on him at all."

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