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President-elect Donald Trump surged in popularity across Arizona this year, but some of his biggest electoral gains came from a district that had been wary of him in the past.
Trump made significant inroads in the state’s 6th Congressional District, a swath of southeastern Arizona that includes a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border, according to an analysis of election results by The Arizona Republic.
That district soundly rejected Trump in 2020, choosing then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden by a 54% to 44% margin.
This year, voters in the congressional district picked Trump by less than 1 percentage point.
It marked more than a five-point shift toward the former president. That’s about twice as much as the rest of Arizona, the data shows.
Arizona’s other border district shifted towards Trump, too, but much more modestly. The bright-blue 7th Congressional District, encompassing most of Arizona’s border with Mexico, warmed on the former president by about 2 percentage points, close to the statewide average.
Trump flipped Arizona’s two swing districts
Across the country, voters decisively chose the GOP in November’s elections. All 50 states in the country shifted toward Trump. He locked down Arizona and the other six “swing states” that were thought to be competitive this year. Trump became more popular among virtually all voting demographics.
That was reflected in Arizona, too.
In addition to flipping the 6th District, Trump made inroads in Arizona’s bellwether 1st Congressional District, which includes parts of north Phoenix and the wealthy suburbs of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley.
The district narrowly chose President Biden in 2020. This year it shifted toward Republicans by four points, for a 51%-48% Trump victory.
Trump locked in Republican victories in all of Arizona’s six GOP-leaning or competitive congressional districts. Democrats won the other three.
Many political observers chalked up the election results to a nationwide appetite for change, particularly on the economy. Others have noted that incumbent governments around the world fared poorly in the wake of the pandemic.
“The economic headwinds faced by Biden, and then Harris, were just too much,” said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist based in Arizona.
Trump’s victories in Arizona helped set up the GOP to assume full control over the federal government, including the presidency, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House. That control will allow Trump to implement his “America First” agenda with minimal pushback from Democrats.
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Crane, Hamadeh narrowly trail Trump
Republican candidates down the ballot benefited from the “red wave” that swept the country, though not all of them performed as well as Trump.
U.S. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., easily fended off a challenge from former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, but he performed about 2.5 percentage points worse than Trump in his northeastern Arizona district, the data shows. Political insiders saw Nez as a strong candidate, though his odds of winning were slim.
That election result was nearly identical to 2022, when Crane was a political newcomer up against well-resourced Democratic incumbent Rep. Tom O’Halleran.
Similarly, Republican Rep.-elect Abe Hamadeh, an attorney and ally of U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, coasted to victory in his West Valley-area district, but he trailed Trump by just over a point.
Paul Bentz, a GOP pollster, noted that Trump’s performance tends to stand out from other Republican candidates.
“It’s hard to measure against Trump, because he’s such a unique force,” he said.
Trump’s coattails didn’t extend to Lake, for example, one of the few Arizona Republicans in competitive federal races to lose her election this year.
By Bentz’s accounting, the Republican candidates running for office in Maricopa County received more votes than Lake, even though more than 100,000 voters skipped those down-ballot and lower-profile races.
“That speaks volumes,” Bentz said.
“I’m not sure if we would call Arizona voters discerning or schizophrenic,” Marson said of the ticket-splitting. “Donald Trump is a unique individual.”
Two representatives perceived as the most politically vulnerable, Juan Ciscomani and David Schweikert, outperformed Trump in each of their districts by a couple fractions of a percentage point.
Both Schweikert and Ciscomani won with larger margins of victory than they did in 2022, the year that GOP-led restrictions on abortion and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol were thought to drive turnout among Democrats.
Trump’s presence on the ballot “helped bring these candidates across the finish line,” Bentz said.
Republic reporter Caitlin McGlade contributed to this article.
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Publish date : 2024-11-26 00:02:00
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Publish date : 2024-11-26 14:18:30
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