Arizona's largest voting bloc? Folks who don't identify with either party.
MARK: Hi. This is Mark (ph).
JULIANA: And this is Juliana (ph)...
MARK AND JULIANA: ...From Sharon, Mass.
MARK: We're currently in Tromso, Norway, where it's almost midnight. We just finished running the Midnight Sun half-marathon on a bright, sunny night, surrounded by beautiful snow-capped mountains along the ocean. This show was recorded at...
ASHLEY LOPEZ, HOST:
...12:35 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, June 24, 2024.
JULIANA: Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll still be trying to remember what darkness looks like since we haven't seen it for over two weeks now. OK, here's the show.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BIGTOP ORCHESTRA'S "TEETER BOARD: FOLIES BERGERE (MARCH AND TWO-STEP)")
LOPEZ: I'm pretty sure that would break my brain.
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: It sounds so pleasant, though.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: That's why I sleep with one of those, like, Nodpod eye masks.
LOPEZ: Yeah. I feel like you come up with tricks, you know, if you have to live with that much light.
MONTANARO: Got to sleep.
LOPEZ: Yeah. Hey there, it's the NPR POLITICS PODCAST. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.
GRISALES: I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress.
MONTANARO: And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
LOPEZ: And today, we're talking about Arizona, which is among one of the most interesting states in the country right now. It's a presidential battleground. It has a must-win Senate race for Democrats. And a huge number of its voters happen to identify as independents. Claudia, you're back from a trip there, and you focused on those independent voters. What did you find when you talked to folks there?
GRISALES: Right. I found that independent voters in Arizona will have a big say on these races with national implications, as you mentioned. And they are a very large share of the state. More than one-third of registered voters are independent voters. And I was looking over the state's secretary of state numbers in terms of where they stand. Now, last year, they actually were the largest registered group in Arizona. So the largest party is not a party at all in Arizona, and that was the first time we saw that in Arizona since 2015.
Now, this year, we've seen Republicans edge them out a little bit, according to the most recent numbers released in April. But I did talk to voters who thought that perhaps independent voters will edge them out again by the time of the election. This is something they're still tracking. And overall, these independent voters say they're going to have that big impact on these races, and they are a wild card. It's hard to track where they are, and candidates have to shift and pivot as best they can to try and capture them.
LOPEZ: And Domenico, I think, like, there's a common assumption that, when we're talking about independent voters, we're talking about swing voters or persuadable voters - people who haven't figured out how they're going to vote. But that's, like, not really the case here, right?
MONTANARO: Well, it's never really the case...
LOPEZ: Yeah.
MONTANARO: ...Because people mostly are - they vote Republican, or they vote Democratic. So we're talking about Republican-leaning independents for the most part or Democratic-leaning independents for the most part, with a very narrow slice of people who are truly persuadable. I will say, though, that Arizona, Nevada, places like that - their politics definitely cross some typical lines. It's not like you can say, oh, a Republican in Arizona, you know, or an independent in Arizona is the same as an independent in Michigan or something like that. I remember even when Kyrsten Sinema was running for reelection, she was running ads as independent, even though, at that time, she was a registered Democrat.
So independents have always been a really key - I would say the key group in Arizona. And while they may be the largest registered party group currently - and the first time since 2015 when it comes to party registration - when it comes to voting, they have been the plurality group for the last several cycles. In 2016, for example, according to exit polls, they were 40% of the electorate. They broke by three points for Trump, and Trump won the state that year. In 2020, they were 39% of the electorate, and Biden won them over Trump by nine. So definitely a key group.
LOPEZ: Yeah. And Claudia, I mean, I think it's interesting that they don't really have much of a structural way to participate in primaries and actually help select, like, the people who end up getting on the ballot for a general election. Can you talk to me about that?
GRISALES: Yes, exactly. That is the complaint I heard from independent voters - is they are not really reflected in terms of the kind of candidates that they're able to select through the various parties. I did meet one voter, Emma Davidson (ph). This is a 24-year-old who works collecting signatures for various political efforts. And the key effort she is especially interested in - because she is a former Republican turned independent - is she wants independents to get the ability to have their own primary.
EMMA DAVIDSON: Hopefully this does get approved, so then more independents do vote so then we can actually have, like, more options. That's why I want it to be passed, too, because, like, more voters, better options, more choices.
GRISALES: That's part of the greater theme I kept hearing from independent voters - is that they are not ultimately reflected when it comes to the candidates they get to pick from. In the end, in her same case, for example, she doesn't know who she will vote for for sure in the presidential race. She just let out a big sigh when I laid out the options, and also the Senate race and many others.
LOPEZ: All right, well, let's pivot to that important Senate race for a second. Claudia, what are the big differences you're seeing between the Democratic and Republican candidates in this race?
GRISALES: Right. And we should note there's still a primary July...
LOPEZ: Right.
GRISALES: ...30 to narrow down the final two candidates. But it's already clear we're seeing the top candidates on both sides. And on the Democratic side, that's Ruben Gallego. He has been serving in the House for several terms now, and he is running for the Senate, representing Democrats. On the Republican side, we have two candidates. Kari Lake, of course, is the top candidate there. She did not win her campaign to become governor of Arizona.
And so when we look at the histories of both these candidates, we look out more than a year, two years out at their positions. Gallego would lean pretty hard left. And then, Kari Lake, we see her more on the side of supporting former President Trump and what some folks would say are far-right Republicans. I mean, she is still, to this day, caught up in litigation related to claims, if you will, about fraud in the election related to hers or others. And so she's a controversial figure, but we've seen her try to moderate. Democrats will argue - not successfully - but, when it comes to abortion, for example, she's tried to thread that needle very carefully because that is a major motivating issue that could be on the ballot this year.
Meanwhile, Gallego - we're seeing him moderate as well when we talk about issues on the border, immigration, when it comes to military issues - of course, he's a former Marine. But we're seeing him push more towards the middle, like we've seen, for example, border Democrats in Texas, such as Henry Cuellar, push for more immigration reform. We're seeing Gallego take that stance more.
MONTANARO: This is definitely a state that has rewarded moderates in the past and in the last several Senate races. If you've been sort of an extreme candidate, then you've really had big problems at the polls in November. And that's really hurt the Republican Party for the most part here. This is not a state that traditionally has been a Democratic-leaning state, but it certainly has been now over the last several cycles.
LOPEZ: Yeah. And Claudia, I wonder how much this race feels extra important because Democrats basically have to win every contested Senate race in the country to keep their one-vote majority.
GRISALES: Right. Exactly. So Arizona is one of those very closely watched races. Democrats are really in a tough position this year in terms of defending that majority, as you mentioned at the top. And so that's why Arizona is going to be so critical because it is a battleground. We have two candidates who have not served in the Senate before, and nationally, in some cases, with Lake and Gallego.
And so this is going to be a major test for the state and for independent voters. They have this history in that state of sending mavericks to the Senate, like John McCain, for example - people who will follow kind of their own independent streak, if you will. We saw Sinema doing that quite a bit as she served in her time in the Senate. And so that's what voters are going to be looking for. And it will be tight, so it'll be hard to say who's going to pull that out.
LOPEZ: Yeah. Well, let's take a quick break, and we'll talk more in a second.
And we're back. Let's pivot now to the presidential race. What has the campaign in Arizona looked like there, Claudia?
GRISALES: So what we're hearing a lot about is both Biden and Trump and their teams are making a lot of visits there in terms of trying to rally voters to vote for them. But, as we know earlier this year - Domenico, you reported on this - Arizona had their presidential preference voting effort where - and we've got to be clear, too, independents couldn't participate in this...
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GRISALES: ...But it gave a little bit of a clue in terms of which way the state may go. And clearly, it seems that Trump may have a lead here. We see more registered Republicans in the state at this time than Democrats, as well as - we're hearing from folks - when I was on the ground, I talked to Democrats who said, you know, right now, Biden is losing this state. And the hope is he'll be able to turn it around by the time of the election.
MONTANARO: I mean, we're definitely seeing both campaigns start to focus on Arizona. Certainly, we see Vice President Harris, for example, in the state talking about abortion rights, former President Trump making a visit there as well. Even though this is a state that the Trump campaign - you know, controversially, in Republican circles, the Trump campaign has spent very little money on advertising, for example, in a place where the race was decided by, you know, not only just thousands of votes, and they really want to see - these Republican strategists - a push from the Trump campaign all-out to try to win in a place like Arizona and not take it for granted despite Trump's consistent polling leads there.
But they've kind of been reduced somewhat since the conviction of former President Trump in New York in that hush-money trial on 34 felony counts. We've seen a bit of a bump for Biden, and that's got some Republicans concerned that the Trump campaign needs to do a little bit more in ads and in outreach.
GRISALES: And that was his first stop after those historic convictions - was Arizona, a town hall there. A lot of folks lined up outside for this town hall. There were even some that were taken to the hospital because it was so hot, and it just shows kind of the priority of this battleground state for the Trump campaign, even in the midst of his legal issues.
LOPEZ: And Claudia, you had mentioned that immigration is one of the issues that Democrats are trying to tack sort of to the center on. I wonder if there's any evidence that Biden's recent immigration actions are being felt there. Did voters you talk to - were they aware of what has happened, and do they have any thoughts?
GRISALES: When I talked to voters in Phoenix, I didn't talk to many who were aware of his work on immigration.
LOPEZ: Yeah.
GRISALES: And so I'm not sure if the message is not getting across or it's something they're not interested in, but I did hear voters tell me it's a top issue, along with abortion. That's a top issue I kept hearing from voters. And so it's possible, like some of these Democrats told me, that some of this will sink in later as the Biden campaign works to get the word out.
MONTANARO: And, of course, I mean, Arizona is a huge, you know, swing state. This is an emerging part of the country. When we talk about the Sunbelt states that Democrats have focused on, with Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina - as they see, the country is sort of changing and bringing in far more Latinos in the country, the largest growing immigrant group in the country already. Those who are under 18 are majority nonwhite in this country. So even if you shut off the border completely starting today, by 2040, it's going to likely be a majority nonwhite country as it is.
And so you've got these two areas of the country where Democrats and Republicans are focused on with the Sunbelt and the blue-wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And really, Arizona has been one of those critical places because Democrats have been able to focus a lot of their energies in one part of the state, in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is, where two-thirds of the vote generally comes from for Democrats. And, you know, Biden was able to win it - eke out a win there in Arizona in 2020. And they're looking to try to do the same thing again, although I think most strategists would say that Trump probably has a narrow advantage right now.
GRISALES: Yeah, and it will also come down to turnout, too, as, in terms of - even if Republicans have the highest registrations among voters in Arizona, it's still not clear who's going to be most energized to come out come November.
LOPEZ: Yeah. All right, well let's leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.
GRISALES: I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress.
MONTANARO: And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
LOPEZ: And thank you for listening to the NPR POLITICS PODCAST.
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