Five days before Election Day, the battle for Arizona has grown so fierce that Blake Rebling keeps losing his “Republicans for Harris” yard signs.
One was thrown into an alley, Mr. Rebling, 38, said. Others were nabbed at night. Last weekend, his children drew their own replacements, adding in green marker, “Don’t steal this sign!”
Four years ago, the family’s upper-middle-class neighborhood was part of a leftward shift across metro Phoenix that helped President Biden capture Arizona by 10,457 votes. It was Mr. Biden’s slimmest margin of victory in any swing state, and the first time a Democrat had won Arizona since 1996. Now, their leafy street is part of a fast-changing state torn in two — divided over abortion rights, immigration and festering distrust in elections.
Hanging over everything: Will a state that has been drifting Democratic in recent years reverse course and give former President Donald J. Trump a second chance?
Down the street from Mr. Rebling, Tim Harding and his family hoisted a Trump flag and planted yard signs saying, “Take America Back!” Mr. Harding, 45, said his house-painting business is suffering because of higher costs and a slowdown in home sales. He is one of thousands of new voters who moved to Arizona from California, and said he was eager for his first vote here to be against the liberal politics he had fled.
“Another four years of that?” Mr. Harding asked. “It’s really scary.”
As both parties brave the unseasonable late October heat to ring doorbells and barnstorm far-flung corners of the state, on the hunt for remaining undecided voters, they each have compelling cases for victory in a state whose politics are being transformed unpredictably by new residents like Mr. Harding and the rapid growth of U.S.-born Latino voters.
The campaigns are focusing on Maricopa County, a sprawling region of more than 4.5 million that encompasses Phoenix and its suburbs, and where about 60 percent of Arizona’s voters live. Votes in the state’s conservative rural areas and its liberal bastions of Flagstaff and Tucson often cancel each other out.
Despite recent Democratic gains, Republicans believe Arizona will revert to its longstanding status as a conservative state this year, with voters turning out to express their feelings about the migrant crisis on the southern border and return Mr. Trump to the White House. Most recent surveys show Mr. Trump with a slim but persistent lead in Arizona, and Republicans say they are confident they will maintain narrow majorities in the State Legislature and even give a late lift to the struggling U.S. Senate campaign of Kari Lake, a fiery Trump ally.
“You are seeing a lot of enthusiasm from Republicans to go vote early, where there’s just not as much enthusiasm from the Democrat side,” said Halee Dobbins, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign. “We are not taking anything for granted, but we know Arizonans are sick and tired of failed Democrat policies.”
Three weeks into early voting, Republican turnout is higher than it was at this time in 2020, while Democratic turnout is down, according to an analysis by Sam Almy, a Democratic consultant who tracks ballots. After being told by Mr. Trump not to trust mail voting during the coronavirus pandemic, the party has made an about-face and embraced it: Republican voters have returned 128,000 more ballots than Democrats, and Republican strategists say they expect the Election Day vote to favor their side, too.
“It looks like there’s a coming back home of Republicans in suburban areas,” said George Khalaf, a Republican pollster in Phoenix and the president of the survey firm Data Orbital. “We’ve reverted back to what made Arizona a pretty center-right state. Immigration was dominating, and economic issues as opposed to education and health care.”
Democrats also see Mr. Trump as helping their cause. His high-profile rally at Madison Square Garden in New York last weekend featured a barrage of racist and misogynistic insults from speakers, which could remind voters of their disdain for the former president’s brand of politics. He has bragged about appointing the conservative Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, which has made abortion a key issue for Democrats and independents. The specter of Mr. Trump has helped Democrats win recent statewide races in Arizona, including two U.S. Senate seats.
Still, Democrats, as is their wont, are prone to fret.
“I’m like, ‘Everything’s going fine,’ and then I’m like, ‘Oh, the barn’s burning,’” said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic consultant.
But they are quietly encouraged about the strength of their ground game. Democrats believe that Arizonans will turn out en masse across party lines to protect abortion rights, and they dream of a miniature blue wave delivering them majorities in the Statehouse, flipping two competitive House seats, electing Vice President Kamala Harris and sending Representative Ruben Gallego to the U.S. Senate.
Tory Gavito, the president of Way to Win, a hub for left-wing donors and organizers that has poured $4 million into Democratic groups in Arizona, said Democrats have been able to muster the full weight of their turnout operation in the state this cycle after being limited by the pandemic in 2020. The local groups that Way to Win coordinates with, she said, are on track to knock on five million doors by Election Day.
“That’s the stuff that matters when you’re in a contest for your life,” Ms. Gavito said. Still, she acknowledged, the state feels like “a jump ball.”
Because the Arizona electorate has grown, Way to Win estimates that Democrats will need to turn out 1.7 million voters to win — about 30,000 more than backed Mr. Biden four years ago.
The bulk of that, they hope, will come from the Democratic base, which includes groups like young people, Latinos and Native Americans, as well as from a cohort of moderate Republicans and suburban independents who have moved leftward in recent years. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a Democrat and a former Navy combat pilot, flew himself around the state last week in a small plane to court those demographics in rural areas.
Arizona Democrats also say early voting data has gotten rosier in recent days after a rough start. They believe that they are on track to win independents by a large enough margin to carry the state, and that Latino and young voters are just now beginning to return their ballots in large numbers, according to a person familiar with the Harris campaign’s data analysis. Deep blue Pima County, home to Tucson, was also delayed in reporting early returns, leading to a redder than expected early picture of the state.
Sean McEnerney, Harris’s campaign manager for Arizona, said he was confident because the party had already experienced success in recent cycles, and because “this organizing operation is leaps and bounds ahead of what we’ve done.”
“We need to run through the tape as a campaign,” he added.
There is much for both sides to worry about in a year when Arizona feels like a crucible of the most contentious issues animating voters.
Phoenix briefly had the country’s highest rate of inflation, and housing costs remain unaffordable for many voters. An 1864 law that banned nearly all abortions was revived in the spring before being repealed. For months, the busiest stretch of the 2,000-mile southern border was south of Tucson. And voting misinformation has so roiled the state that several Republican officials are facing criminal charges in elections cases, and the Democratic secretary of state has taken to wearing a bulletproof vest.
Down the street from the Reblings, Jason Liakos, 46, planted signs in his yard endorsing Mr. Trump and Jesus Christ. There was a Harris banner two doors down, and three Trump-supporting homes at the end of the block. Residents say they try to divine how their neighborhood is shifting when they walk their dogs, counting the signs and comparing the visible support with November 2020.
“Arizona’s so hard to tell,” Mr. Liakos said. “At moments, I have this strong feeling Trump’s going to win. Then you get polls showing it’s neck and neck.”
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