MARICOPA COUNTY, AZ – Arizona is expected to be one of the most closely watched and competitive swing states in the upcoming presidential election and the state’s largest county will play a critical role in deciding who wins this state and ultimately the White House.
Maricopa County, which surrounds Phoenix in south-central Arizona and is home to more than 4.5 million residents, is widely considered one of the key battleground counties in the United States due to its political diversity and will bring 11 crucial electoral votes to either former President Trump. or Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Maricopa County is our largest and most populous county in Arizona,” Arizona GOP Chair Gina Swoboda told Fox News Digital. “It contains over 60% of our voters statewide. They are a third Democrat, a third Republican and a third independent. It fluctuates a bit. But basically we’re a third, a third, a third.”
“We have what I would call a dense urban core in Phoenix. And then we have suburbs and it’s growing. It’s consistently one of the fastest growing counties in the United States. It’s a county diversified just because of its composition, we have urban, then we have the suburbs, then we have sort of small towns that become cities very quickly. So when you have that kind of growth, it puts a lot of pressure on a. community and because it’s 60% of the state’s population, it gets a lot of attention.“.
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Arizona’s 11 electoral votes will be critical in deciding who wins the White House in 2024 (Fox News)
Swoboda told Fox News Digital that if you want to run for office in Maricopa County, you have a “broad range of voters” and you “need to talk about their issues.”
The key issues this election cycle, according to Swoboda, are the economy and immigration.
“Inflation is the number one priority and when we talk about inflation in Arizona, we are one of the states hardest hit by rising prices,” Swoboda said. “But part of that is because of affordable housing . And it’s a huge problem in the state of Arizona, especially in the growing Maricopa area. »
President Joe Biden won the state of Arizona by less than 1.5% in the 2020 election and the results in Maricopa County were also slim, with Biden beating former President Trump by 2%.
The Harris-Walz campaign has been active in the county in recent months and the Arizona campaign team told Fox News Digital that it has knocked on 90,000 doors, conducted more than 1.7 million visits. phone calls and had 15,000 volunteers who had changed positions. the county.
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Signage directs voters to a ballot drop box to vote early outside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center ahead of the Arizona midterm elections in Phoenix, Arizona, November 3, 2022. ((Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images))
“Vice President Harris, Governor Walz, Second Gentleman Emhoff, and Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz all visited Arizona in September,” the campaign says. “Recently, Vice President Harris visited Douglas, Arizona, to tout her policies to keep Arizona’s border secure, marking her eighth visit to Arizona this year.”
Polls increasingly show Trump leading Harris with a low propensity to vote, which has become a increased concentration in Trump’s ground game. The same is true in Arizona, specifically Maricopa County, where Turning Point Action, which took the lead in organizing Trump’s GOTV efforts, has launched programs like “Commit 100” and “Chase the Vote » to mobilize these voters.
A spokesperson for Turning Point Action told Fox News Digital that the company is actively targeting 400,000 low-propensity voters in Arizona and that Republican voter registration efforts in Arizona over the past two years have “placed the ‘State in a very difficult mathematical situation for Democrats.’
Immigrants wait in line at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border December 7, 2023 in Lukeville, Arizona. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
An RNC spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Republicans have “doubled” the GOP’s voter registration advantage in Arizona since 2020 and that the RNC has nearly a dozen offices across the State as part of its Trump Force 47 initiative to “meet voters where they want them.” are.”
According to polls, nationally, immigration is one of the most important issues to voters and it’s no different in Arizona, where voters who spoke to Fox News Digital said the Immigration was a major concern despite differing opinions on which candidate would be best able to handle the ongoing crisis.
“We need to have faster incarceration at the border,” Mary of Phoenix told Fox News Digital. “And if there is suspicion that they are going to commit a crime, lock them up.”
Mary said it was “infuriating” that the recent bipartisan border deal died in Congress and said that if Harris was elected, “she would get it signed.”
Sun City West’s Nick told Fox News Digital that Harris’ immigration policies were “dismal at best.”
Former President Trump and vice presidential candidate U.S. Senator JD Vance, Republican of Ohio, appear on the first day of the Republican National Convention, July 15, 2024. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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“Control the border,” he said. “At least keep the border secure. Stop people from being able to come in who aren’t supposed to be able to come in unless they come in through the usual normal channels.”
Trump holds a two-point advantage over Harris in battleground Arizona, according to a recent public opinion poll.
The former president’s margin appears to be fueled by support from voters 50 and older. Trump represents 49% of likely voters in Arizona, and Harris 47%, according to an AARP poll conducted September 24-October 24. 1 and released Tuesday. According to the poll, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has 1% support, with 3% undecided.
“In a way, it’s like a state of its own, because 65, 68 percent of Arizona’s total population resides in Maricopa County,” said Kari Lake, a state GOP Senate candidate. Arizona, at Fox News Digital. “It’s one of those mega-counties. Frankly, I also think it’s a mega-county, but it’s a mega-county. And so it’s a really important county. What’s going on in Maricopa County can affect the whole country and really the whole world, because we know However Maricopa County can take the whole country this way, because it’s so massive, it can take the whole state this way. So it’s an important county.“.
Paul Steinhauser and Hannah Ray Lambert of Fox News Digital contributed to this report
