Some closing thoughts on #AZSen. First off, people have been wondering when AZ, w its growing Latino population would start acting like CA. It may have this election -- but not in the stereotypical way.....
AZ is further to the right than CA was when Ds took it over in 1998. Sinema won not by wooing Latinos but by targeting white women, often Republicans. She backed Kate's law and other tough-on-immigrant-crime Trumpy measures (though she never went full Trump, always backed CIR)
Ironically there are some parallels with CA circa 1998. Ds came back not with a firebreathing lefty but moderate gubernatorial candidate Gray Davis who persuaded white centrists, He won as CA voters also outlawed bilingual education and still supported anti-immigrant Prop 187.
Now in neither case was this just a story of white voters doing it alone. There was Latino registration and mobilization. But the shift starts quietly and not with abolishing ICE.
No guarantee AZ is gonna end up another CA. The underlying white voters are more conservative. Sinema was something of a sui generis candidate, running as an anti-Democrat in a way. Hard to envision the Ds' 2020 nominee replicating that.
AZ has a history of ticket-splitting and giving Ds some statewide offices, so this may be a regression to the norm. But there was a notable change in 2008 - 2018. No D won statewide during Obama's time in office, as the states sorted themselves into partisan corners.
In that sense, Rs should worry that this presages a shift rather than a return to ticket-splitting, which is a vanishingly rare phenomenon nowadays. There are a lot of young, educated voters moving to AZ nowadays. Central Phoenix is starting to look like hipster anywhere.
The party registration splits in the state are reminiscent of those in Colorado circa 2004 -- slight R advantage but Ds close and UAFs outnumbering both. There aren't as many educated whites moving to AZ as did CO but there are more Latinos there.
Not to read too much into one race but you could see the danger in #AZSen. McSally figured she just had to rally Rs to her side and the natural right lean would favor her. It didn't work.
This was a tough year for any R in a competitive race. But one thing's noteworthy....
This was a tough year for any R in a competitive race. But one thing's noteworthy....
Until Trump went full caravan, McSally generally stayed away from immigration. Despite her shifts to the right she comes from the more moderate McCain wing of the AZ GOP. But this was clearly an acknowledgement that a Trump immigration stance may not be a sure bet anymore in AZ.
Again, Abolish ICE ain't gonna cut it there either. The border and the anxieties that come with it are real. But interesting that the state of Arpaio, where Trump held some of his most incendiary immigration events, may not entirely bend that way anymore.
Final note: I stress the importance of white voter persuasion in AZ (and in CA) but you can't underestimate the importance of immigration rights activists there in laying the groundwork. I think about this w Arpaio all the time -- it was moderate Rs who voted him out in 2016 ....
But it was a ragtag band of hardcore pro-immigrant types who dogged him for years and laid the foundation for the racial profiling suit, which helped convince moderate whites to oust Arpaio. A lot of activists have likewise been working for years to help someone like Sinema win.
