Donald Trump swept battleground states in the 2024 election. Ballot counting in Maricopa County – the epicentre of election denialism in 2020 – is still underway, though Trump has already claimed victory. Forbes Australia is on the ground in Scottsdale talking to voters about what matters to them.
Of the four battleground states that are still outstanding in the 2024 election, Harris is strongest in Arizona. Trump won North Carolina and Georgia confidently, and has a significant lead in Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. He is also ahead in Arizona, but the delta in the Grand Canyon state is just 16,000 votes.
Arizona holds 11 electoral college votes and was controversially won by Joe Biden in 2020. In the two Presidential elections before that, Arizona was held by the Republican party. Sixty per cent of the state’s voters reside in Maricopa County, a district that encompasses the capital city Phoenix, as well as popular suburbs Mesa, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, and Tempe.
“When Biden won in 2020, it was the first time in a generation a Democrat claimed the state at the presidential level. It was a narrow victory – 10,457 votes,” says Caitlin McGlade, a reporter with the Arizona Republic publication.
The Democratic party has struggled to win over the Arizonan electorate this time around. Instead, the Trump Train powered rigorously through the state, and metaphorically through much of the country.
Arizona’s Trump Train
Arizona born and raised Jacob Chacon has spent the day at polling stations throughout Maricopa County. The 23-year-old is a full-time staffer with the conservative non-profit ‘Turning Point.’ Chacon describes himself as a male, Hispanic, Catholic Trump supporter.
“We launched an operation of 20 buses where we’re going from polling locations with long wait times. We’re asking voters ‘would you like to go to one with shorter wait times? We have water and food on the bus, so come on over,” says Chacon, sitting at the Indian Bend Wash Visitor Center polling centre.
The pink buses Chacon is talking about transported both Harris and Trump voters to alternate polling locations in Maricopa County on election day. It was nicknamed the ‘Trump Train.’ It is a useful metaphor for the unrelenting steamroll the Trump campaign has had across the country.
Chacon is not surprised with the outcome of the election.
“Why I’m so passionate about Trump and JD Vance is their understanding of forgotten Americans throughout the whole country,” says Chacon.
“I come from a long line of conservative Democrats in my family. We saw Donald Trump talking about trade issues, manufacturing, the fact that we’re shipping thousands of jobs overseas and leaving American workers behind. Our southern border issue, the opioid epidemic.”
The organisation he works for, Turning Point, was founded by political activist Charlie Kirk in 2012. The nonprofit is headquartered in Phoenix and active on university and school campuses in Arizona. Chacon has been a part of Turning Point for 12-months.
“I build our coalitions – getting people of faith to interact with people of faith, Latinos to talk to other Latinos – in the off-years so we have those relationships for the election year,” says Chacon.
Election controversy in 2020
The last Presidential election year – 2020 – was highly contentious in Arizona,
“We had a fraudulent election, a corrupt election, and we have an illegitimate president sitting in the White House,” 2024 Arizona Republican Senate hopeful Kari Lake said of the 2020 election outcome.
Forbes reported in 2021 that “the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate launched an audit into Maricopa County’s election results after former President Donald Trump insisted — without any evidence — Trump’s loss in Arizona was due to fraud.”
The controversy lead to a hand recount of 2.1 million Arizona ballots.
It is also alleged that President Trump called Republican Governor Doug Ducey in 2020 to overturn Arizona’s presidential election results, according to reporting from the Washington Post. Ducey did not do so. A spokesperson for the former Governor said he “stands by his decision to certify Arizona’s election results because no ‘credible complaints’ of election fraud were brought forward,” Forbes reports.
80 per cent of Arizonan voters send ballots by mail
Karen Gresham is a candidate for the Arizona state House of Representatives election, representing District 4. It is a district which encompasses Maricopa County.
On election day, Gresham spent time at the Paradise Valley Town Hall polling station meeting constituents. She notes that in recent Arizona elections, mail in voting is more popular than showing up to vote in-person.
“Eighty per cent of voters – from both sides – vote by mail in Arizona,” Gresham says. “We start voting a month before election day. It’s easy and you can get it done early.”
Gresham is a member of the Democratic Party and voted weeks ago.
“I voted for Kamala Harris. I agree with her values and we can’t have a dictator in this country,” says Gresham.
Phoenix-area Uber driver Paris Lopez has a different perspective.
“I think the Democratic Party’s values have changed,” says Lopez who acknowledges she voted for Trump. “They went from really caring about America and the people – the middle class, lower class, the migrants and the minorities – to, I believe, becoming very money hungry and letting their egos get the best of them,” says Lopez.
The single mother of three children under 11-years-of-age has been driving for Uber for five years.
“I see a lot of people who are Democrats losing faith in the Democratic Party,” says Lopez. “They just don’t see eye to eye with Kamala’s policies.”
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