Political realignment in Arizona?
October 2023
Strange times in Arizona politics right now. Both of the major party coalitions seem to be in flux, and neither party seems positioned to capture the growing number of independent voters in our state.
The strange dynamics were on display during a presidential visit last week.
President Joe Biden visited Phoenix to pay tribute to the late Senator John McCain. The occasion was to help announce the construction of the McCain National Library, to be built near Papago Park in Tempe under the umbrella of Arizona State University. The library will be dedicated to the preservation of democracy and the promotion of civic ideals.
A major theme of Biden’s speech was that American democracy is in jeopardy, the threat coming from the political party that nominated John McCain for president in 2008. Biden said it wasn’t a majority of Republicans who share this ideology, but that the party is driven and intimidated by extremists:
There’s something dangerous happening in America now. There's an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy: the MAGA movement.
No surprise, the Arizona Republican Party didn’t release any statements honoring John McCain. Instead, the institutional channels of the GOP bashed Biden for neglecting the southern border.
Former Governor Doug Ducey (R) was in attendance to honor McCain, a reminder of a simpler time in our politics.
Today, the face of the Arizona Republican Party is Kari Lake, a former television newscaster and current Trump loyalist who still claims to have won the 2022 gubernatorial election even though she lost to Katie Hobbs by 17,000 votes.
When Lake won the Republican primary for governor in August of 2022, she accepted the result. And then afterward, she flew to Texas to attend a gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). To the audience there, she gloated about her victory over a more traditional conservative candidate, proclaiming, “We drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine.”
Biden delivered a warmer message about McCain in his speech here last week:
John’s one of those patriots, when they die their voices are never silent. They still speak to us. They tug at both our hearts and our consciences, and they pose the most profound questions. Who are we? What do we stand for? What do we believe? What will we be?
Many traditional conservatives have been scratching their heads about the current predicament. Keep supporting the GOP in its present configuration? Who else is there to support?
In the past, Republicans have supported low taxes, free markets, and the rule of law. Each of these factors is a recipe for business success, which is why Republicans have historically enjoyed support from the business community.
These days, Republicans are slipping on their commitment to free markets and the rule of law. It’s anybody’s guess what policies a consolidated MAGA government would enact. The only certainty is that it would be a chaotic spectacle. The campaign promise is to deliver “retribution” — whatever that might mean.
Some in the Arizona business community are looking for options outside the GOP, according to a recent report in The Messenger. That includes a willingness to back traditional Democrats.
But it might be hard to find pro-business Democrats who can emerge victorious in a competitive primary.
As much as Joe Biden can sound like a normal throwback politician, Democrats are not exactly having a normal time right now.
For one thing, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who helped Democrats win a U.S. Senate race in Arizona for the first time since 1988, is now an independent.
Sinema angered the party’s base by voting against a federal minimum wage increase, opposing a corporate tax hike, wanting to keep the Senate filibuster, and generally having an attitude of not caring what the party base thinks.
Sinema wrote an op-ed after her decision to go independent, explaining the problem:
Everyday Americans are increasingly left behind by national parties’ rigid partisanship, which has hardened in recent years. Pressures in both parties pull leaders to the edges, allowing the loudest, most extreme voices to determine their respective parties’ priorities and expecting the rest of us to fall in line.
In the op-ed, Sinema declared her independence from party pressures, but also reaffirmed some of her policy commitments: She is pro-choice on abortion. She is against tax hikes. She wants to secure the southern border in a humane manner, and she wants to protect the “Dreamers.”
If Sinema runs for re-election as an independent, she will look to draw votes from Republicans, even though she still caucuses with Democrats, and even though she twice voted to convict a Republican president (Trump) during impeachment trials.
Questions heading into a Sinema for Senate 2024 campaign, assuming she runs:
Will Biden endorse Sinema or Democrat Ruben Gallego? Or neither?
Will Sinema endorse Biden if the presidential race is between Biden and Trump?
Will a traditional conservative bother to challenge Kari Lake, who is planning to run in the GOP Senate primary?
Will moderate conservatives split from the GOP and endorse Sinema if Kari Lake is the GOP nominee?
Will Sinema’s run create a new lane in Arizona politics, maybe even a new party? Or will it be a futile exercise that throws more power into the hands of the MAGA movement?
Another reason why the Democratic Party coalition is in flux is that the party’s insular progressive ideology has become an obstacle to the goal of appealing to everyday Americans.
According to political analyst Ruy Teixeira, progressive Democrats are out of touch with everyday Americans on a range of issues, which is why they are losing ground with the non-white working class and the working class in general while making gains with wealthier, college-educated voters.
Inflation and high interest rates are harming working class Americans more acutely than wealthier Americans, making “Bidenomics” a harder sell to this group. And public safety concerns are making “tough on crime” messaging from Republicans more appealing.
Representative Ruben Gallego is a Democrat who is liberal on economic policy but has some experience pushing back against the progressive puritans in his party. His life story gives him the ability to speak authentically to the working class. He grew up in poverty and worked to support his family before attending Harvard and enlisting in the Marines. It will be interesting to see what kind of Senate campaign Gallego puts together as 2024 approaches.
In summary: Republicans are driving away college-educated voters who care about the longevity of the constitutional order. Democrats are driving away economic and cultural moderates.
What happens next?
Democrats could modulate their messaging, broaden their tent, and welcome pro-business moderates into the fold. But it largely depends on what kinds of candidates their primary voters pick.
Republicans could lose badly enough that sane voices start to become competitive in statewide primaries. But this probably won’t happen because the polls are still close and losing has become like a victimhood merit badge for MAGA politicians.
One more possibility: Structural reform could create a release valve to ease partisan tensions.
A proposal to reform our primary system is in the works. Two of them, actually, but I’ll just highlight one.
The Make Elections Fair initiative is trying to get on the ballot in 2024. It would amend the state constitution to create an “open primary” system, eliminating the partisan process of selecting general election candidates. The initiative would direct the state legislature and the governor to come up with specifics for how many candidates would emerge from a nonpartisan primary into the general election.
The entrenched beneficiaries of the current primary structure — maybe you could call them “the establishment” — are opposed to this reform, as you might imagine.
It will be a long campaign season. The partisan brinksmanship will likely get worse before it gets better.
If a primary election reform initiative passes, it wouldn’t go into effect until 2026.
Political realignment that leads to more pragmatic governance would take even longer than that.
Hopefully we can sustain our wits until (fingers crossed) a healthier politics emerges on the other side of 2024.
Good balanced read on the state of our politics. We are a mess because only the diehard partisans get involved in the primary process and we end up with the extremes to vote for in the general election. I feel the pain living in Andy Biggs's district and am seething at the moment with his actions.
Good analysis,...many possible scenarios