Here lives Donald Trump’s restive base of white voters unsettled by the country’s social transformation and fired up to dismantle Washington’s power structure. Here also lies the Democrats’ sleeping giant — an estimated 350,000 Latinos who are not registered to vote, but who could mobilize against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee over his incendiary rhetoric.
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This leaves the Democrats — who have withered away as the state took a hard-right turn in the Obama era — sensing their best chance in two decades to turn Arizona and its 11 electoral votes blue. They think Trump, who is campaigning in Phoenix on Saturday, is energizing a new generation of Latino voters who haven’t participated in elections before.
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The Clinton team is assessing trends in Arizona to determine whether to make greater investments here, and officials were cagey when asked to detail their strategy. In a statement, Marlon Marshall, the director of state campaigns and political engagement, stuck to the Clinton campaign’s national talking points: “We’re hearing real doubts from voters in Arizona about Donald Trump’s plans for a deportation force and his dangerous agenda on national security.”
Clinton’s footprint appears to be greater than Trump’s. His state director, Charles Munoz, is based in Nevada, and a visit last week to Trump headquarters in Mesa revealed little evidence of an active campaign. There was one worker eating lunch at his desk, a roomful of empty cubicles and, other than a small pile of plastic yard signs, no Trump paraphernalia, brochures or fliers. The GOP’s coordinated campaign has only one staffer, though party officials boast of an active volunteer corps and plans to soon open 14 offices.
