Why president chose Phoenix for next rally

Arpaio, grudges, his comfort level were all likely factors

President Donald Trump is returning to Phoenix on Tuesday for his first outside-the-swamp rally in Arizona.

The visit, his first to the state as president, will come a week after a stunning news conference in which again he blamed “both sides” for deadly violence at a weekend white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville,

President Donald Trump is returning to Phoenix on Tuesday for a rally at the convention center. MARK HENLE/THE REPUBLIC

Virginia. Those remarks reignited criticism of his tepid response in the immediate aftermath of the violence.

The Phoenix event, which will be similar to other campaign-style rallies that have become part of his routine as president, will offer an escape from the hot spotlight of Washington, D.C. — “the swamp” as he and his supporters have dubbed the nation’s

capital.

While Arizona was a frequent stop for candidate Trump, several factors likely led to his choosing the state for the rally and his first presidential trip to the West.

Many anticipate he will use the stop to repay the loyalty of his political ally, disgraced former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, with a pardon of Arpaio’s federal conviction for criminal contempt of court.

Arpaio’s office was found by a federal judge to have racially profiled Latinos during enforcement activities. He is a divisive and much-loathed figure in the national immigrant community.

Tuesday’s event will mark a return to the same venue, the downtown Phoenix Convention Center, where Trump laid out his immigration plan in a fiery speech on Aug. 31.

Trump also is strolling onto the home turf of two of his highest-profile Republican critics, U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake.

Trump and McCain, who has been undergoing treatment for brain cancer, have feuded on and off for years. In the early hours of July 28, McCain blew a hole in Trump’s hopes of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act — which critics call “Obamacare” — by casting the deciding vote to sink the Senate GOP’s “skinny repeal” bill.

At a Tuesday news conference, Trump made it clear that he still nurses a grudge against McCain, reminding a reporter that McCain “voted against us getting good health care.”

But it may be Flake, Arizona’s junior senator, who gets the brunt of any Trump attack.

Flake, who faces re-election in 2018, earned Trump’s ire as a frequent GOP detractor of his party’s nominee during the 2016 presidential race. He skipped last year’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland and never endorsed or voted for Trump. Flake may have destroyed any chance to make peace with Trump by publishing a book, “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle,” that decries Trump-style populism and protectionism and lack of civility.

But mostly, Trump is likely coming to Arizona because he feels comfortable here. Though he carried Arizona by only 3.5 percentage points over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, Trump believes he has a connection here. During the presidential race, he appeared in Arizona seven times.

“I think he’s coming back with the assumption that it’s friendly territory and that it helped him get elected,” said David Berman, a professor emeritus of political science and a senior research fellow at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy. “Arpaio’s probably on the agenda, but it just reinforces the impression he created over the weekend that he’s too close to the people who are not too thrilled about ethnic minorities. And reinforces anger that he’s already generated.”

Trump has remarked that a Phoenix Convention Center rally in July 2015 was a key moment in his then-nascent Republican candidacy.

“You know, Arizona was really my first big speech,” Trump recalled last year during an event at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. “We had a tremendous crowd . ... We don’t forget it. We don’t forget it. It was a very important day. Because I went there and said, ‘Who’s going to show up?’ And the place was packed, OK?”

Neither McCain’s nor Gov. Doug Ducey’s offices responded to requests from The Republic about whether they will attend the rally, although McCain’s presence would not be expected.

Republic reporter Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this article.