Suburban women likely to be key in tight Senate race
No matter the outcome Tuesday, Arizona will have elected the first female senator in its 106-year history.
Experts say suburban women voters, from the cul-de-sacs of the communities west of Phoenix to the soccer moms of the East Valley, will be key in deciding the race between Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.
Many of these voters shared their thinking with The Arizona Republic in more than a dozen interviews, revealing conflicted feelings about the race for U.S. Senate. Even those who said they had settled on either McSally or Sinema often voiced serious reservations about their choice.
By mimicking President Donald Trump with her sometimes-salty style and conservative policy proposals, McSally lost a potential vote in Sirena Eiden, a mom and an independent voter who lives in Chandler.
Sinema won’t be getting the vote of Deeann Griebel, a Tempe independent voter who is looking for a candidate who is as religious as she is.
And Barbi Rouen, an independentminded Republican voter, is turned off by both Senate hopefuls, largely because of the nasty attack ads flying back and forth across the airwaves. She’s considering voting for Angela Green, the Green Party candidate.
“I’m just really, really torn and wanting to write in ‘Mickey Mouse,’” said Rouen, a 50-year-old from south Phoenix.
In Arizona, where independents nearly equal Republicans, winning over moderate women is essential to winning a competitive statewide contest. It’s also essential to understand them.
This is a contrast with moderate men, who at least on the GOP side, tend to vote more faithfully partisan.
These female voters identify as independent, Republican and Democrat, and tend to base their votes more on individual candidates, not just partisan labels. Many of them are turned off by Trump’s conduct but oftentimes like his policy agenda.
Women make up just under 50 percent of Arizona’s registered voters but in recent elections, have made up more than 50 percent of the vote. They tend to return their early ballots more faithfully than men, but also tend to hold onto them longer.
“They want to be for things and they want to see problems resolved,” GOP strategist Chuck Coughlin said. “They want to hear good stories about the economy . ... They want to hear solutions on big problems, like illegal immigration.”
Some independent women are still torn over their Senate vote. Their early ballots are sitting on their nightstands, on coffee tables, or, in the case of Diann Christensen, her kitchen counter.
“I need to open it and mark it,” said Christensen, a Gilbert mother of four. She said she still has no idea how she will vote in the Senate contest.
“I’m dreading it.”
Her faith shapes her political views. A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Christensen vehemently opposes abortion, so McSally scores big on that point.
But Christensen works in professional development for teachers, and also cares deeply about public education and opposed the nomination of Betsy DeVos as Education secretary because of her education policies.
She also wants a senator who will ensure that those with pre-existing medical conditions aren’t punished by a future overhaul of the health system. Given McSally’s vote to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act last year, which would have allowed states to let insurance be sold to those with pre-existing conditions with higher premiums, it’s tough for her to back McSally, she said.
And, Christensen dislikes Trump’s rhetoric and policy stances on illegal immigration and refugees seeking to resettle in the U.S.
So, she wonders, how is she supposed to square McSally’s record of voting 97.8 percent of the time in line with Trump’s position with her own beliefs?
“I’m not sure, honestly, how I’ll vote,” she said. “Independents like me cannot find a place where we belong. I’m so fed up with Republicans on the state level .... I do think that the party in power has an awful lot of influence, so I’ll have to cast my vote thinking, ‘Where does this party taken us?’ And I don’t like where this party has taken our state.”
Arizona’s Senate race is so close, political analysts say either candidate could win, giving rare hope to Democrats who have not won the seat in three decades.
But Republican intensity in the aftermath of Brett Kavanaugh’s bruising confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court appears to have countered Democratic enthusiasm, political analysts and political surveys say.
Polling before and after Kavanaugh’s confirmation puts either candidate within striking distance of the other.
“In a race that’s going to be as close as this one, every vote matters — including these women,” said Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report. “At this point, if you’re still a persuadable voter, both campaigns are courting you.”
McSally, Sinema and outside groups supporting their candidacies are intensely targeting women with TV ads, mailers, and get-out-the-vote efforts.
Both have formed coalitions of women surrogates to appeal to these voters and campaign on their behalf. Both are counting on their political bases to turn out while making a play for the voters in the middle.
Sinema’s congressional territory is composed of portions of the suburbs of Tempe, Mesa, Chandler and back into Ahwatukee Foothills in south Phoenix. It is nearly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats and she has positioned herself as a centrist who shuns party labels while serving in a deeply-partisan Congress.
Sinema has tailored her campaign to these undecided voters: Her ads don’t mention that she is a Democrat. Instead, they invoke a message of inclusiveness and bipartisanship: “She’s independent, just like Arizona,” the ads say.
On the issues, Sinema talks a lot about the need for equal pay for women and women’s rights to make their own decisions on their reproduction. More than anything, she talks about access to affordable health care, an issue in which women have — perhaps more than anyone — more at stake.
Before the Affordable Care Act, for example, women could be charged more by insurance companies and some couldn’t get insurance because they had pre-existing conditions, like pregnancies. Many women play a critical role in caring for relatives, helping coordinate care and navigating phone calls, insurance companies and physician offices for family members’ services.
Meanwhile, McSally’s congressional landscape is among the most evenly divided in the nation between registered Democrats and registered Republicans. Each party has claimed a narrow victory there in recent years.
On the campaign trail, McSally pledges to keep families safe from “heroin and the thugs that bring this poison to our communities,” a message that could resonate with moms. She tells would-be constituents the story that when she left home to attend the Air Force Academy, she was told women couldn’t serve as fighter pilots. She became one anyway, and now tells little girls they can grow up to be anything they want to be, just like her.
With her Senate run, McSally has gone all in with Trump, who recently rallied a crowd of 6,000 to bolster enthusiasm and turnout for her.
In recent weeks, McSally has also brought in national GOP figures of all stripes to help her appeal to more moderate women. Former President George W. Bush, 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Vice President Mike Pence all stumped for her.
No single issue moves women voters, Duffy said.
Those like Rouen, the independent who is liable to vote for the Green Party candidate, tend to care about qualityof-life issues, like education, the economy, national security, and issues that affect their families, like health care.
From Rouen’s vantage point, the candidates are spending too much time beating each other up instead of selling themselves.
“If I’m to believe the ads from either side, both of them are not the type of candidates that I want for the job,” Rouen said. She said she hasn’t voted for a Republican statewide candidate in the past three general elections.
Roeun wishes the candidates would put “dirty politics” aside and return to a time when candidates could respectfully disagree.
“I’m just sick and tired of our elected officials acting like children,” she said.
If she had to pick on this day, she would vote for McSally mostly because of her 26-year service in the U.S. Air Force.
“I have a military background,” she said. “That is always a huge one in my book.”
Kristina Urbano of Ahwatukee said she’s hesitant about both of the candidates but is leaning toward Sinema. Urbano is a fiscal conservative who supports Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, but is more socially liberal, particularly on issues like marijuana legalization and gay marriage.
“She seems like she’s willing to work with people and seems like she’s more willing to work with people,” said Urbano, 47. “It seems like McSally, from what I gather, she doesn’t have that type of mind-set.”
Alyson Dale, a substitute teacher and mom of seven from Mesa, is a centrist Republican who holds socially conservative views and is willing to vote for Democrats who appeal to her. For example, she is trying to decide whether she will vote for Ducey because she deems his school-funding plan inadequate.
She’s not a fan of Trump because of his decorum and “foolish” statements. But when it comes to his policies, she agrees with him almost all of the time.
“On the most critical issues to me — issues dealing with marriage and family, I’m pretty conservative,” said Dale, who is LDS. “And I think it’s important to keep a majority-Republican Senate.”
Kathleen Kahn, 34, a Republican, wants Democrats to wrest control of the Senate to thwart Trump’s agenda. She recalled voting for Sen. John McCain, RAriz., during his final election in 2016. But today, she doesn’t even know whether she will maintain her GOP registration.
“I’m voting all blue now,” said Kahn, of north-central Phoenix. “The family detention and family separation policies were horrifying to me as a mother. I’m an attorney and I found Kavanaugh’s recommendation extremely problematic.”