Trump visit to Arizona could result in backfire
President Donald Trump returns to Arizona on Wednesday to fire up voters in one more glorious sprint across the state.
Never mind that in the firing up, he just might be taking a blowtorch to any chance he has of winning this battleground state — a state that has gone Democratic just once since 1948.
No doubt, legions of Trump fans will turn out in all their MAGA finery to cheer Trump’s every word when he arrives in Bullhead City and later, Goodyear.
But if Trump is to win Arizona, he will need more than the MAGA crowd. He will need moderate Republican and GOP-leaning independent women in the suburbs of Maricopa County to come “home” and vote for him.
As they did in 2016, before spurning one his Trumpiest supporters, Republican Martha McSally, in 2018.
These are women who, by and large, wear masks. They worry about their kids’ schooling and they heed of advice of health experts to stay out of crowds. They do everything they can to get this COVID-19 nightmare behind us so their kids can have a childhood.
Then they watch as a triumphant Trump basks in the glow of his unmasked masses, standing shoulder to shoulder during a global pandemic that has upended our lives.
“I have the biggest rallies I have ever had and we have COVID,” Trump told rallygoers in Prescott earlier this month. “People are saying whatever, just leave us alone. They’re tired of it.”
Nobody is more tired of it than moderate Republican and GOP-leaning women.
They wonder whether to send their kids to school and potentially endanger their health or to keep them home and potentially endanger their education and emotional well-being.
Enrollment in K-12 public schools in Arizona is down 5% compared to May. There are 14% fewer Arizona kids enrolled in kindergarten, which is critical for laying the foundation for educational success.
They listen as Trump talks about how we are “rounding the corner” even as the coronavirus is once again spreading in Arizona and across the country.
“We’re rounding the turn,” Trump told North Carolina rallygoers on Saturday, just a day after the U.S. broke a new single-day record for confirmed new cases. “We’re doing great, our numbers are incredible.”
They listen as Trump calls Dr. Anthony Fauci, one nation’s foremost experts on infectious disease, “a disaster” and proclaims that this highly contagious, potentially fatal disease is really not that big of a deal.
“If you have it, you have it, you get better,” Trump said at his Oct. 19 Prescott rally.
Except, of course, for the 226,000 Americans, including 5,891 Arizonans, who didn’t. And won’t as they now are in their graves, with more to come.
Count longtime political consultant Chuck Coughlin among the Republicans who are scratching their head over the rally strategy as a tool to woo the moderate voters Trump needs to button up the state.
“This would not be a surgical tool that we would use to address the constituency in question,” he told me. “That’s a nuanced audience and there’s very little nuance (in a Trump rally). It’s one thing. It’s just one thing and it’s him.”
For those who say the Republicans’ strategy is to win so big in rural Arizona that Maricopa County won’t matter?
It’s worth noting that only one Republican in modern history has run statewide and succeeded in that strategy. That would be Diane Douglas, who was elected state superintendent of public instruction in 2014 — the lowest voter turnout for a general election in the state’s modern history (just under 48%).
Coughlin says Wednesday’s visit,
Trump’s seventh to Arizona this year, is all about getting die-hard Republicans to turn in their ballots or show up at the polls on Tuesday.
“He just needs Republicans to show up right now,” Coughlin said. “They’re not showing up, historically the way they’ve shown up in the past, and Democrats are showing up in much larger numbers than they have in the past.”
Coughlin notes that as of Tuesday, 36% of GOP voters in Maricopa County have turned in ballots, down from 41% four years ago. Meanwhile, Democratic turnout is at 38%, up from 33% four years ago.
And so Donald Trump is coming to town to fire up the base and proclaim that he is so over the virus that is uppermost in the minds of moderate suburban women who are wondering if it’s even safe for their kids and grandkids to go trick or treating this weekend.
“That’s all I hear. You turn on television. COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID,” he told North Carolina rallygoers. “A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don’t talk about it. COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID.”
No doubt that line will get a big cheer when he repeats it at today’s rallies.
Keep talking, Mr. President.