There’s a deep divide in Arizona and, no, it’s not just the Grand Canyon
There were more Make America Great Again caps than masks at Mike Pence’s rally in Phoenix. Even cowboy hats gave masks a run for their money. And social distancing was not in evidence.
“I had a little debate with Kamala Harris …” Mr Pence told the crowd. “Some people think we did all right.”
The vice-president looked like a cat that got the cream. “You whooped her,” yelled a supporter. It felt a lot like 2016 again, not coronavirus-ravaged 2020.
With the president indisposed, Mr Pence had been dispatched to Arizona as the cavalry. The Grand Canyon state is emerging as a key battleground that could tip the election scales. Traditionally Republican, it is hard to see Donald Trump remaining in office without it. But Joe Biden leads here by six points according to The Daily Telegraph’s exclusive polling.
For that reason, all roads led to Phoenix yesterday. Mr Biden and Kamala Harris both descended for their first joint in-person events since becoming a ticket.
Down the road, Mr Pence sweated blood for his boss, speaking for 40 minutes outdoors as temperature soared over 37C (100F). This is a man who has twice had basal cell carcinomas removed from his face.
Mr Pence’s rally was at TYR Tactical, a supplier of body armour to the US military and police. Shipping containers were stacked behind him draped in US flags, and the vicepresident entered, pumping his fist to Free’s All Right Now.
His audience of about 200 included Latinos For Trump, Assyrians For Trump, a girl aged about eight leaping in the air yelling “Four More Years”, and a man in a suit designed to look like the border wall with Mexico. He shouted “Stop lying!” at the assembled press reporters.
Mr Pence said Mr Biden was a Trojan horse for the radical Left who wants more taxes, socialised medicine, and to pack the Supreme Court to ensure a liberal majority. He vowed to “stay on it” in tackling the virus and to forge ahead “opening up the American economy”.
His audience was jubilant about the debate, dismissing suggestions that he interrupted Ms Harris too much.
Debbie Lesko, the Republican congresswoman for Phoenix, told The Telegraph: “From one woman looking at another woman, I thought Kamala Harris came across [as] very rude, kind of condescending, smug … smirky. Then, when she pulled up her hand and said ‘I’m talking’ I was like, ‘OK, that is it’. I think her feathers were ruffled.”
Ms Lesko said she felt “very good” about Mr Trump’s chances in Arizona because the Biden-harris campaign had done no in-person canvassing due to the pandemic. “We’ve been doorknocking for months,” she said. “I’ve personally gone to swing voters and asked them ‘Are you voting for President Trump?’ The vast majority said yes. There’s real concern about all the rioting and looting.
“More people here are buying guns. They’re afraid.”
Mr Biden and Ms Harris’s first stop was to meet leaders of the Navajo Nation. The tribe’s territory covers an area half the size of England, and includes a lot of votes. They were joined by Cindy Mccain, widow of the Republican senator John Mccain. She has endorsed Mr Biden.
The Democrat ticket then embarked on a “Soul of the Nation” bus tour.
Stopping at the cavernous Carpenters Local Union hall, they spoke to 20 workers wearing masks, and sitting in socially distanced chairs.
Ms Harris condemned the Trump administration’s “reckless disregard for human life”. Mr Biden told the carpenters that Mr Trump “looks down on you” and “ignores you”.
In 2016, Arizona was the focus of Mr Trump’s policies to block illegal immigration, and he won it by four points. He has been back five times this year, and had to cancel two rallies due to his Covid diagnosis.
Since 1952, the state has voted Democrat only once, for Bill Clinton in 1996. It is turning blue due to a growing young Hispanic population alienated by the immigration crackdown, an influx of priced-out Californians, and suburban women in Phoenix apparently abandoning Mr Trump.
In the race for Mccain’s old Senate seat, Martha Mcsally, the Republican who was the first American female fighter pilot to fly in combat, finds herself down seven points to the Democrat, Mark Kelly, a former Nasa space shuttle commander.
During their debate this week Ms Mcsally declined to answer when asked if she was “proud” of supporting Mr Trump. However, she then unloaded over the president’s continued criticism of Mccain. “Quite frankly, it p----s me off when he does it,” she said.
Early voting in Arizona began on Wednesday, and up to 90 per cent are expected to cast ballots before election day on Nov 3.
At a polling station in a former furniture store in suburban Phoenix, Angela White, 40, a housewife, said: “I just came out for Chinese [food] but I saw the polling station so I’ve voted.
“I saw little clips of the [vicepresidential] debate … I didn’t watch the whole thing and I’m glad because it just looked like more arguing and interrupting to me.”
Mr Pence’s interruptions also angered Tanya Thomas, 59, daughter of a Sixties civil rights activist. She said: “Kamala won. Pence kept cutting her off. The way she conducted herself, I was proud of her. I’m voting for somebody that’s going to tell us the truth.”
There were already reports of voting problems. “They’ve only got felt tip pens in there but they bleed through, and that could lead to the ballot not being counted,” said a non-partisan election observer. “Someone asked to vote electronically instead, but the machine wasn’t set up right.”
Back at Mr Pence’s rally, Lt Col Jonathan Christie, 74, a retired US Air Force pilot, said: “Trump will win. Arizona is a conservative, God-fearing state. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want to do away with the 2nd Amendment and put 15 members on the Supreme Court, and it’s just very un-american.”
He added: “As a Christian, I really zoned-in on the president’s comment that getting Covid was an Act of God, because in days he was better. That was a great example for all American citizens, and the people of England, that it’s something not to be afraid of.”
‘As a Christian, I zoned-in on the president’s comment that Covid was an act of God as he was getting better’