PRESCOTT VALLEY, Arizona — Immigration and abortion rights will drive many voters to the polls across the country this election cycle, but there is nowhere in the United States where they are more pertinent than in battleground Arizona.
With early voting already underway, Arizona residents will make their voices heard on ballot measures on both topics.
One initiative would guarantee abortion rights in the wake of controversy over an 1864 law banning most abortions in the state. The law, which was quickly repealed this spring, became suddenly relevant after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had instituted a constitutional right to abortion.
Another proposition would empower law enforcement to crack down on people who are in the state illegally.
In the state, which has a 370-mile border with Mexico, former President Donald Trump’s campaign and Arizona Republicans are counting on anger and frustration over illegal border crossings and immigration to overbalance an expected increase in turnout among Democrats who want to set abortion rights firmly in place during the first general election since the fall of Roe.
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Trump goes all in on immigration
At an Oct. 13 rally, Trump and his surrogates intensified their attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration’s handling of the border. People at the rally in the Republican stronghold of Yavapai County waved signs demanding, “Secure our border.”
“Every day those border agents were on the front lines, the men and women in green, fighting drug cartels, vicious killers, gang members, sex offenders, predators, and under Donald Trump, every single one of those criminals they apprehended was kicked the hell out,” said Stephen Miller, Trump’s adviser who is credited with shaping the immigration policies during his first term.
“What happened in 2021? Kamala Harris eradicated every single Trump border policy that sealed the border shut. She not only annihilated our border, but she began using your tax dollars by the billions to smuggle, fly, bus, transport, and, in every way possible, relocate illegal aliens inside the United States,” Miller added as the crowd responded by booing the Democrats and their agenda.
Trump pledged last week to hire an extra 10,000 Border Patrol agents if he is reelected, calling on Congress to provide money for a 10% pay bump and a $10,000 retention and signing bonus.
“This will ensure that we can hire and keep the Border Patrol agents that we need to keep and bring in new ones, the really great new ones,” Trump said, flanked onstage by leaders of the Border Patrol union, which has endorsed him.
Paul Perez, president of the National Border Patrol Council, joined Trump onstage and sketched out the consequences he is expecting if Harris wins the presidency in November.
“If we allow border czar Harris to win this election, every city, every community in this great country is going to go to hell,” Perez said. “The untold millions of people unvetted, who she has allowed into this country that are committing murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries, and every other crime, will continue to put our country in peril.”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) made a stop at the Tucson Speedway racetrack on Oct. 9, telling supporters there that the southern Arizona town is “facing a historic border crisis and a historic increase in crime and fentanyl and drug trafficking and sex trafficking.”
“Kamala Harris bears the failures. She bears the responsibility for the failures of the Joe Biden regime. Don’t let her run away from a record,” Vance said.
Border and immigration dominate 2024 election matters in Arizona
A recent poll of likely voters in Arizona found that 40% see immigration and border security as the single most important matter that will decide who they vote for in November. Polls have also shown that they trust Republicans over Democrats when it comes to that crucially important topic.
Since President Joe Biden issued an executive order on asylum this summer, border encounters have fallen to the lowest levels of his presidency. Republicans point out that this shows Biden and Harris could have prevented the massive influx of illegal immigrants that has occurred during their administration, which has been higher than at any other time in history. Republicans in Arizona believe that images of migrants flooding across the border at the end of 2023 will still resonate with voters at the polls.
“Maybe there aren’t as many videos today in October as there have been in the past. Those other videos are pretty fresh in people’s minds. Illegal immigration is still a big deal in Arizona,” said Barrett Marson, a Phoenix-based Republican strategist.
Proposition 314 would empower law enforcement to arrest and prosecute migrants who cross into the U.S. unofficially. However, county sheriffs have raised concerns about the measure because it does not come with additional resources to enforce it.
“The sheriffs and I worked with the senators to help reflect the sheriff’s opinions and wishes about that proposition, but there’s no funding to actually enact that proposition,” said Sheriff David Rhodes of the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
Marson predicts the measure will pass, but it will be purely symbolic.
“That immigration proposition, it’ll pass with 65%. I don’t think it actually does anything, but it’ll pass because voters want to send a message,” Marson said. “They want something done even if this does nothing.”
Christine Jones, an attorney and a former Republican candidate who ran for Arizona governor in 2014 and Congress in 2016, said not focusing on immigration for a candidate running statewide would be political malpractice.
“In Arizona, people feel the immigration problem maybe more profoundly than in the interior states,” Jones said. “I’m not suggesting bussing migrants into small communities isn’t impactful. It is, but because immigration has been a focus in Arizona for such a long time, I can’t imagine any candidate not focusing on it if they’re running for a federal office,” Jones said.
At Harris’s Arizona rally on Oct. 10 in Chandler, she did not address the border or immigration after a visit to a border crossing in Douglas three weeks earlier.
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), Harris’s running mate, told supporters at a rally at Palo Verde Magnet High School in Tucson that border crossings are now lower than they were under Trump and mentioned that Harris supported the bipartisan border legislation that failed the Senate. He blamed Trump for tanking the deal to avoid a solution before Election Day.
“This issue should not divide us. It should unite us. She wants a solution,” Walz said.
“[Trump] came down here, he comes down to Arizona and tells you, ‘Oh, I’ll build a big, beautiful wall, and Mexico will pay for it.’ He had four years. He built like 2%. Mexico paid nothing.”
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Many voters say the border is top of mind
Ann Marie Ellis, 59, a small business owner living near Tucson, said securing the border is among the most important concerns for her because she lives near the frontier.
“We had a person come to our door in the dark the other night just to use the light from our porch,” Ellis said, who attended a Vance rally on Oct. 9 and is planning to support the Trump-Vance ticket. “Our neighbor behind us had homeless migrants in their swimming pool, showering. It’s way worse than anyone can even see.”
Crystal Tyler, who also went to the Vance rally in Tucson, said she experiences the border crisis directly as an emergency room nurse.
“I see a lot of people coming into the hospital that are quite unhealthy…we are paying for their health care and they come over here totally unimmunized,” Tyler said, adding that she had also seen many patients overdosed on fentanyl.
Trenton Richardson, 21, of Prescott Valley, said securing the southern border is a top priority even though his community is not near the worst of the problem.
“Being in a border state, it’s definitely securing the border and verifying anybody that’s coming into the country,” Richardson said ahead of Trump’s rally on Sunday, “I want to see us securing the border. I haven’t really seen it impact my personal life, but it’s affecting Arizona.”
Proposition 139 puts abortion on the ballot
Aside from their concerns about border insecurity and illegal immigration, Arizona residents will be able to express their views on a ballot measure that would create a “fundamental right” to abortion until fetal viability at about the 24th week of pregnancy, with later exceptions if a healthcare provider believes the life or mental health of the mother is at risk.
In August, the Arizona secretary of state’s office said it had certified 577,971 signatures, far more than was needed to put the proposal before voters on the ballot. The Arizona for Abortion Access coalition said it has more validated signatures than have been collected for any other citizens’ initiative in state history.
The matter is top of mind for Democrats and activists there after the state’s Supreme Court ruled in April that a 160-year-old law remained valid, banning most abortions except if a mother’s life was in danger. State lawmakers repealed the bill that month, restoring a 2022 state law restricting most abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation.
Stacy Pearson, a Democratic strategist in Phoenix, believed the movement became powerful when women began feeling comfortable sharing their stories.
“The entire conversation about reproductive rights has changed,” she said. “When Roe fell, and we were still talking about reproductive freedom, and now the word has evolved to abortion, and women are talking about their stories. When the campaign put up the flag to ask for people to give their stories, they had too many women who were willing to say; this happened to me; this is why I did it; this is why it needs to be legal.”
Harris campaign spotlights ‘reproductive freedom’ in Arizona
Harris returned to Arizona on Oct. 10 and urged state voters to support the referendum to safeguard abortion rights. She criticized Trump for nominating three Supreme Court justices who were part of the 6-3 majority that overturned Roe.
“We need to fight this battle on every front,” Harris told supporters in Chandler, “You have the chance on the state level to vote ‘yes’ on Proposition 139 to protect your right to make your own health care decisions.”
Women will have the right to choose to have abortions if she is elected, Harris said.
“Many of these bans, like the one in this state, has no exceptions for rape and incest, and it is immoral. And we know, one doesn’t have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do,” Harris said.
Walz also promised the crowd in Tucson on Oct. 9 that a Harris administration would try to restore the constitutional right to abortion nationwide.
“When Vice President Harris and I talk about freedom, it’s you, not politicians, and we guarantee you to the women in this country, you and your doctor will make the decisions when we restore Roe,” he said as supporters cheered.
First lady Jill Biden spoke at a “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” rally on Oct. 12. The rally was part of a bus tour that stopped in different Arizona towns over the weekend and featured appearances by actor Bryan Cranston, actress Sophia Bush, and abortion advocate Kate Cox.
“No one has to abandon their faith or their deeply held beliefs to agree that the government shouldn’t be telling women what to do,” the first lady said, using the same language as Harris at the appearance in downtown Phoenix. “We have to meet this moment as if our rights are at stake because they are.”
Thus, there are two huge matters at stake in the Arizona election, the effect of which political professionals are trying to discern. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) foreshadowed how these could weigh on voters in Arizona over the summer, telling the Washington Examiner, “The issue of the border in Arizona is, you know, a significant issue. But … we’ve got reproductive rights on the ballot in Arizona as well. Donald Trump took these rights away from women in Arizona, and we have swung back and forth between one abortion ban and another, and women are fed up.”
Abortion emerges as a top election concern for young women
Women under the age of 30 say abortion has become the most important matter for them in the November election, according to a survey by KFF.
Tracy Trewhella, 57, for example, who owns and runs the Bisbee Saturday Farmers Market in the southern Arizona town 11 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, described the topic unironically as “life and death,” explaining that abortion rights were a top voting concern.
“It’s extremely, extremely important. I have two daughters and a granddaughter, and I believe that they should have the same rights I had. Never in my life — I fought for a lot of things, healthcare, gay rights — I did not think I would have to fight for this, yet here we are,” she said.
Katie Drake, an independent who lives in Scottsdale, said the abortion measure on the ballot is a major motivator for her.
“Everyone should have a right to choose what to do with their body, especially when it’s a medical decision,” Drake said.
Abortion is not only a big motivator for women. Jose Melendez, a University of Arizona college student, said it was his No. 1 concern.
Ahead of the Harris rally, Melendez said, “It’s an important issue for my girlfriend and you know I just believe it should be something that’s emphasized, especially the panic of having to maybe go to California for an abortion, it’s just not worth any other option for me.”
Even some Republicans say they will vote for the measure. Casey Quinn, 26, who left a Vance rally last week wearing a Trump-Vance shirt, said she planned to support Proposition 139.
“I’m a Catholic, and I personally would never have an abortion,” Quinn said. “But, I don’t think it’s right for the government to make these decisions for women. I have a couple of friends who actually wanted to have babies but recently miscarried. The thought that this could be considered abortion care and that their health could suffer because of these laws. It’s just not right.”
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Throughout the week, a large RV with a warning to vote “no” on Proposition 139 has been parked at campaign events across the state.
Naturally, there is utter disagreement on the matter of abortion. Patty, an Arizona voter who did not want to give her last name, said restricting abortion was her No. 1 concern.
“It’s taking a life, and that sums it all up,” she said ahead of the Trump rally. “The percentage of rape victims or incest victims is maybe 2%, if that. If they throw that out as a right to do an abortion, those situations can be determined by a court. But to take a life, that’s a sin.”
