Arizona Boom Draws Californians and Changes Political Hue
With a growth rate second only to Nevada’s, Arizona is expanding its political clout and poised to become more Democratic. Newcomers arriving for cheaper housing and tech jobs are not the only cause of the shift but emblematic of it, said Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
The most recent example of the change is Kyrsten Sinema, the first Arizona Democrat elected to the Senate in 30 years, who won by 2.4 percentage points in 2018. (Hillary Clinton lost to Mr. Trump in the state by 3.5 points in 2016.)
“You have white noncollege voters being replaced by a significant white college-educated population,” Mr. Teixeira said. “There is a lower cost of living and relatively dynamic economy, so people are moving there because opportunities are good. And people growing up in the state are staying and becoming more educated. You put those things together and it favors a liberalizing trend.”
Purple is not blue, however. In her short time in the Senate, Ms. Sinema has carved out a reputation as a centrist whose more moderate positions have irked some Democratic colleagues. Then there is Mr. Jordan, the recent arrival from California.
He grew up as a Democrat, and like many Californians who move to Arizona, he initially felt strange in a place where people fly Trump flags and many stores post an open-carry firearm policy. But he also left home for a reason, and has come to wonder about the role of California’s liberal politics in creating the conditions that pushed him out. Now he describes himself as a moderate exhausted by the extreme ends of both parties.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/business/economy/arizona-economy-primary.html
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. . .then what?
#newrostrong
