The children of Rosa Rentería, a 54-year-old housewife, always vote. The matriarch of this mixed immigration status family in Phoenix (Arizona) is the one who examines the electoral proposals of the candidates, from the president to the district councils, and recommends to her people what they have to mark on the ballots. “My children are the ones who cast the ballot, but I am the one who votes,” laughs this activist for a fair immigration system, while she collects the remains of a demonstration for the cause in front of the Arizona Capitol. Renteria had always advised her daughters to vote Democratic, the party that has traditionally monopolized the Latino vote in Arizona and the rest of the country. But facing the elections this November, she admits: “Right now I am in a dilemma. “Donald Trump has done us a lot of harm, but President Joe Biden isn’t doing much either.”
A few miles away, Marcel Luengas Silva, a student of Logistics Chain Management at Arizona State University, admits that these elections “scare him.” Despite describing himself as a natural Democratic supporter, he doesn’t like any of the candidates this time. In 2020 he voted without hesitation for Joe Biden, but now he “completely disagrees” with the current president’s policy on the war in Gaza. “I don’t want to vote for Biden, but I wouldn’t ever vote for Donald Trump either. I don’t like Biden at all, but I think I’ll end up voting for him so Trump doesn’t get elected. It’s which of the two is less bad.”
Arizona is one of the six “purple” (hinge) states that are emerging as key to deciding who will be the president of the United States for the next four years. Here the big issues under debate in the electoral campaign come together: irregular immigration that enters through the border with Mexico; disinformation about false electoral fraud; the defense of the right to abortion, intensified after the state Supreme Court revived a 19th century law that prohibited it and local parliamentarians revoked it earlier this month; climate change, palpable in temperatures that in mid-May already reach 34 degrees Celsius at mid-morning outside the Capitol in Phoenix, and that are even higher in the working-class neighborhoods in the south of the city, by far pavement and few trees, where most of the Latino community lives.
![Protestors against a bill which would force all police officers to arrest immigrants without formal legal status](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/6V4OA4P2K5HTPARLRDVE75YDOI.jpg?auth=df5a3c9c5c72388dbec21f6db0abb7559f3d35b164cb1ee9b3b69d6d34736f94&width=414)
Above all, the economy is worrying. Arizona is a thriving state, on paper. Driven by tourism, clean energy and investments of more than 60 billion dollars to turn it into a large semiconductor production hub. Its unemployment rate is only 3.7%, below the national average. But the housing shortage has skyrocketed real estate prices—the average cost of a home in Phoenix is more than $400,000—which in turn has raised the cost of almost everything. Although it has now moderated, inflation was the highest in the entire country in the first years of Biden’s term.
This former Republican bastion has undergone a colossal transformation in the last decade. In 2011, it was in the news for approving a law that allowed the Police to stop on the street and demand documentation from anyone they thought might be an irregular immigrant — a measure that the Supreme Court ended up overturning for the most part as unconstitutional; since 2020, it has been for electing Democratic candidates in each election cycle, including Biden himself. And in that evolution, the Latino vote has played a key role. In Arizona, this traditionally Democratic bloc represents 25% of the total, the second largest only behind the white vote. It is a role that will increase this November, when 150,000 young Latino voters in this State are called to the polls for the first time.
Their mobilization is essential for Biden and the Democratic Party. In 2020, according to exit polls, 60% of Latino voters supported the current president, who ended up winning by just 11,000 ballots. But there are signs that, although the majority of this community maintains its support for the Democrats, a part, especially young and progressives, is disenchanted. According to a survey published this month by New York Times, only 36% of Hispanic respondents said they would vote for the current president. At the same time, support seems to be growing for Trump, who receives 26% of support, according to the poll by the Times.
“We are starting to see especially young Latino males who in this particular election are starting to show a little more affinity for the Republican Party and the Republican vote than in previous elections,” explains Lisa Sánchez, associate professor in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona.
Demotivation, a problem
But, above all, the number of those who do not feel particularly interested in one candidate or another has grown, who feel that Biden has not met their expectations and who perceive a Trump who has gone so far as to declare that irregular immigrants “are not people” as too extreme. “They are a little disillusioned and that is a problem to solve,” admits state senator Anna Hernández, now a candidate for Phoenix council district 7.
![Anna Hernandez](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/L4MWSZAN4NDA7IU56GR75M2IQU.jpg?auth=fb1e9dc2bec18f7d52f208eb0237b5ce7a715e60645863ae410c94e6d1b9ac21&width=414)
“In general, Latinos continue to be in favor of the Democratic Party and its policies, but there is great concern that they simply will not be motivated to go out and vote. Biden, in particular, needs the Latino vote and in a state like Arizona, which he only won by a few thousand votes, every vote counts. If those voters do not mobilize, and there is no effort to get them to go out and vote, that can make an enormous difference in the elections in November,” considers Professor Stella Rouse, director of the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University ( ASU, for its acronym in English).
Rouse also points to a shift in the populations closest to the border “simply because they are the ones that have to use the most resources necessary to deal with the enormous flow of migrants arriving. And that’s another thing that I think Biden and the Democrats should worry about.”
The Biden campaign looks especially closely at this State. The president traveled to Phoenix in March, when he acknowledged to the Latino community that he needed their vote “desperately.” Visits have followed from the Vice President, Kamala Harris, to defend reproductive rights, and from the First Lady, Jill Biden, who participated in the Phoenix College graduation ceremony last weekend. The campaign has also launched abortion rights ads specifically targeting Latino men in Nevada and Arizona.
A key battle for the Senate
It is something that the campaign of Democratic congressman Rubén Gallego wants to avoid at all costs in the race that will foreseeably pit him against Republican Kari Lake, a former television presenter, for a seat in the federal Senate, in one of the most intense battles of the November elections and that can decide which party will control the Upper House.
![Jessica Chavarría, My Vote](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/RWH2IOU5M5HUDFAQ5W7OLK3U64.jpg?auth=47ff34855f8b6e4cb382629f24f218855e0a2ada6249d75cd40df210566c006e&width=414)
“Go everywhere and talk to everyone” are the slogans of this son of a Colombian and Mexican mother, raised in Chicago and who represents a district that is 65% Latino. “Too often, politicians treat Latino voters as a box they must check. Our campaign is different: we are focused on community events, food tours, meetings in Spanish or a party to watch a boxing match,” says Gallego, quoted by his campaign.
The congressman, who came to the House of Representatives aligned with the progressive wing of the party, has been moderating his positions to adapt them to a public, that of Arizona, characterized by greater moderation in his positions than in other areas of the country. He included his position on irregular immigration, one of the issues of most concern in this State. He now demands stronger measures to guarantee border security and reform the immigration system, something that his campaign assures coincides with the opinion of the majority of the Latino community.
Surveys indicate that his path seems to be giving results. The congressman is ahead of his Republican rival in the race for the seat that Kyrsten Sinema will vacate in November. 45% of voting intentions, 41% for Lake, with 14% undecided, according to the poll New York Times. Another survey by the CBS television network finds that Gallego leads his rival by thirteen percentage points, 46% compared to 36% of voting intentions. Among Hispanic voters, that difference increases to 26 points, 58% versus 32%.
There are still six months until the elections, and everything has to be decided. But one thing is clear: whoever gets the majority of Latino support may well win in Arizona and, with it, take the key to the White House. Until then, Rosa Rentería will continue to demonstrate for a fair immigration system and tease out what she will recommend to her children to vote: “I have to think very carefully.”
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