AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File
- An Arizona lawmaker says GOP "extremism" has led many state voters to increasingly back Democrats.
- "The Republican party has become extreme in the age of Trumpism," the state senator told Politico.
- Arizona in recent years has become a hotly-contested swing state up and down the ballot.
In recent years, Arizona — after decades as a GOP bastion — has emerged as one of the most prominent electoral prizes for Democrats.
President Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020, the first time that a Democratic presidential nominee had carried the state since 1996. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly won a special election for his seat in 2020 and then won a full term in 2022. And Katie Hobbs was elected to the governorship in 2022, the first time that a Democrat had won the post since 2006.
This November, Democrats are hopeful that Rep. Ruben Gallego can hold the seat of retiring Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, as he's set for a likely face-off with Republican Kari Lake.
However, despite Arizona's seemingly clear shift to the left, a Democratic lawmaker recently said that the state was not as blue as it might appear, pointing to what she said was voter distaste with GOP "extremism" as a reason why her party has found success.
"The trajectory of Arizona has been steadily trending bluer on a statewide level," state Sen. Priya Sundareshan recently told Politico. "It's not because Arizona is necessarily a blue state but it's because Arizona has rejected extremism and the Republican party has become extreme in the age of Trumpism."
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Arizona, one of the key swing states that'll be hotly contested by both Biden and former President Donald Trump this fall, has become ground-zero for major issues like immigration and reproductive rights.
Sundareshan, an environmental attorney who in 2022 was elected to the state Senate from a Tucson-area district, is one of the leading Democratic legislative leaders seeking to repeal Arizona's Civil War-era near-total abortion ban — which the state's conservative Supreme Court reinstated earlier this month.
The GOP-controlled state House of Representatives earlier this week voted to repeal the law after three Republicans joined the lower chamber's Democrats to roll back the measure. The state Senate is set to vote on the repeal next week.
If the repeal passes both chambers, Hobbs, a supporter of abortion rights, is expected to sign it into law.
Top Republicans are scrambling to contain the fallout over the abortion ban, especially given the party's precarious position in critical suburbs across the country — which includes scores of voters in Arizona's populous Maricopa County.
Despite appointing three anti-abortion associate justices to the US Supreme Court who backed the demise of Roe v. Wade, Trump earlier this month stated that the Arizona court's decision went too far. And the former president has also seemingly rejected the conservative push for a national abortion ban.