2 weeks Ago By Bob Christie Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX — Doug Coleman agonized about whether to put a “Republicans for Harris’’ sign in the front yard of his home in Apache Junction, concerned about backlash, threats or other action by backers of former President Donald Trump in the heavily GOP area. In the end, the former city councilman, mayor and state lawmaker said he believed it was vital to make the statement and that it could persuade other Republicans it was OK not to back Trump in the upcoming election. “I just think it’s too important to not say anything,’’ Coleman said.
“There was an election four years ago that I think a lot of people who voted for Biden were quiet on.” Coleman said the claims by Trump backers that the election was stolen from them had no evidence, just “allegations after the fact.” “And I just thought, no, I want people to know that we’re out here,’’ the longtime Republican continued.
“And to give other people who may be thinking the same thing, who don’t want to go public, to let them know that they’re not alone.’’ In the final week of the 2024 presidential election campaign, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is hoping efforts such as the Republicans for Harris group in Arizona and a companion outreach effort to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will help peel off enough GOP and Republican-leaning independent voters to eek out a victory in the swing state. President Joe Biden beat Trump in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes four years ago.
And with polling showing Trump and Harris in a neck-and-neck race, every vote matters. Longtime Republican Doug Coleman takes a selfie with his sign supporting the Democratic nominees for president and vice president in his heavily-GOP Apache Junction neighborhood. Multiple polls show Trump making up Harris’ late-summer advantage or passing her in Arizona since late summer, according to FiveThirtyEight, which tracks state and national polling across the country.
High Ground, a Phoenix consulting and lobbying firm that does polling in Arizona, showed Trump with a lead of less than 1% as of mid-October, well within the margin of error. High Ground researcher Paul Bentz said Republican voters are more enthusiastic than Democrats and are returning early ballots at a faster clip. He said that leaves Harris relying on younger Democratic voters and independents to hold off the former president in a race that’s “an absolute tossup.
’’ The Harris campaign is also beefing up outreach to Hispanic and Black voters, groups that traditionally backed Democrats but that Trump sees as potential supporters, to ensure they go to the polls and vote for her. Harris plans a rally in Phoenix on Thursday, the day before the end of early in-person voting, with a concert by the highly popular Norteño band Los Tigres del Norte. The concert/rally is part of a concerted effort by Harris to galvanize supporters with headline acts, including Beyonce, who joined Harris at a Houston rally over the weekend that also featured country star Willie Nelson.
Other events have featured Hollywood stars and well-known politicians. Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have visited Arizona multiple times this month.
Doug Coleman's first sign in his heavily Republican neighborhood supporting the Democratic nominee for president, a sign he said was stolen so he replaced it with one for both Harris and Walz. Trump and running mate Ohio Sen. J.
D. Vance have held numerous events in Arizona in the past two months, as they have in other battleground states that will determine who is sworn in to replace Biden in January. Trump and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson will team up for an event Thursday in Glendale.
The focus on Arizona by both campaigns shows just how competitive the once-heavily Republican state has become in the past decade. Biden himself sought to boost Harris’ chances to solidify support among Native American voters, holding an official event on the Gila River Indian Reservation late last week where he formally apologized for the historic U.S.
practice of taking Indian youths from their families and putting them in boarding schools to “assimilate’’ them. Hundreds of children died at the schools in the more than 100 years they existed before the last one closed in 1969. Biden beat Trump in 2020 on the strength of his outreach to swing voters and women who were turned off by Trump.
Harris is working to replicate that success, but she has a harder road with many families struggling because of inflation despite other signs the economy is performing well. She also has to deal with national debate about the number of immigrants who crossed into this country during Biden’s term. Republicans in the Legislature seized on the hot-button border issue in Arizona by putting a measure on the ballot that, if passed, will allow state and local police to arrest people who enter the country illegally, hoping that could help the top of the ticket.
Countering those political issues are reproductive rights, which were dramatically changed when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right for women to obtain a pre-viability abortion in 2022, the last year of Trump’s term.
Harris and other Democrats are campaigning on restoring the rights eliminated when the high court struck down Roe v. Wade. Arizona and other states have abortion-rights initiatives on the ballot, measures that are polling strongly and could bring out voters sympathetic to Harris.
All of which leads back to whether disaffected Republicans can hand Harris the state’s 11 electoral votes. Republicans are not generally countering the groups that Harris supporters have organized such as Republicans for Harris, co-chaired by Mesa Mayor John Giles. And the “Latter-day Saints for Harris-Walz Advisory Committee’’ announced in Arizona last month has also drawn prominent Republicans, including former state Rep.
Joel John and ex-state Sen. Bob Worsley. Asked about the lack of any efforts to respond in kind by organizing Democrats to back Trump, Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swobota said it just isn’t worth attention.
“The mayor (Giles), among others, has been supporting Democrats for several election cycles now,’’ she said. “This isn’t news, and it certainly doesn’t warrant any of our attention,’’ she said in a statement to Capitol Media Services. “At the AZGOP, we are focused on expanding support and addressing issues that matter most to Arizonans and the American people,’’ Swoboda said.
“We are here to win and we will spend our time advocating for policies that help working people, the middle-class, and lift all boats on a rising tide with the Trump-Vance ticket.’’ Still, the number of Republicans backing Harris is growing, with former Arizona U.S.
Sen. Jeff Flake coming out in support of her in late September, joining Harris backers, including former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and others. At a telephone town hall event organized by the Harris campaign last week, Flake pushed for fellow conservatives to break with Trump and back Harris, arguing that Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election results went against the conservative Republican mantra of support for the rule of law.
He noted that Republicans who back Harris all have family and friends who back Trump, and that’s their right. “But don’t let anybody tell you that you’re not being conservative if you choose to vote for a Democrat, or you choose to vote for Kamala Harris,’’ Flake told listeners on the call. “In my view, that’s the most conservative thing you can do, is to support someone who believes in the rule of law, who believes that elections matter, and that if you lose an election you say ‘I’ll get a better argument next time and I’ll come back.
’ “But you don’t try to overturn that election,” he added. “That is a bedrock principle of the rule of law that conservatives believe in.” For Coleman, a father of six who also has signed onto the LDS advisory committee, supporting Harris is more about not wanting Trump to win another term.
He’s not concerned about Democratic policies that cut against the grain for him as a Republican. “You and I both know that policies change, and policies are temporary,’’ Coleman said. “But when you go after our governmental institutions and democracy, that is not something that can be done and changed easily.
And that’s where I feel like we’re at.’’ Coleman’s fear of retribution hasn’t come to pass, although he said his “Republicans for Harris’’ sign and one that sprouted up in the front yard of a nearby home were both stolen in recent weeks. “There were four in the neighborhood and two got stolen,’’ he said.
Coleman said he quickly went to the Harris campaign office in Apache Junction, an eastern suburb of Phoenix, and got “Harris-Walz’’ signs as replacements. But when he drove by his neighbor’s house to offer him a new sign, he found the neighbor was way ahead of him. In place of the relatively small Harris yard sign was a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood emblazoned with “Kamala-Walz’’ stoutly planted in his neighbor’s yard — and chained down.
It “looks like a fence,’’ Coleman said of the new sign. Subscribe to stay connected to Tucson. A subscription helps you access more of the local stories that keep you connected to the community.
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