This will be their first joint campaign trip.
Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris are expected Thursday, October 8 in Arizona, a state considered one of the “battlefields” of the US presidential election and which could change the outcome.
Like four years ago, the American election will be played out in a handful of key states, considered to be able to switch to one side or the other of the political spectrum, the "swing-states".
The American political system is such that by obtaining a majority of the votes there, the candidate sweeps all of the state's top voters, thereby helping him to obtain the majority of the top voters needed to be elected.
26 Days.
@KamalaHarris was so great last night, but we keep moving onward!
Today: Kamala is in Arizona with @JoeBiden, @DrBiden will be in PA and I'm going to Nevada and Colorado.
We are going to do this!
pic.twitter.com/RRgYFOHEhk
- Doug Emhoff (@DouglasEmhoff) October 8, 2020
In 2016, Donald Trump had won the electoral college with 304 delegates against 227, winning the six major key states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Arizona.
This year, the path promises to be more complicated: according to the latest polls, Joe Biden's lead is stable in these six states, including Arizona, a Republican stronghold if there is one.
The state of militias, the wall and libertarianism
The Western American state has never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1952, with the notable exception of Bill Clinton in 1996 who won 46% of the vote in favor of a triangular.
Like Texas, Arizona is in people's minds the embodiment of deep America.
And for good reason, it is the state of birth of Barry Goldwater, unsuccessful presidential candidate of 1964 but considered as the renovator of anti-state conservatism among Republicans.
It is seen as a land of cowboys, where militias such as the "Arizona Border Recon" or the "Minutemen" are posed as auxiliary border guards to push back migrants from Mexico.
It is also the state of Joe Arpaio, "America's toughest sheriff" who enforced the law in Maricopa County (around Phoenix) between 1992 and 2017 before being convicted of racial profiling but pardoned by Donald Trump.
Demographic dynamics at work
So how to explain that the State of the Grand Canyon can ogle the left side of the political spectrum?
The answer is to be found in the demographic dynamics at work in Arizona.
The Washington Post published a detailed infographic of electoral sociology in Arizona.
The American daily believes that the state can be schematically divided into four zones.
Of these, the rural west and east seem destined to remain red.
The south of the state - from the border area to Tucson - is more likely to vote Democrat.
The risk to Republicans lies in the center of the state and its most populous area: Phoenix and Maricopa County.
It's from this Washington Post article, detailing how and why Arizona is actually a swing state.
Pretty solid reading.
It all comes down to the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, which is actually a billion different cities stuck together in Maricopa County.
https://t.co/ZCUn8agHZS
- JoDIE!
DIE!
MY DARLING!
Troutman (@LongTallJodie) October 5, 2020
This is where the election will be played out.
The county contains 53% of the state's voters.
Nine of Arizona's largest cities are located there.
And while Phoenix and Tempe have proven themselves to be firmly Democrats in the past, Peoria and Surprise are Republican.
And within these cities, it is the demography that largely explains the political differences: in the red cities, white voters represent about three quarters of the electorate.
In Phoenix, they represent less than half of the voters.
In Arizona, voters of Hispanic origin therefore represent the electoral base of Democrats.
In 2016, it was estimated that 80% of the Latin vote was won by Hillary Clinton in the state.
And the proportion of voters of Hispanic origin is only growing in the state: since 2000, that population has increased from 25% to 31%.
While for now, the white population remains in the majority, it is estimated that by 2027, the share of the Hispanic population will be in the majority in the state, according to local newspaper Cronkite News.
"Arizona is certainly one of our states most likely to change due to demographic change. The Latin American population is growing fast in Arizona, most are now of voting age," said Matt Barreto, co-founder of Latino decisions and pollster for Joe Biden, in Politico.
Democrats want to take advantage of the anger of much of the Hispanic electorate towards Donald Trump.
When he announced his candidacy in June 2015, Donald Trump described the migrants arriving from Mexico as "bringing drugs, crime, rapists" and proposed to build a "big and beautiful wall" along the border with Mexico to resolve this issue.
Since arriving at the White House, he has tightened immigration policies, complicating asylum claims at the southern border, separating migrants arriving with families and deporting people who were in undocumented territory.
Donald Trump knows he has to hold Arizona
Donald Trump is also aware that the election may be played in Arizona.
He and his relatives are making more trips there to mobilize his electorate while the Republicans seem to be losing ground.
The race for the Senate looks bad and the Great Old Party could lose the state's second seat, two years after losing the first in the midterm elections.
The president has been there in person on five occasions and a sixth visit was scheduled for October 5, canceled due to his hospitalization due to Covid-19.
And, during his last visit, on September 15, the Republican president attempted foot appeals to woo the Hispanic electorate.
Donald Trump organized a roundtable in Phoenix to address small business owners and law enforcement officials.
"Hispanic Americans strengthen our nation beyond description," praised Donald Trump.
"You are protecting our nation as members of the military and as members of law enforcement. You strengthen our communities by promoting our common values like faith, family, community, hard work and patriotism . "
Many Trump supporters say they are thrilled President Trump is in Arizona again.
This will be his 5th stop.
They are pleased with the record low unemployment for the Latino community under his presidency.
They tell me they are here to ensure he has 4 more years.
pic.twitter.com/FmK1yqfDIS
- Bailey Miller (@ BMillerFOX10) September 14, 2020
The outgoing president has posed as a defender of "law and order" by criticizing anti-racism protests in Democrat-run American cities, saying the unrest threatened businesses run by the Hispanic community.
An operation-seduction that could work, despite the words and past actions of the president.
As an article from the reference site FiveThirtyEight provocatively reminds us, "The Latin vote does not exist".
If nationally, Hispanics prefer Democrats to Republicans, the situation is more mixed than it appears: in 2016, and despite Donald Trump's words, one in five Latino voters had still voted for him.
Certain factors such as the country of origin - Americans of Cuban or Venezuelan origin tend to prefer Trump -, religion - Catholicism and evangelism push for convergence with Republicans - or the migratory history of one individual - Latinos born or long-established in the United States tend to return to the Republican fold more than those who arrived more recently - that Donald Trump has not lost ground.
Democrats must not rely on their achievements
In 2016, the Latino electorate had been at the center of Hillary Clinton's concerns, and it had notably enabled her to win Nevada.
In comparison, voters today feel neglected by Joe Biden.
"Nothing is automatic. We must deserve it", recalls in a forum Danny Ortega, lawyer and one of the defenders of the Latin community in Arizona, who enjoins Joe Biden not to take the Latin vote for granted.
"Trump and his campaign may have withdrawn their ads, they are there all the time," warns in the local Arizona Mirror daily, Liz Salazar, political advisor for UnidosUS, an association defending the rights of Latinos.
"Donald Trump's campaign is making noise in Arizona while Biden's is struggling to be heard."
Your vote will be counted!
You can vote early, vote by mail (which is the same as an absentee ballot), or join the polling place line wearing masks and gloves.
Which is best for you?
https://t.co/w3jKdmOzJd # Adelante2020 pic.twitter.com/lsQj75Ns2I
- UnidosUS (@WeAreUnidosUS) October 8, 2020
Joe Biden is also paying his toll alongside Barack Obama.
While he promises immigration reform in the first 100 days of his mandate, this promise was already in the Obama-Biden ticket program in 2018. And, if Donald Trump has shocked with his promise of "beautiful and tall wall "on the southern border and its xenophobic remarks on Latinos, the community has not forgotten the hundreds of thousands of expulsions under the last Democratic administration to date.
Among young Latinos as in the rest of the population, Bernie Sanders had better press than the candidate finally chosen by the Democratic Party.
The Vermont socialist was particularly firm on the issue of the border wall promising to destroy it.
Joe Biden simply promises to suspend Donald Trump's new construction.
A lack of clarity that could cost this segment of the electorate to Joe Biden.
Because the other enemy of Democrats among Latinos is abstention.
Indeed, despite the campaigns of several associations such as UnidosUS or Aliento urging Latinos to join the electoral lists, the latter are more abstinent than the average: only 41.5% of them had voted in 2016 in Arizona, according to the Center for American Progress.
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