President Joe Biden's visit to Arizona to designate a large area around the Grand Canyon as a national monument showcases his work on conservation and clean energy in a state that ultimately could determine who will become president in 2024.
Recent polling indicates Biden is facing an uphill battle to repeat his narrow 2020 win in the state. Nationally, Biden has a 41% approval rating, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released in late July. A survey released earlier this year by Morning Consult found Biden’s approval rating is underwater in Arizona by 17 percentage points.
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“Here in Arizona is still some of the most expensive gas in the country. So we're dealing with that,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican consultant in the state. “Phoenix is still one of the highest inflationary metropolitan areas in the country, so we are still really dealing with a lot of the effects of the last couple of years.”
Former President Donald Trump isn’t doing particularly well in the Grand Canyon State either. A new survey from Emerson College Polling found the leading GOP candidate in the 2024 presidential race with nearly 45% and Biden with a little over 43% in Arizona, a 1.5-point difference. Biden polls even worse with independent voters, with his approval underwater with this key bloc of voters at 38%.
Independent voters in Arizona continue to outpace those affiliated with the Republican and Democratic parties. According to a quarterly report released by Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in July, of the nearly 4.2 million registered voters in the state, 1,450,697 have no party affiliation. In comparison, the state has 1,445,127 registered Republicans and 1,260,659 registered Democrats.
“I think the only way Joe Biden gets Republican or a lot of independent votes is if Donald Trump is the nominee,” Marson explained. “There are Republicans here that will hold their nose and vote for Biden because they can’t stand Trump. Shoring up his base and reaching out to independent voters is important. This new move to protect the Grand Canyon from mining is generally supported by most voters that live here.”
Earlier this summer, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics published its first forecast of the 2024 Electoral College contest and rated Arizona as a “toss-up.” Cesar Chavez, a former Democratic state lawmaker, said it’s clear these statistics are driving Biden’s travel schedule.
“I think these trips definitely work. I do believe that the Biden administration needs to do a better job at getting their narrative out there,” Chavez said.
Biden’s visit to Arizona on Tuesday also shifts the state’s unpredictable 2024 race for Senate back into the spotlight, which could become a three-way race. The election could feature incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who left her party to become an independent last year, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), the progressive likely Democratic nominee who announced his run in January, and Kari Lake, a polarizing conservative who lost her election for governor last year.
Over the last couple of months, the race has been at a standstill. Sinema has not yet said if she is running for a second term. The only Republican in the race, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, announced his candidacy in April but is widely considered an underdog if he were to face Lake in a primary, who also has not made her intentions to run official. Gallego appears to be the only candidate actively campaigning, holding multiple monthly town halls across the state.
Gallego met with Biden on the tarmac in Arizona on Monday night and discussed his Extreme Heat Emergency Act that he unveiled last month. The bill would add high temperatures to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's list of major disasters, which would then allow the agency to supply federal aid to combat the problem.
"I do think he should be doing more," Gallego said to ABC News."It is a very, very big problem, especially in the Southwest, but also other parts of the country, and helping us pass this legislation, or using any type of executive action to allow FEMA and states to declare emergencies is extremely important, especially for us to get the funds that we need to create the programs to save people from extreme heat."
According to Democratic sources, Sinema planned to attend Biden’s event in the state. Just days ago, she criticized the Biden administration and congressional Democrats’ immigration policies during a recent visit to Yuma.
“The longer the federal government refuses to offer real solutions, the more our small border towns must unfairly shoulder the burden of the border crisis,” Sinema said in a statement last week. “We can deliver lasting solutions by bringing folks together, listening and staying laser-focused on results – and that’s exactly what I’ll keep doing.”
“I mean, look, she's the senior senator from Arizona, so I’d expect her to be there,” Marson said. “She has been a major thorn in his side, but at the end of the day, she has voted with him a significant amount of times, even if she has extracted changes.”
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New polling shows Gallego leading Lake and Sinema in a hypothetical matchup. The Arizona Public Opinion Pulse report from Noble Predictive Insights found Gallego in the lead with 34%, compared to 26% for Lake and 25% for Sinema, who would be running as an independent.
“Congressman Gallego’s strength in head-to-head match-ups shows his appeal across various demographic groups, making him a formidable candidate in this race,” said Mike Noble, chief of research. “However, Senator Sinema’s entry could create a more complex electoral landscape, given her ability to draw support from Independents.”