Arizona was once a safe Republican state in presidential elections. Though pockets of Democrats existed — on Native American reservations in the north, in Hispanic neighborhoods in south Phoenix, and in left-leaning Tucson — the heart of the state in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and its ever-sprawling suburbs, was safely GOP. That changed in 2020 when Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Maricopa County since Harry Truman. Biden did it by making gains in and around prosperous Phoenix suburbs like Scottsdale.

Four years later, these suburbs are now ground zero for the whole election, potentially deciding not only the White House but also the Senate and the House of Representatives. In many ways, the voters there are no different than those well-educated professional suburbanites who have migrated to the left in the Trump era nationally. What makes this stretch of suburban Phoenix truly different from similar parts of the country is that this is only part of the country where large chunks of the traditional Republican voters have defected en masse.

The shorthand for these voters are John McCain Republicans: acolytes of the late Republican senator and 2008 GOP nominee who have forsaken not only Trump but much of the MAGA turn of the Republican Party under his leadership. Scorned by Kari Lake during her 2022 gubernatorial run (she told McCain Republicans by name to “get the hell out” during one rally), they may have delivered the margin of defeat in her narrow loss that year and may do so again in her Senate race........

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