The NPR Politics Podcast - Dueling Arizona Ballot Measures Could Juice Voter Turnout

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

As abortion access advocates canvas the state gathering signatures to get a ballot initiative in front of voters, Republican lawmakers in Arizona advanced an immigration enforcement referendum of their own. Both are likely to drive turnout in November's election, though figuring out exactly who that benefits is complicated.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, politics reporter Ben Giles, and national political correspondent Sarah McCammon.The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Tara. Proud mom here. I'm here in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., and I'm here today to attend a U.S. Naval officer promotion ceremony for my daughter, Elizabeth. This podcast was recorded at 12.09 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, June 12th of 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Congrats. Ah, proud mama moment. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.

And I'm Ben Giles. I cover the campaign. And Ben, a big welcome to you. I feel like listeners probably will recognize you and your voice. But welcome, welcome. You are now officially a part of our NPR Politics team. Thank you. So happy to be a part of this. Very glad to have you. Welcome, Ben. Well, today on the show, we are going to head down to Arizona, where you are, because there are competing forces at play with ballot initiatives there. And, you know,

we often talk on the show about issues of immigration and abortion access. But, Ben, there in your state of Arizona, it seems like these very issues will literally be on the ballot for voters to decide on this November. Tell us what's going on. Right. Well, the first one that we've been, I think we've talked about before on this podcast, is an abortion access ballot initiative. Now, I should note that that's not officially qualified for the ballot yet. There are still volunteers in the field gathering signatures to put a measure on the ballot that would enshrine access to abortion in the state constitution. It would allow abortions up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy. And then there would be some exceptions that would allow for abortions

after those 24 weeks as well. It's not a certainty yet, but they have done a great job so far of collecting signatures. As of about a month ago, they had a half a million signatures in the can. They need just shy of 400,000 signatures to qualify. Their goal, their stated goal is to gather a total of 800,000 signatures before a July deadline to qualify for the ballot. So it seems all but certain that this will be a choice that voters will have in Arizona come November. Now, there's another measure that's definitely going to be on the ballot because that was referred to the ballot by the Republican-controlled state legislature here. And that's an immigration measure that would make it a state crime to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, to cross from Mexico into the U.S., anywhere other than a legal port of entry. Now, that's already illegal federally. But as we hear from Republicans in Arizona and border states across the country, we hear concerns that the federal

government is not doing its job. And that is the justification here for Republicans to send this measure to the ballot because they say the federal government has created a problem. Arizona needs the means to help fix that problem. And that would be a measure very similar to Texas's SB4 that would allow local law enforcement to crack down on people crossing the border. here. The reason with this abortion initiative that they want to get so many extra signatures is because a lot of these have been challenged in other states, right? There's been a lot of pushback to getting these on the ballot, so they want to make sure they have plenty. Is that the strategy? Absolutely. That is always a part of the ballot initiative game in Arizona. The Republican controlled state legislature has made it easier and easier year after year to find ways to challenge the signatures that were gathered or challenge the legality of measures that are proposed by citizens and put on the ballot. So having a buffer of more than twice the number of signatures that you need to qualify

is a failsafe against those expected legal challenges. But it's also at this point a bit of a show of force just to maybe deter some of those legal challenges from even being filed because arguably, you know, you could throw if they get 800,000 signatures, you could throw half of them out and they'd still qualify. So it's a bit of an I'll show you from abortion activists in terms of how many signatures they're aiming to gather for this measure. So I want to talk about the politics here, because it seems like on the surface, the abortion ballot measure would presumably benefit Democrats. You mentioned the immigration ballot initiative put forth by Republican lawmakers. So is the presumption there that it will benefit the Republican Party this November? And is that how you're seeing things track? I mean, it seems like these both are intended to

boost voter turnout in a partisan way. Well, I think in the case of the abortion access initiative, boosting turnout is sort of a cherry on top of the situation for getting that passed. In and of itself, it's viewed as a necessity here because we have currently in effect a 15-week abortion ban. And then it was also kind of given a shot in the arm earlier this year when the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an 1864 near total abortion ban was actually the law of the land in Arizona. That has since been repealed by the state legislature. But still, it's really sparked a fire about the conversation on abortion access in Arizona. So in and of itself, there is a need, the proponents of this measure will say, to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution. And then there are a

lot of Democratic candidates from President Joe Biden here to Congressman Ruben Gallego running for U.S. Senate who are campaigning for and alongside the abortion ballot measure because they do see it as a good through line for Democratic campaigns. They see it as a winning issue and they see associating with that as a winning message for their own campaigns. On the flip side, yes, Republicans do view immigration as a key issue here in Arizona, where voters do feel like there is a problem at the border with the number of border crossings that are happening day to day here in Arizona. And they do feel like staking out a position of we're going to try locally to solve a problem that the federal

government has created and failed to solve, they do see that as a winning issue. But there's also concern, I think, from the business community and from Latino voters who view this as very much like SB 1070, that infamous 2010 immigration law that also tried to create a local law enforcement mechanism to crack down on illegal border crossings. There's a concern that this could be a bit of a double-edged sword in that, yes, it might drive Republican turnout, but it also might drive turnout among groups who are against this immigration law and then might also vote for Democratic candidates when they head to the polls in November. So I'm really curious to see what happens in Arizona, you know, with, as we've talked about, both of these issues going before voters. And as Ben said, you know, it's hard to tease out exactly who will be motivated by this immigration proposal. But we have heard, you know, for months,

as we've been on the campaign trail, so many Republican voters in particular highlighting immigration as one of their top issues. So here we have really these two motivating issues on both sides of the aisle coming before voters in a single state. It'll be really fascinating. I want to ask you about the effects we've seen so far when abortion has been put directly to voters in other states. What have we seen? Right. Democrats and abortion rights activists have been really excited about this option the past couple of years since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, because there's been a lot of energy around abortion. I mean, Ohio is a good example. Last year, the state's voters

pretty overwhelmingly approved an amendment protecting abortion rights. That came after, you know, Ohio's very restrictive abortion law had taken effect as a result of the Dobbs decision. It had prohibited most abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest. And those kinds of laws and the stories that stemmed from them really got voters' attention. Democrats know that, abortion rights activists know that. And so they've really prioritized the past couple of years trying to get these kinds of ballot initiatives before voters, especially in important states like Arizona, as well as Florida. And so I think there's a lot of excitement about the potential here. And it's twofold. One, most of the advocates

for these initiatives will say they're very focused on abortion, specifically on preserving access or restoring access in this post-Roe era. But at the same time, of course, political strategists are well aware that the polls say that key Democratic voting groups like women, voters of color and younger voters are especially concerned about the abortion issue. And so they realize this is an opportunity to to galvanize their base around other issues and candidates at the same time. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment. And we're back. And Ben, you were saying earlier that it's not super clear cut just who this immigration ballot measure might motivate. But I do want to ask you a little bit more about this, because this immigration initiative is coming after we've seen like legislation in Congress on immigration just get hold up. You've seen this recent executive action by the president. It is an issue that we see time and again is a big vulnerability for President Biden. And it's hard to separate out

the policies from the presidential politics at play because Arizona is a real competitive state. Yeah, but I do think Arizona voters are capable of having a really nuanced view of the border. They do view immigration as an issue in terms of, you know, the sheer volume of people who are attempting to cross over from Mexico into the U.S. But there also are traditionally conservative blocks of voters who, yes, see immigration as an issue, but also aren't for this ballot measure that was referred by Republican lawmakers because of the state's troubled history with immigration measures in the past.

Like I mentioned, SB 1070, that was a real black eye on the state of Arizona for a number of years. The business community saw that as a detriment to their bottom line, to operating a business in Arizona. And they aren't in favor of drudging up that history with a ballot measure that opponents will argue will lead to the racial profiling of brown people in Arizona. Sarah, I want to ask you a somewhat related question, because I know you were out covering former President Trump in Nevada the other day. It seems like he is devoting increasingly resources to try to chip away and gain a little bit more support with Latino voters.

What are you seeing? Right. I mean, the campaign has touted the, I think, off-sited statistic about some of the apparent growth in the Latino vote for Trump in 2020 compared to previous years. They want to capitalize on that. And so, yes, you know, they announced over the weekend in Las Vegas, this is Nevada, a neighboring state to Arizona, which of course has a significant Latino population, sort of a rebranded outreach effort. They're calling it Latino Americans for Trump, used to be Latinos for Trump. Not clear, you know,

how much they're investing in this campaign. The Trump campaign is very quiet about the number of staff they have, for example, in various areas. But, you know, they made this push in a state, again, with a very large Latino population. And the messaging that they're using focuses on the idea of immigration being okay, but it has to be legal. And it was interesting because in the same breath, we heard Trump touting some of his kind of well-worn anti-immigrant rhetoric over the weekend at that same rally. But I think the biggest push from the Trump campaign for Latino voters is really, in some ways, not that different from one of the messages that they're sending to

all voters, which is about the economy. They're focusing on economic issues, pocketbook issues that affect everybody and arguing that the former President Trump, you know, would improve economic opportunities for Latino voters. And again, this is a growing voting bloc, particularly in this part of the country. So it's one that both campaigns understand the importance of courting. So Ben, before we let you go, since you are here, I have to ask, because I'm always curious how presidential politics are playing out on, you know, certain key battleground states. Joe Biden won your state of Arizona, but by a really slim margin, right, like around 10,000 votes in 2020. How are things looking this time for both Biden and Trump? I mean, does it seem like one person has a significant advantage at this moment? It looks like it's going to be another very close race. It was certainly an

upset for Biden to pull off Arizona in 2020. I think it might be a bit of a struggle given his unpopularity and given problems at the border, problems with immigration that are plaguing his administration and that his administration is taking a lot of blame for, it will be a struggle to win Arizona again. But I know that Democrats aren't taking the state for granted despite his win four years ago. They are establishing a very hardy ground game here to try to convince voters that another four years of Biden is better than the alternative, basically. All right. Well, on that note, let's leave it there for today. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the

White House. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Ben Giles. I also cover the campaign. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.