Culture Wars/Current Controversies

Arizona’s Split Reality

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Arizona finds itself in a strange place in U.S. politics right now. As Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi puts it, “Voters here are in the unusual position to potentially determine who leads the American government and how much power that leader may have to execute his will.” It is a potential hinge state for the presidential election, the site of a toss-up Senate race that in many ways mirrors Trump vs. Biden, and, after a state-supreme-court ruling earlier today, the next battleground for codifying abortion rights. The Senate candidates are MAGA acolyte and former local newscaster Kari Lake on the GOP side and moderate sitting congressman and military vet Ruben Gallego on the Democratic one. Voters find themselves facing not so much a choice between issues and positions in a traditional sense — though the differences are enormous — as a choice between starkly conflicting realities. In Lake’s, the 2020 election was stolen and the border poses a fatal threat to the American republic. In Gallego’s, our elections are fair and the border — and those who cross it — is an opportunity (it is also a pleasant place to pick up a Starbucks, we learn). Olivia’s trip down Arizona’s political rabbit hole is both a delight and a bit of a shock.

—Jebediah Reed, editor, Intelligencer

Arizona’s Split Reality Ground zero for the rigged-election conspiracy, the border state could decide both the fate of the Senate and the presidency.

Photo: Hugo Yu
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