The political climate is changing in Arizona. In preliminary voter-registration figures released by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday, the state added more registered Democrats than Republicans.
In an interview with KJZZ, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine said Arizona is changing its political makeup to one of a battleground state.
“When you drop your initial list of battleground states, Arizona’s just kind of on the edge of battleground states. But we’ve seen some really solid polling. And, you know, I think there’s a lot of reasons for it.”
Kaine said one of those reasons is the recent increase and participation in the Latino vote.
“Arizona is kind of moving from a state that people kind of took for granted in presidential years to one that’s competitive,” he said. “So, the first thing that I would say to Arizona is to take advantage of that.”
The Clinton campaign also announced this week that it intends on keeping an eye on traditional Republican states like Utah, Georgia and Arizona.
And, as Kaine pointed out, while Donald Trump has alienated many in his party recently, the Clinton campaign has made sure to show that it is open to working with all parties.
“That’s why we have really focused on the theme of our campaign being ‘Stronger Together.’ And while we have campaigned vigorously against Donald Trump, we’ve tried to avoid the broad brush against the GOP. Because, we know we’re going to need to work together to answer challenges and answer problems.”
Kaine said his time as governor and senator from Virginia has proved you can be a proud Republican or Democrat, but there should be no problem with reaching across the aisle.
