Once a Republican bastion, Arizona is now a battleground that could decide the election – By Lauren Gambino and Maanvi Singh (The Guardian) / July 2020
Changing demographics and a backlash to Trump has reshaped the state’s politics – so could Arizona really turn Democratic?
Ten years ago, Arizona enacted one of the strictest and most contentious immigration measures in the nation – the so-called “show me your papers” law – and a generation of young Latinos revolted.
Hundreds of Latino activists and high school students marched through the streets of downtown Phoenix, to protest against a piece of legislation they believed authorized police to discriminate against anybody who looked like them. That was SB 1070.
“We were optimistic that we could stop [then governor] Jan Brewer from signing that bill,” said Raquel Terán, who joined protesters at the state capitol that day. “Obviously we didn’t, but it showed that we had the capacity to mobilize our communities.”
Today Terán works in the copper-domed capitol building where she used to protest. She was elected as a Democrat in 2018 to represent a majority-Hispanic district in the Arizona house of representatives.
Continue to article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/20/arizona-trump-republicans-white-house-democrats-senate
