Mormons were once reliably Republican – but they could tip Arizona Harris’s way

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/arizona-mormons-kamala-harris

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Harris and Trump are going all out to woo the 450,000 Mormons, or 6% of the population, who live in Arizona

A valuable Republican voting bloc in Arizona is seeing a shift from members towards Kamala Harris in numbers that Democrats believe could make the difference for them in an election where the latest polls have Donald Trump slightly ahead in the swing state.

With nearly 450,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as LDS or Mormons, living in Arizona, they make up about 6% of the state’s population and both the Harris and Trump campaigns have been going all out to woo them.

While the church’s home base of Utah is one of the deepest red states, in neighboring Arizona there is a growing partisan rift.

Mormons in Arizona are now “poised to support Kamala Harris more than any other presidential Democratic ticket in 60 years”, Jacob Rugh, an associate professor in the department of sociology at the LDS church-run Brigham Young University, said in a Harris-Walz campaign call in August.

In the 2020 election, Joe Biden delivered the first Democratic win in Arizona in a presidential election in 24 years. He garnered an estimated 18,000 votes from the LDS community, double Hillary Clinton’s share of LDS voters there – and won the state by just 10,457 votes.

“The 18,000 votes was more than the margin of victory, and it showed the significance of the LDS vote,” said Robert Taber, the national director of LDS for Harris-Walz.

“Where Biden got 18% of the LDS vote in 2020, I think Harris could hit 25-30% of the LDS vote,” Taber added, citing the increased Democratic campaign efforts there this cycle, as well as the “post-January 6” environment.

“I think there’s a decent chance that Harris does a little bit better than Biden,” he said, which, if it happens, could help the Democrats to “hold on to Nevada and Arizona”, he added.

In the United States, members of the LDS church make up a relatively small, predominantly white voting bloc – about 2% of the population – and have traditionally been among the most loyal voting blocs for the Republicans over the last several decades, historically aligning on traditional conservative values such as religious freedoms, pro-life stances and small government.

But in 2016, when Trump was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate, some in the community felt conflicted. That year, after the Hollywood Access tape was published, Deseret News website, which is owned by the LDS church, called on Trump to resign, stating that he did not align with the community’s ideals and values.

A small but increasing number of LDS voters continue to shift away from him.

Julie Spilsbury, a Republican council member in Mesa, Arizona, and an LDS church member, recently endorsed Harris .

“I think the character of our leaders matter,” Spilsbury, 47, said. “And when I hear him talk about – women, immigrants, refugees, people who disagree with him – I cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone like that.”

Spilsbury voted for Trump in 2016 but later abandoned him due to his character, divisiveness and rhetoric, she said. She voted for Biden four years later – but quietly. Now she’s publicly supporting Harris.

In 2020, about half of LDS voters under the age of 40 voted for Biden, and in Utah, he performed the best of any Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.

While most LDS voters nationwide are expected to vote for Trump, if Harris can better the Biden numbers among the group, it could make a crucial difference in Arizona – and Nevada, where Mormon numbers are also strong, although there is less data available about their voting history in that state from 2020.

The Harris campaign launched an LDS advisory committee in Arizona in September and in Nevada in early October to canvas Mormon voters and hold events.

The Republicans launched a Latter-day Saints for Trump coalition in early October, and Trump called in to an LDS for Trump video call as the campaign tried to shore up the vote.

But in Arizona, John Giles, a lifelong Republican, LDS member and the mayor of Mesa – once dubbed the most conservative city in America – publicly backed Harris just eight days after Biden dropped out of his re-election campaign.

He wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republican saying Harris “is fighting to make sure Americans can get ahead and be safe from gun violence and to restore and protect the rights of women”, while Trump stood for the far right, “crudeness and vulgarity”.

And at a recent Harris-Walz rally in Arizona, Giles said the GOP had been “taken over by extremists”, and described Trump as “morally and ethically bankrupt”.

In recent years, Trump has also clashed with prominent LDS members, including Mitt Romney, Utah’s retiring US senator and past presidential nominee, who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol; Rusty Bowers, the former speaker of the Arizona house who resisted Trump’s demands to undermine the 2020 election in Arizona; and former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, who recently endorsed Harris.

“I saw a lot of people really upset about the way that he attacked very well-respected Arizona politicians like Rusty Bowers,” said Lacy Chaffee, a member of the LDS church and a candidate for school board in Mesa.

“Rusty campaigned for Trump, but he wasn’t willing to lie,” she added. “So I think that that’s something that speaks very deeply to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We hold very deeply the sense of integrity and truth, and I think that, for a lot of people, was the breaking point.”

The Mormon church itself maintains political neutrality, but it encourages civic participation and for members to elect politicians who are “honest, wise and good”.

Rugh, the sociology expert, said his analysis showed that candidates who denied that Biden won the 2020 election lost substantial LDS votes.

Meanwhile, the church teaches members that the principles in the US constitution are divinely inspired, said Taber, the director of LDS for Harris-Walz. . But Trump has said the constitution should be “terminated”.

The LDS youth vote is also shifting significantly. Brittany Romanello, an anthropologist and faculty associate at Arizona State University, said that Harris and the Democrats “have a very big opening” with young LDS voters because of greater diversity both of people and opinions in their ranks, and agreater willingness to disagree with the church majority.

“Gen Z is the most politically, ethnically, sexually and romantically diverse generation, and they’re a huge part of the voting bloc, and this includes Mormons,” Romanello said.

Rugh’s analysis also found that more than 50% of gen Z LDS members voted for Biden in 2020.

In terms of more LDS voters being willing to buck the norm, and be open about it, Spilsbury said:

“If me speaking out helps some others, specifically LDS women, know that there’s another choice and that we don’t have to vote Republican just because it’s the thing we think we’re supposed to do, then that’s really important to me.”

She said a lot of the reaction from her community to her choice had been “rough” but that she received some positive messages, too.

Meanwhile, Mormonism is a conservative, pro-life religion but known as less fiercely anti-abortion than some, generally supporting exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother or child. Harris has zeroed in on reproductive rights since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, after Trump’s three appointees tipped the bench to the right.

LDS Arizona resident Monica Chabot, 28, had a miscarriage last year and elected to have the fetus removed rather than wait for it to pass naturally. Her experience changed her perspective on the Republican party and its anti-choice stance, she said. She believes the

procedure would probably not have been allowed under an extreme ban dating from 1864 that briefly took effect in Arizona after Roe was overturned, before some Republicans crossed the aisle to repeal it, which the state’s Democratic governor signed off on, leaving a less harsh ban.

“It made me realize how little Trump and other Republicans seem to care about me and my experiences and my body,” she said. “And hearing Kamala talk about it and fighting for that is a big reason why I’ve been involved in the Harris campaign.”

Arizona voters have a ballot measure this November that would enshrine in the state constitution the right to abortion until viability, or around 24 weeks. It remains to be seen whether it will encourage split tickets as conservatives who want reproductive choice vote for the measure but also for Trump, or whether it boosts women’s turnout in a huge windfall for Harris.

Chabot said that while she would never choose to get an abortion, or encourage others to get an abortion, she doesn’t believe in the government making that decision for a woman.

She said: “We talk a lot about agency in the church, and how it’s one of our greatest gifts from God – the ability to choose.”