Phoenix, Arizona – With 11 Electoral College votes up for grabs, the swing state of Arizona will be a key prize in the 2024 US presidential election.
And many local voters told Al Jazeera that, regardless of their political leanings, abortion plays a pivotal role in deciding how they vote.
On Election Day Tuesday, Al Jazeera visited three polling places in the Phoenix metropolitan area – downtown, near Mesa and the suburban city of Buckeye – and asked residents about their motivations for voting.
Abortion seemed to be at the forefront of their minds.
“I think it’s so important to get out there and get involved because of how high stakes this election is for so many people,” said Rebecca Lane, an 18-year-old student at Arizona State University in Phoenix. “I want people to have the freedom to do whatever they want.”
Lane identifies as a libertarian. However, she is voting for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in this year’s election because she prefers a progressive stance on abortion.
As a member of the queer community, Lane also believes Harris could have done more to ensure LGBTQ+ rights. But she expressed disappointment that Democrats and Republicans haven’t done more to reach out to third-party voters.
“I don’t think they’re doing exactly what I’m looking for,” she said. “But no political candidate would do that.”
The abortion issue led Ramon Hidalgo, a 35-year-old registered independent, to vote blue this year.
“You see, women have the same rights to their bodies as men,” Hidalgo said. “I wanted to make sure they could make decisions that were relevant to them,” he added.
Mercy Caballero, a 30-year-old Democrat, said abortion access is “a really important topic.” She emphasized the need for individual autonomy over their own bodies.
“I think you have to make a decision,” Caballero said. “It’s not just the government.”
abortion on the ballot
The topic of abortion access has been in the spotlight since the Supreme Court’s recent overturn of Roe v Wade.
Beginning in 1973, Roe v Wade established the constitutional right to abortion at the federal level.
But under former Republican President Donald Trump, the balance of power on the Supreme Court shifted toward conservative judges.
In 2022, the court ruled that it would overturn Roe v Wade, repealing federal abortion protections and returning access challenges to individual states.
Trump is currently on the ballot as the Republican candidate for his second re-election bid. While his campaign has in part emphasized his role in the 2022 court decision, Trump himself has rejected calls for a federal abortion ban, which has long been a Republican priority.
Arizona is one of 10 states considering ballot measures to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution on Election Day Tuesday.
Florida, one of 10 states already, has failed to pass a bill. Other states, like Nebraska, have competing bills on the ballot that would repeal all the protections voted on.
This issue is on the ballot in Arizona under the title Proposition 139. Race states can be an indicator of how successful this issue will be across the country.
Currently, abortion is legal in Arizona only during the first 15 weeks of pregnancy and only in medical emergencies thereafter.
But abortion advocates worry that the 15-week ban will prevent health care providers from responding to complications and other situations that can arise in the second half of pregnancy.
The Republican Party is divided
The Republican Party is divided over abortion rights, said Jacob Baird, a 25-year-old registered Republican who lives in Mesa City.
Baird sees women’s rights as the most important issue this year, along with the economy.
He has been a Republican since he registered to vote. He voted for a third-party candidate for the first time in the 2020 election, largely because of Trump’s stance on abortion.
Although this issue cannot be overlooked this year, he said he hopes his vote will not be in vain by voting for a third-party candidate again. So he voted for Harris, a Democrat.
“Socially, I am progressive. “When it comes to things like government spending, that’s kind of the only thing I really agree with Republicans on,” Baird said.
He wanted the Republican Party to return to “the fiscally conservative economic policies of the past.”
Al Jazeera interviewed another Republican voter, who declined to give his name, who said abortion was the most important issue. But unlike Baird, he was adamantly opposed to the procedure.
“Why is one political party so concerned about the right to kill babies?” he said “I don’t understand.”
The 45-year-old Republican said he has lived in Phoenix his entire life. He cited abortion as a defining factor in this year’s presidential election, along with economic and border policy.
However, independents make up a significant portion of Arizona’s voter base. Approximately 33.7% of voters refused to affiliate with a political party at all. state statistics As of October.
That’s a larger chunk of the population than identifies as Democratic. About 29% of Arizona voters are registered Democrats and 37.8% are Republicans.
Experts called the state’s independence vote a wild card that is expected to be fiercely contested.
The presidential election is closely contested in Arizona. This state has been won by a Republican presidential candidate in every election from 1952 to 2016.
But 2020 has been an eventful year for the state under President Joe Biden. He won with 10,457 votes.
When asked about this year’s top election issues, registered independent Dylan George, 31, said it was important for Americans to consider that “equality matters.”
“It’s not my problem, but it might be someone else’s problem,” he said.
George said the economy was very important to him, explaining that was partly why he identified as an independent voter. But the abortion issue is difficult to overlook, he added.
“I had a preconceived notion about the former president. [Trump] And I really didn’t appreciate how he treated people with respect,” he said. “So that moved me to be more democratic.”
