By Laurie Carrillo, Vincent Demonte, Mohammed Zain Shafi Khan, Payton May, Isobel Smith and Parkin So
PHOENIX — Arizona’s political landscape is much more complicated than deadlocked presidential election polls would suggest. Six college journalists from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism spent five days in the battleground state to learn about the people with outsize influence on the direction of the United States.
Their reporting revealed voters as similar as they were different. Some questioned the outcome of the 2020 race and saw the mailman as a potential agent of election interference, but they are just as worried about costs of groceries as the next person. Others said they will do anything to prevent former President Donald Trump from returning to the White House, and want to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution. They gathered in union halls, at the racetrack and in school gymnasiums to hear from candidates and surrogates making their case at the start of early voting here.
