When Trump was first elected, Republicans held every lever in Arizona – now they’ve been swept in a blue tidal wave, and the road to rebuild could be fraught

When Donald Trump was first elected to the White House in 2016, Republicans held every lever of statewide power in Arizona, from the governor’s office to both US Senate seats and majorities in the legislature. Over the next decade, as Trump tightened his grip on the party, Democrats began chipping away at that dominance, gradually turning the longtime GOP stronghold into a political battleground.

Then came the November midterm elections. Democrats swept every statewide office on the ballot – from governor to the obscure post of mine inspector – and secured a lawmaking trifecta unseen since 1966.

The results leave Republicans firmly locked out of power at the state level – a remarkable reversal of fortunes for the long-dominant party that was once home to Barry Goldwater’s rock-ribbed conservatism and John McCain’s maverick streak.

“I could see this coming,” said Gina Swoboda, a former chair of the Arizona Republican party. “We weren’t talking to people, we weren’t listening to people.”

Swoboda tried. This year, she ran for secretary of state, to serve as the state’s chief elections officer. She lost the Republican primary to Alexander Kolodin, a Trump acolyte who was heavily involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. Last Tuesday, Kolodin was trounced by the Democratic incumbent, Adrian Fontes.

In several closely watched races, Trump allies fell. Congressman Andy Biggs, a longtime supporter of the president’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement, lost by more than 10 percentage points to Katie Hobbs, the Democratic incumbent once viewed as vulnerable.

So seismic were the gains that a 19-year-old sophomore at Arizona State University bested a tenured Republican to become the superior county clerk of Maricopa county – in charge of court records, marriage licenses, child support and other filings for the fourth largest county in America.

The Republican collapse in Arizona were part of a blue tidal wave that swept GOP officials from power in even redder states, such as South Carolina and Texas.

But in Arizona, a state reshaped by decades of demographic change, a population boom in the Phoenix suburbs and a rejection of Trumpism by affluent Republican and independent voters, the GOP now faces a reckoning that many say might have come eventually but now cannot be delayed.

“The world has changed, so if there is no change from the party, we’ll be looking at minority status for a long time,” said Kirk Adams, a former Arizona house speaker who served as chief of staff to the last Republican governor. “Political parties tend to react to near-extinction events like this.”

Among the most urgent questions facing Republicans in the Grand Canyon state is how to rebuild.

Republicans hold a nearly 300,000 voter-registration advantage over Democrats in the state, but independent voters make up the largest share of the electorate, and often decide elections. This year, they broke hard against Republicans.

“Were we too Maga or not Maga enough?” Adams asked of the movement that propelled Trump twice to the White House and that many now blame for Republican losses in the state – and nationwide.

For Democrats, their midterm success was the culmination of a hard-fought political transformation from the so-called “pizza caucus” – so few were there in the state legislature, the joke went, they could share a single pizza – to a majority party.

“Now, Arizona will have a Democratic trifecta for the first time in 60 years,” Hobbs wrote on X. “We’re going to need a lot more pizza.”

Among Republicans, there is no agreement on how to chart a path forward.

Some fault their party’s leadership for ceding control to outside operations, such as Turning Point Action, the youth group founded by Charlie Kirk and headquartered in Phoenix, and Arizona’s far-right Freedom Caucus.

There are Republicans who argue the midterm wipeout was an anomaly that won’t be repeated in 2028, a presidential election year, and believe Arizona voters, still conservative at heart, will rebel again after two years of total Democratic control.

Still, others point to the hard-right Republicans who survived the blue tsunami and contend their playbook is the path to rebuilding the party.

“FYI, in many places more ‘moderate’ Republican candidates lost more ground than conservatives,” Turning Point’s chief operating officer Tyler Bowyer said in a post on social media. “Many examples of this in red states and swing states.”

Bowyer also outlined a tentative game plan for 2028, calling for early agreement on a candidate to challenge incumbent Democratic US senator Mark Kelly, scoring early funding commitments from groups such as the Club for Growth, and pursuing voters who don’t regularly vote, noting the party might need more than Republicans votes to win.

Swoboda said there was stark evidence that the Republican slate has been out of touch with the Arizona voters. She blamed tone-deaf messaging that did not focus on voter concerns about issues such as higher prices and an unwanted war.

In her view, Republicans lost control of the political battlefield by allowing Turning Point Action to play kingmaker. The party had little money compared to Turning Point, which poured…