PHOENIX -- In Arizona's capital city, traffic news helicopters roved over polling stations reporting both the shortest and the longest lines throughout the morning. Over the weekend, I spoke with voters who planned to get in line Tuesday morning at 5:00 AM - a full hour before the polls were scheduled to open. One voter in the Phoenix area says he was late to work even though he arrived at 5:30 AM. He had to wait in line about an hour and a half after the polls opened, until about 7:30 AM.
Lines are expected to be long throughout Election Day here. Voters reported 2-3 hour waits at early voting locations last week, and if voter turnout reaches as high as the secretary of state is expecting (approximately 85%), then voters could be waiting in line for hours after the polls close Tuesday night. Approximately one third of Arizona's registered voters requested early ballots, and all but 180,000 of those have already been returned.
John McCain, his wife Cindy, and his children emerged from his polling place at 9:15 AM this morning, adding a handful of votes to his tally - but that won't be enough if Democratic turnout outweighs Republican turnout today. The presidential race has become so competitive in John McCain's home state that he rushed back to Prescott to headline a midnight rally Monday night - the eve of Election Day.
Supporters arrived at the Yavapai County Courthouse late in the evening, and festivities were kicked off by Hank Williams Jr. around 11:00 PM. At nearly 1:00 AM, a weary John McCain finally performed a shortened version of his standard routine. John McCain also began and ended all of his Senate campaigns at the same spot in honor of Barry Goldwater, his predecessor, who did the same. The sub-headline of a foreign paper summed it up, Underdog invokes spirit of home state's most famous loser. The author went on to call Prescott the "final resting place" of the McCain-Palin campaign and said that McCain "summoned up the spirit of Arizona's most famous loser, Barry Goldwater."
Howard Dean spent Monday traversing Arizona, energizing volunteers and voters, hoping to boost enthusiasm for Obama enough to put him over the top here in McCain's home state. He told volunteers in Tempe that the race here will be determined by turnout. If Democrats turn out enough voters, he said, Obama could win McCain's home state electoral votes.
Randy Pullen, Chair of the Arizona Republican Party, sent out an email late Monday night bragging that their party had made 20,000 calls over the course of the last week. An email sent to the Obama Arizona Call Team sent out an email touting 450,000 phone calls made by its volunteers. It was unclear if that number included calls made by the coordinated campaign - either way, the disparity between the ground operations of the two major parties in Arizona is astounding.
Democratic offices in Arizona are overflowing. At every office I visited, tables were setup outside to accommodate overcrowding. At the Obama headquarters in Phoenix, they expanded into the house next door and scattered banquet tables across the porches and yards of both houses. Monday night, Arizona Communications Director Dave Cieslak estimated the number of democratic Arizona volunteers to be in the tens of thousands.
The volunteers have been motivated by an unexpected spate of polls showing Barack Obama within the margin of error in Arizona. Last week, five polls came out showing that Obama had overcome a 21 point summer deficit in Arizona to get to within striking distance just days before Election Day.
Despite the extraordinary number of volunteers, Democrats need even more help throughout Election Day -- ironically because of the closeness of the race. Because the tightening was unanticipated, the state party had been focused on specific down ticket races - targeting very specific areas parts of the state. Now, though, every voter in Arizona matters whether the down ticket races in their district or precinct are competitive or not.
Arizona has more than 2.9 million registered voters. That's a tall order in the final days of a campaign. Yet, the numbers already contacted (more than 450,000 phone calls by democrats, more than 20,000 by republicans) are staggering. If Democrats are able to continue recruiting new volunteers throughout the final hours of the race, they may come close to meeting this goal. If Obama wins this state, it undoubtedly will be attributed to the extraordinary ability of the Obama campaign and local democrats to organize and deploy an incredible large number of volunteers in the final days and hours of the race.
Saturday night, dozens of Obama volunteers worked late into the night at Obama's Arizona headquarters and other satellite offices across the Phoenix area. Local Obama volunteers and staff have sent emails in the wee hours every day for the last week. Throughout the weekend, offices across the state were overflowing with volunteers. The Obama headquarters had to extend into the house next door and scattered banquet tables across the front and back lawns of both houses to make room for more volunteers. In the heart of the most conservative district in the state, the GemDems (Greater Eastern Maricopa County Democrats) office was forced to expand onto the sidewalk out front and the loading dock in the back. Phone bankers without personal cell phones waited patiently in queues for access to party-owned cell phones and land lines. In an admirable show of teamwork, some volunteers offered their own personal cell phones to those without a phone.
Meanwhile, Sunday evening the McCain headquarters was locked and empty during prime phone banking hours. This is not an anomaly - not long ago I was forced to take photos of the McCain office through the little glass window beside the door because it was locked and empty - in the middle of a weekday afternoon. The empty office phenomenon has been noted in McCain offices across the country.
The McCain-Palin campaign stepped up efforts in other, more controversial, ways. Last Wednesday the McCain-Palin campaign began robo calling voters in Arizona with one of their controversial attacks on Obama. Latino voters also began reporting robo calls over the weekend. One local voter who wished to remain anonymous says she received a Spanish language robo call warning her to vote against Obama to protect her children from "drug traffickers, child molesters, and assassins." Like other robo calls into Arizona, this call originates 866-520-5769.
Obama Communications Director Dave Cieslak said,
In 2000, John McCain said that he would not "take the low road to the highest office in the land." Eight years later, he is running one of the most dishonest, dishonorable campaigns we have ever seen. He's using automated calls to lie about Barack Obama -- the same tactics that were used against him in 2000. Colin Powell called the automated calls "inappropriate," and four Republican U.S. Senators have called on McCain to stop these calls. That just tells you how poorly they're being received by voters.
While McCain began making automated calls attacking his opponent in the final days of the race, Obama spent money on positive television advertisement - both an indicator of the difference in tone of the two campaigns and the disparity in funding.
To win in Arizona, Obama would need to boost Kerry's 6 point margin in Pima County to nearly 20 points to make up for losses throughout the rest of Arizona - a reasonable goal given that Tucson (the state's second largest city) is a liberal bastion. Obama would also need to almost break even in Maricopa County (where Kerry lost by 15 points) while cutting into McCain's numbers throughout the rural counties, particularly Yavapai County (where Kerry lost by 23 points), the location of McCain's midnight rally Monday night.
The state has already begun counting early ballots received before Election Day, and state elections officials say they expect to finish counting those by the time the polls close Tuesday. On Wednesday, elections officials will begin counting early ballots that arrive on Tuesday. With 180,000 outstanding ballots as of Monday evening, that count could take days. If a large number of voters cast votes using provisional ballots, that could also delay results.
Pima vote count will likely be slow due to a decision by Pima County elections officials to submit results to the central office via vans because of concerns about the security of modem transmissions. Pima County elections officials said they hope to have county results by early Wednesday morning.
As results are reported, the race to watch is Arizona's third Congressional district. It is the hottest race in Arizona, and as its returns come in, it may provide a hint whether Obama will be successful in stealing McCain's home state electoral votes. If Bob Lord (D) wins the third district, which usually goes for Republican candidates, it will be a good sign for democrats watching the presidential election.
Down ticket candidates are fighting it out for control over the state legislature. With up to two dozen Arizona House seats set to be picked up by democrats, the Democratic Party is favored for taking a majority in the House. Democrats also have an outside chance at taking a majority of the state Senate.
Even "America's toughest sheriff" may be affected by Obama's coattails. The Democratic Party has taken a new tact in their battle with the conservative Maricopa County lawman: They intend to rein him in with bureaucracy. In an attempt to control Sheriff Joe Arpaio through his budget, line by line, Arizona democrats are aiming for a 3 person majority on the 5 seat Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Besides incumbency advantage, McCain does have one thing going for him in Arizona. Prop 102, an anti-gay referendum, will likely boost conservative turnout. This referendum, if passed, would amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Arizonans voted down a similar measure in 2006, but the ultra conservative Arizona legislature placed it back on the ballot this year. Conservative evangelicals have been passionate about this issue, and turnout for this proposition could boost McCain's numbers.