MARANA, Ariz. — Michael Falk was heading into the Pima County branch library to drop off his ballot when he stopped to discuss Tuesday’s midterm election. Pima County, in south-central Arizona, is home to one of the most competitive congressional races in the country. Falk, a 66-year-old retiree and political independent, was casting his vote for the Democrat, JoAnna Mendoza, even though he hardly knows a thing about her.
But Falk knows — and loathes — a good deal about President Trump. But Corron, a 67-year-old computer programmer, voted for Trump three times and believes the president is moving the country in the right direction. Technology is taking off.
I’m totally excited about that,” said Corron, who was killing time at a strip mall in Oro Valley while the tires on his Lexus were being replaced. The stock market is doing well. Employment is doing well.” For that reason, Corron cast his ballot for Ciscomani, fearful of what might happen if Democrats take control of Congress.
Together, the two rivals and their allies have spent tens of millions of dollars on the contest, which both parties have made a top priority. And yet, to a large degree, Mendoza and Ciscomani are mere stand-ins, their candidacies serving as little more than proxies for the president and his opposition. Laura Lentner, another Oro Valley resident, allowed as how Ciscomani has done some good things.
He is not, the Democrat said, a bad man. It’s about time, Lentner suggested, Republican lawmakers stand up and “stop being afraid of [Trump] and his constituents.” Arizona’s 6th Congressional District is anchored in eastern Tucson and its suburbs, sprawling north toward Phoenix, east to New Mexico and south all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border. The arid landscape is creased with rugged mountain ranges, cleaved by scenic canyons and filled with vast stretches of open space interrupted by midsize cities and small towns that spring like oases from the desert floor.
In recent years, the terrain has been some of the hardest-fought political turf in the nation. Joe Biden carried the district in 2020 by less than a percentage point. Four years later, Trump flipped it by the same tiny margin.
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