Arizona - Taking Route 66 to the White House

In Kingman, Arizona, where Route 66 carves its way across the desert of Mohave County, Jack Alexander sells biker gear in his shop Thunder Road.

"We love Trump here," he tells me in his store, full of biker leathers and Donald Trump memorabilia.

"We think he is the best president that the country ever had - possibly second only to Ronald Reagan."

Although formally registered as an Independent voter - like one in three Arizona residents, the highest proportion in the country - Jack is sporting a MAGA hat and a Trump T-shirt, advertising where his vote is going - or rather has gone, as he claims to have been the very first person in the line when early voting opened in this county.

"What I like about Trump is what he did in his first term. He kept our borders basically secure. He almost finished building the wall. We just think he's a great guy, and we don't believe Kamala Harris.

"We don't believe her. She can't talk she can't tell us what she's about. She can't tell us what she's for, what she believes in."

'A mismanaged election'

But he has got concerns about how this election will be run because of what happened last time.

"The problem was, the election was stolen," Jack said.

"We know that it was a mismanaged election. We attempted - and when I say we, me personally and a lot of other people - had attempted to have the voter rolls checked to verify that people were that were registering to vote, using driver's license and so forth, were actually legally and lawfully allowed to vote in our state. They (the authorities) would not do that."

Jack says large numbers of illegal immigrants to the US - between 11 and 20 million over the last four years - can register to vote using drivers licenses as a form of ID.

"If you are registered under the federal form, it only requires a check box that says I'm a citizen, and nobody is verifying those people that are checking off that check box to verify or confirm that they're citizens."

He says there are more than enough illegal immigrants in Arizona to, as he puts it, "throw the election" - if they are registered to vote and actually do vote.

"We don't know, and we're very concerned," Jack said.

In all likelihood, most illegal immigrants are keeping their heads down, not drawing attention to themselves by doing things like signing onto the electoral rolls and voting.

But it is one of the concerns that have made Arizona ground zero for election conspiracy theories, which have led to court challenges, threats to election workers and a most Byzantine plot to alter the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election - the so called Fake Electors scheme.

Joe Biden won Arizona by just under 10,500 votes, his narrowest margin of victory, and one that flipped a long time Republican voting state to the Democrats.

In the previous 70 years, it had only voted for a Democratic President once (in 1996, for Bill Clinton).

It also provoked a storm over how elections are run in this state, and the rows continue to this day.

The state Attorney General has persuaded a grand jury to indict 18 people, including 11 Arizona Republicans, and key Trump associates including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and former chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

The case is similar to criminal cases being brought in three other swing states, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan, again featuring slates of "Fake Electors", that would pledge their votes to Donald Trump, in the hope that on 6 January 2021, then vice president Mike Pence would accept those "Electoral College" votes, not the actual ones for Joe Biden.

Outside the Capitol building, a seething protest was brewing up, later to explode into a violent attack on the seat of Congress.

On issuing the charges in April, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said "justice demands an answer to the efforts that the defendants and other unindicted co-conspirators allegedly took to undermine the will of Arizona's voters during the 2020 presidential election.

"Arizona's election was free and fair, the people of Arizona, elected President Biden. Unwilling to accept this fact, the defendants charged by the state Grand Jury, allegedly schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency."

Unlike Georgia, Donald Trump was not indicted in Arizona or the other two states, but was identified as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the case.

All four cases are proceeding, but very slowly. They are, nevertheless, a reminder of how bad it got four years ago.

It is not the only case ongoing. Kari Lake, a former newscaster who is running for the US Senate in Arizona (for the Republican Party), is involved in litigation over losing the election for Governor of Arizona two years ago - a result she will not concede. She too is a very strong Trump loyalist.

Outside the early voting centre at Kingman library, local Republican Party officials say there is no problem with the electoral system in the county - never was they say.

"We're really safe with our voting. We have an amazing recorder and an amazing director for our elections department, and they're doing everything they can to make sure our voting is pristine," says Jeanne Kentch, the Chair of the Republican Party in Mohave County.

She is sure Trump will win the county, only the margin is in doubt.

"I would say that we're going to end up being probably about 70% Republican over Democrat, and that's a real conservative estimate. It might be 80%, because we've been 75% in the past," she says.

Her party colleague Jeff Rider is the Republican Party director for district one, the part of Mohave County that covers Kingman.

He says the Republicans used to frown on early and postal voting, but now see it as a winning move.

"The trend four years ago was to vote in person, and we completely flipped that on its head. We're now trending more than Democrats in voting early, and that's just pretty incredible, considering that this has been a strong Republican 'vote on Election Day' town for a long time."

That disparagement of early voting may well have cost Trump victory four years ago.

Party managers were determined not to repeat the mistake, and persuaded Trump to do an about face on his opposition to early and postal voting.

For this election, the message to Republicans is very definitely vote early: Trump himself has cast his ballot by post in Florida, to set an example.

In an election that boils down to getting the vote out, all methods count.

"I think we were complacent in 2020," says Jeanne Kentch.

"I think we all just thought we were red state. We're a red county. We're just going to win anyway. And I think that complacency is what really hurt us, because he (Biden) won by 10,000 votes, and that's it.

"We'll do much better this time. There's no complacency in Mohave County - right now we are voting.

"We also know that if we get out the vote in Mohave County, that we can out-vote any shenanigans going on in other counties," says Jeff Rider.

The shenanigans are a reference to various ongoing legal and not so legal challenges to the integrity of the electoral system elsewhere in Arizona, ranging from challenges to voter rolls and voter ID systems, down to outright thuggery and intimidation of election workers, up to and including death threats.

On Wednesday the Central Election office in the state capital Phoenix held a press conference that included the Sheriff of Maricopa county (the administrative unit that covers most of phoenix, and with it 60% of the states electorate).

The Sheriff was there to spell out the physical security measures in place for the election to protect count centre workers and the ballot boxes.

The director of elections Bill Gates (a republican, like most elected officials in Arizona) described it as as shame that an election news conference is all about security.

Back in Kingman we visited the Democratic Party's office, where volunteers are preparing leaflet drops.
District chair, Maris Budman, also notices a difference between this campaign and 2020.

"Oh, completely different. I mean, it's been amazing. We've had people walk in here that have never, never dimmed our door, and it's just amazing.

"They say we've been lifelong Republicans, but now we've re registered as Democrats. And what can we do to help? Why is that? I think they're just tired of all the division and the hate and whatever you know Trump spews out. They're tired of it."

When I asked her if she was personally concerned about the integrity of the voting system in Mohave county, she replied: "Not here - we have the best," sharing the view of her Republican Party opposite number.

"And I encourage people, if they have any doubts about the voting process, to volunteer to be an observer and see how it all works, and they'll see there's no shenanigans going on at all."

So why is that not the case in other countries?

"I think people just jump to conclusions. It's not happening - it's just their imagination, and what they what they hear on right wing propaganda channels all over the place.

"This country's polluted with them. I mean, you can't turn on the radio without hearing one of these, you know, right wing lunatics spouting their propaganda that isn't at all true. And it's a shame - but that's the way it is here."

The branch treasurer, Danny Baker, has high hopes for the state level election, but in Mohave County, well, it's more challenging.

"It is a very stronghold of the Republican Party. We're outnumbered about three to one here in Mohave County."

Does he think Kamala Harris can win in the state of Arizona?

"I think she'll win Arizona, I really do. I think our turnout is tremendous. You saw how crowded it was over there, and that's always a good sign for Democrats when you have a real good turnout."

But with the very high likelihood of post election legal challenges in Arizona, it may be some time before we definitively find out who actually got kicked on Route 66 in election 2024.