What makes Arizona votes differently than Nevada and Colorado?

[pppolitics]

What makes Arizona votes differently than Nevada and Colorado?

They all have big population centers: Arizona got Phoenix and Tucson, Nevada got Las Vegas and Reno, and Colorado got Denver and Boulder

They all got big Hispanic population: Arizona is 30.9% Hispanic, Nevada is 28.5% Hispanic, Colorado is 21.3% Hispanic.

[Del Tachi]

Arizona has a large retirement community, so its White population skews older and thus is probably more Republican-voting than CO or NV.

Its 30.9% Hispanic community is also very young (in the sense that is mainly first- and second-generation immigrants), which means they probably don't vote at rates similar to CO and NM (which both have centuries' old, very-established Hispanic minorities). 

[pppolitics]

I think a big part of it is that the Arizona Democratic Party doesn't have infrastructures in place until recently.

[Zaybay]

Arizona has a large retirement community, so its White population skews older and thus is probably more Republican-voting than CO or NV.

Its 30.9% Hispanic community is also very young (in the sense that is mainly first- and second-generation immigrants), which means they probably don't vote at rates similar to CO and NM (which both have centuries' old, very-established Hispanic minorities). 

This.
Also the suburbs of each state make a huge impact as well.
-CO has suburbs that are just as Blue as Denver, not to mention the suburbs are around the same size as Denver.
-NV has rather small suburbs, as most of the population is concentrated in Las Vegas and its immediate surroundings, so even though they arent that D, they barely have any influence.
-AZ has rather blood red suburbs, and these communities are larger than the city of Phoenix, which is what has kept the state so Red.

[brucejoel99]

Arizona has a large retirement community, so its White population skews older and thus is probably more Republican-voting than CO or NV.

Its 30.9% Hispanic community is also very young (in the sense that is mainly first- and second-generation immigrants), which means they probably don't vote at rates similar to CO and NM (which both have centuries' old, very-established Hispanic minorities). 

This.
Also the suburbs of each state make a huge impact as well.
-CO has suburbs that are just as Blue as Denver, not to mention the suburbs are around the same size as Denver.
-NV has rather small suburbs, as most of the population is concentrated in Las Vegas and its immediate surroundings, so even though they arent that D, they barely have any influence.
-AZ has rather blood red suburbs, and these communities are larger than the city of Phoenix, which is what has kept the state so Red.

All this.

[Flyersfan232]

I think a big part of it is that the Arizona Democratic Party doesn't have infrastructures in place until recently.

why are people acting like democrats being elected statewide in az is something new? yall been predicted the state going blue in 2016 and they had atleast 2 other row office before this election (three counting that one non partisan office) and had a democratic in the recent past (winning every county in reelection mind you

[Person Man]

Arizona has a large retirement community, so its White population skews older and thus is probably more Republican-voting than CO or NV.

Its 30.9% Hispanic community is also very young (in the sense that is mainly first- and second-generation immigrants), which means they probably don't vote at rates similar to CO and NM (which both have centuries' old, very-established Hispanic minorities). 

This.
Also the suburbs of each state make a huge impact as well.
-CO has suburbs that are just as Blue as Denver, not to mention the suburbs are around the same size as Denver.
-NV has rather small suburbs, as most of the population is concentrated in Las Vegas and its immediate surroundings, so even though they arent that D, they barely have any influence.
-AZ has rather blood red suburbs, and these communities are larger than the city of Phoenix, which is what has kept the state so Red.

All this.

Arizona is where Colorado was 15 years ago. That is, there were Republican special interests that comprised the mantle of some of the larger secondary communities. In Colorado, El Paso county was a small city based around government projects that competed with the social safety net for $$ and also had a strong pilgrimage of groups that were created around Republican identity politics. That made Democrats a very tough sell in Colorado.

 In Colorado, Democrats eventually overcame this Republican machine by running a few inoffensive candidates that could still bring Democrats out to vote. From there, they built a strong party machine of their own that eventually strung along some moderately Republican communities into creating a solid D majority. The R's have been unable to counter this as they are still dependent upon identity politics and can't expand outside of the communities that make up the core of their presence.

In Arizona, you still have the same players though they are all more geographically closer together. There are some differences. Namely with Mormons taking the place of Evangelicals to an extent in some of the part of the identity-based Republican coalition and pensioners instead of military bases competing with social programs  to an extent in some of the Republicans' other communities.
 Its just taking longer as it is a state the requires more resources than Colorado because it has like a  30% higher population. However, there are a slew of moderately republican communities that would be open to flipping for the right Democratic candidates and staying Democratic even for a more progressive candidate if the initial D elections were followed by strong machine infrastructure.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It has retirees like FL

[Lu Xun]

Arizona voters are much older than Colorado voters, but also older Arizona voters arebmuch more conservative than older Colorado voters.  If you're just looking at people under the age of 45 both states are about the same but Arizona elders make up the difference.  I'd reckon it comes down to Arizona having a lot more conservative retirees and much less organized labor.  

Also Colorado is the more educated state, though I suspect this is largely a product of the aforementioned age gap. 

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Nevada has a weird, SEIU dominated state economy, and Colorado's whites are more educated, wealthier, younger, more liberal, and more "culturally coastal" than Arizona's.

[jamestroll]

Pretty much this. There is also a huge contrast between Phoenix and Tucson. Around Tucson people's attitudes are that they live in the desert and landscape based on desert landscaping and it attracts less out of state transplants. The overall attitude is moderate-liberal. Thousands of moderate-liberals roam the Tucson area giving the area slightly more Republican voting patterns compared to what you would expect for demographics of the city.

Up in Phoenix, Democrats were not competitive until recently. But you have tons of rich, retired a$$holes who create Mississippi in their yards not even caring about the environment and are fiscally right wing to an extreme. It will be a very long time until Maricopa County goes through a DuPage County transformation. If ever.

[pbrower2a]

Mormons. Arizona Mormons vote as do Utah Mormons, and Arizona has lots of them in Mesa.

It is possible, of course, that Mormons will not be as supportive of Trump as they are for a non-Mormon Republican who has a squeaky-clean sex life -- let us say either Bush, Dole, or McCain. In view of the disclosures of Trump's sexual sleaze, Mormons would probably vote for Obama over Trump if they had such a chance. 

[AN63093]

Above posters have basically covered it.  In short, CO's demographics and voting patterns have changed in a way that is much more favorable to the Dems in the last 20 years.  Basically it's a similar transformation to what we saw in VA, just on a smaller scale.  Whereas AZ is not changing in the same way, or at least not at the same pace.

In the past, the GOP had a strong core of evangelicals (particularly in places like CO Springs), strength in the Denver suburbs (especially Douglas County etc) and defense-related voters.. there are a number of large bases in CO (Ft Carson, Peterson AFB, the academy, etc), and there used to be a significant contractor industry.. Lockheed (then Martin Marietta) had a large rocket manufacturing facility south of Denver, and there were large employers in the Rocky Flats Plant (plutonium pits for nuclear weapons) and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (chemical weapons).

Since the 90s, most of those facilities have closed (including Lowry AFB in Denver).  The other bases are still there but this demographic is not just smaller than it used to be- but it's also not necessarily as R-leaning as it was in the Bush years... Edgar Suit Larry is basically right about how the Dems have been pretty successful in targeting these voters and flipping some over the past 20 years.

On top of that, Denver has seen explosive growth- just in the city limits alone, it is projected to hit near or above 20% growth by the next census.  There are only 3 other metro areas in the top 20 that are growing as fast as Denver- Houston, Dallas, and (coincidentally enough), Phoenix.  The difference though, is that Phoenix is one of those areas that actually gets some conservative growth- mostly older retirees.  Denver's growth is a lot of millenials, some younger.. hipsters, outdoors-y people etc., and some older... families that left CA to find more affordable housing, etc.  This group is also heavily white, but in contrast to Phoenix, both groups are mostly white liberals.

Now, to be fair, Denver has always voted D.. at least the city itself.. but the difference between the Phoenix metro and the Denver metro is that in the latter, you have a place like Jefferson County, over 20% of the metro area's population (and the largest number of actual votes than anywhere else in the metro, including Denver itself).. mostly middle class suburbs that went D+7 in 2016.  You have to go back to 2004 to find a time the GOP last won it.  So in effect you have the same dynamic that you see in my state VA.. just on a smaller scale.  It used to be that the groups mentioned above could outweigh Denver, but that just isn't the case anymore.. when those groups have shrunk and the new growth is a different demographic, so that the GOP can't win Jefferson County anymore.

Compare to AZ- I'm not sure the Phoenix metro really has a parallel area to Jefferson County in the same way, otherwise Maricopa County would've flipped already.  This was Zaybay's point above- the character of the suburbs are just different in the two states.  So that while the GOP can't find a way to outweigh the urban areas in CO, they can in AZ.. well, at least for now (AZ could flip as early as 2020).

[Smash255]

Pretty much as mentioned above, Colorado is considerably more educated and younger than Arizona.    Arizona's growth has has leaned more towards retirees whereas Colorado's growth has tended to be more young professionals.   

Nevada is a bit different altogether, not as educated as either Arizona or Colorado and actually leans older (albeit slightly) than Arizona, but is completely dominated by Las Vegas and to a lesser extent Reno.

[Person Man]

So we all just agree that was is "Keeping Arizona Lame"  or whatever is that the hot weather has tendency to attract pensioners who compete with things like ACA or SSDI to keep getting their pensions and Medicare and otherwise keeping younger and less affluent workers from taxing their investments to pay for those things.

Who knows if that will be a permanent thing, though. I doubt Arizona goes back to being a completely unreconstructed haven for "office park republicans" that is total "Fool's Gold" where the D ceiling is like 48% but it may level off in the 20s  like North Carolina where it only votes for Democrats if Democrats are going to win big or like Florida where theoretically Democrats can't rely but will always barely vote for them if they end up winning because they lose close elections. Maybe it will do what Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia did but just much more slowly. My guess is that Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida will essentially switch places with Ohio, Iowa, (Missouri?), and Florida.

[Smash255]

So we all just agree that was is "Keeping Arizona Lame"  or whatever is that the hot weather has tendency to attract pensioners who compete with things like ACA or SSDI to keep getting their pensions and Medicare and otherwise keeping younger and less affluent workers from taxing their investments to pay for those things.

Who knows if that will be a permanent thing, though. I doubt Arizona goes back to being a completely unreconstructed haven for "office park republicans" that is total "Fool's Gold" where the D ceiling is like 48% but it may level off in the 20s  like North Carolina where it only votes for Democrats if Democrats are going to win big or like Florida where theoretically Democrats can't rely but will always barely vote for them if they end up winning because they lose close elections. Maybe it will do what Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia did but just much more slowly. My guess is that Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida will essentially switch places with Ohio, Iowa, (Missouri?), and Florida.

There is still a pretty clear Democratic trend in Arizona, and it does have a decent possibility of flipping in 2020.   The trend is just buffered a bit in comparison to Colorado because of the factors previously mentioned.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Its a senior citizen state like FL, but Mark Kelly and statewide Dems can win local elections.  I fully expect Kelly to win, even if Trump carries AZ, due to background checks in Senate.

[Person Man]

Its a senior citizen state like FL, but Mark Kelly and statewide Dems can win local elections.  I fully expect Kelly to win, even if Trump carries AZ, due to background checks in Senate.

That brings up another interesting issue-

By mid-century, millennials will be retiring. What if the economy remained so competitive that they could not save and have to live on SS, or SS has been cancelled or placed into austerity, or that given the health effects of an increasingly competitive economy, a lot of down market people OD'ed or died from overeating in their 40s and 50s?