GOP leans into Trump’s deportation agenda, but Arizona voters want fair treatment

While Republican candidates are leaning into harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric and aligning themselves with Trump’s mass deportation campaign to attract voters ahead of November’s midterms, a recent survey shows that most Arizonans prefer an immigration enforcement strategy that emphasizes fair treatment and an easier path to earning citizenship. 

The economy and affordability are top of mind for voters, but the shadow of immigration enforcement looms large, following months of aggressive crackdowns across the country and the fatal shootings of two citizens by federal immigration agents in January. 

November’s election is expected to be the first political test of the Trump administration’s violent immigration agenda. In Arizona, voters will choose which party will helm the state for the next four years, deciding between candidates who hold starkly different positions on the federal government’s approach to immigration enforcement. And research indicates that hostility to immigrants doesn’t resonate with Arizona voters.  

The 2026 Arizona Voters’ Agenda, by the nonpartisan Center for the Future of Arizona, found that an overwhelming majority of voters across the political spectrum want there to be improved access to citizenship for certain immigrants. As much as 86% of voters who are planning to participate in Arizona’s November election, including 75% of Republicans, said the federal government should create a “clearer and easier legal pathway” to citizenship for immigrants who meet established requirements. 

Arizona voters also appear to disagree with efforts to expand which immigrants are eligible for removal, a tactic that the Trump administration has increasingly turned to in a bid to raise deportation numbers. Three-fourths of voters in the Grand Canyon State, including 57% of those who identified as Republican, said they support the enforcement of federal immigration laws but emphasized that immigrants already in the country with legal permission should be treated fairly and respectfully. 

Few Arizonans said they agreed with strategies that undermine respectful treatment in the name of immigration enforcement. Only 21% of voters reported being comfortable with the possibility of legal immigrants enduring scrutiny or greater restrictions for the sake of implementing federal immigration enforcement goals. Even among Republican respondents, support for enforcement actions that led to the mistreatment of immigrants with legal status was low, at just 36%. 

In a written statement, the Center for the Future of Arizona noted that the survey demonstrates that Arizona voters don’t see immigration enforcement or border security as either-or issues. 

“Across several major policy questions, they support approaches that combine security, functionality, legal pathways, enforcement, and fair treatment. At the same time, more restrictive alternatives do not earn the same level of agreement across the electorate,” reads the statement. 

In November, those priorities may come into play as immigration enforcement and border security are on the ballot in Arizona. Voters will decide whether drug cartels should be labeled terrorist organizations. If passed, Proposition 317 would direct the Arizona Department of Homeland Security to do everything in its power to defend against that threat, and it sets the stage for a future governor to send the National Guard to patrol the state’s southern border. 

Arizonans will also pick who will take on the state’s top leadership positions for the next four years, each of which exerts significant influence over how much the state participates in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. 

Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who has resisted efforts from the GOP-controlled legislature to facilitate Trump’s mass deportation campaign and prefers instead to award funding grants to border officials, will face off against U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, a vocal proponent of Trump’s agenda who once proposed federal legislation that would have publicized the identities and locations of immigrants with deportation orders, in a bid to turn the public and local law enforcement agents into a national man-hunt. 

The race to win the state attorney general’s seat is similarly marked by federal immigration enforcement efforts. Democrat Kris Mayes is hoping voters will award her another term and has touted her lawsuit against Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants and her support for immigrants who arrived in the country as minors as proof that she is the right choice to represent the state in court. 

Mayes’ opponent, Republican state Sen. Warren Petersen, meanwhile, helped craft a 2024 law that gives the state the power to jail migrants who cross the border anywhere but at an official port of entry and vowed to help the Trump administration deport immigrants, including those who were awarded a temporary shield against removal under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.