SCOTTSDALE, AZ —
Michele Pitek moved to Arizona from her lifelong home of California with her husband, Mike, about seven years ago. Part of the reason is that the couple is tired of struggling to meet the cost of living in the Bay Area, even though they both earn six-figure salaries.
After settling into their newly built home on more than an acre of land with stunning views of the rocky peaks on the edge of Scottsdale, Pitek, 57, said there were some adjustments. We learned to rely on septic tanks to treat well water that contained arsenic, like when we saw a John Deere bulldozer parked in a shopping center parking lot. But the rich desert beauty makes up for it, as they watch shooting stars streak over their home almost every night, hear coyotes howl, and watch hawks soar overhead. Masu.
Former California residents Mike and Michelle Pitek enjoy stunning desert views in their Scottsdale backyard.
(Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times)
The Paitek tribe is part of a group of Californians who have moved to the Grand Canyon State, numbering more than 74,000 by 2022, according to the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s more than a quarter of the people who immigrated to Arizona that year, and by far the most from any state.
The influx has raised questions about its impact on politics in the once ruby-colored state, which now faces either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Trump winning the White House in November. This is one of the few fierce battlegrounds that will decide the outcome. According to Real Clear Politics, an average of recent polls has Mr. Trump leading by 1.4 points.
In 2020, President Biden defeated President Trump in Arizona by less than 11,000 votes. After the election was announced, one of Pitek’s former colleagues in Oakland, California, texted her, saying, “You turned Michelle blue.”
“I wish it was just me,” she said. “Mike and I are true Californians in many ways, and we brought those values with us. We haven’t changed. We’re Democrats.”
California is an overwhelmingly Democratic state (Biden won by more than 29 points in 2020) and is home to many of the nation’s most prominent liberals, especially Democratic presidential candidate Harris. There is also. But the state is home to more than 5.5 million registered Republicans, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
As a result, Californians move to California for a variety of reasons, including increased job opportunities in the technology, semiconductor, and other corporate sectors, cheaper housing, lower tax rates, less traffic, and frustration with homelessness. It is not always easy to discern a person’s partisan preferences. and crime in the Golden State. But experts say their presence is being felt.
Fed by the Colorado River, the Hayden Rose Aqueduct runs through Scottsdale and Phoenix. Approximately 87% of Arizona is in extreme drought, despite a moderate amount of rain across the state in June and July.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
“There’s some general perception that Californians are having a progressive influence on Arizona voters,” said Paul Bentz, a Phoenix-based Republican strategist and pollster. There are certainly areas of the state where this is true.” “(Sun Valley, Phoenix metropolitan areas) are becoming more competitive across the board. But the suburbs and growing metropolitan and suburban areas are becoming more conservative.”
Even before Arizona’s recent influx of Californians, the neighboring states had experienced ups and downs.
Aaron Ferrer, 52, was born in West Covina, but his family moved to Arizona for financial reasons when he was a child.
The registered Republican voter told union recruiters that he intended to support Harris and other Democrats.
Canvasser Jose Manuel hangs up pamphlets for Kamala Harris and U.S. Senate candidate Ruben Gallego while knocking on doors in Glendale, Arizona.
(Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“I don’t think the Republican choices are ideal. They promote hate, and I don’t want to promote hate,” he said on a recent Sunday in Phoenix’s orderly Foothills, where temperatures topped 100 degrees. he told Unite Here activists who knocked on his door in the Acres neighborhood. “I want to get things done.”
Even before many Californians moved to Arizona in recent years, the state’s politics were changing. In 2010, Republicans controlled both U.S. Senate seats and all statewide offices and had supermajorities in both chambers.
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Currently, the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general are Democrats, and one U.S. senator is also a Democrat (the other is an independent who was previously a Democrat). Republicans hold a two-seat advantage in both houses of Congress.
But there is clear dissatisfaction among some Arizonans that Californians are trying to change the state’s politics and culture.
“There’s an anti-California sentiment,” Benz said. “‘Don’t turn my Arizona into California’ is a very popular and pervasive messaging strategy, especially among Republicans.”
Patricia Summerland, 59, who moved from Lake of the Woods in Kern County to Glendale, Ariz., last summer agreed.
Patricia Summerland, 59, who moved from Lake of the Woods in Kern County to Glendale, Ariz., last summer plays with her daughter’s dog, Jake.
(Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“Don’t you dare tell me you’re from California,” the nurse says when she greets an elderly man who asks her where she’s from as she walks with her daughter and her dog in Scottsdale. I said, remembering the time. My daughter answered, “California.”
“He said, ‘Why are you here?'” Summerland said. “And he said, ‘Well, it’s the Democratic Party. We don’t want people like you here.’ And my daughter said, ‘Excuse me, first of all, I’m a Republican.’ Said. It was sad and heartbreaking. Oh, how rude! ”
Summerland grew up in a Democratic family and is a member of the party, and after voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016, became a die-hard Trump supporter after watching his reign as president.
“After that, it was Trump, Trump, Trump, because I woke up,” she said. “I read his book. I really dug into his background. It wasn’t about who was running the show on TV or anything. It was deep. And I… I respect that person and I feel that way, and he has my vote.”
Summerland was born and raised in Los Angeles. Her father was a police officer in Glendale, and after his retirement, the family became distributors for the Times.
Former Californian Patricia Summerland left for Scottsdale with her daughter Jennifer Pope.
(Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times)
In the spotlight, she modeled for the likes of Jordash Jeans and danced on “American Bandstand” with Dick Clark, she said. She auditioned for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a popular 1980s grumpy professional wrestling television show, and was chosen as one of two actresses to play “Sonny the California Girl.” He said he was cast. She also posed for Playboy magazine and held various jobs including a park ranger before becoming a nurse.
She said she once loved living in California, but in recent years she no longer felt safe there as the state became increasingly unaffordable. She said her friend was assaulted and raped illegally in the country, and homeless people attacked a large glass display of Bentleys and Rolls-Royces at her daughter and son-in-law’s dealership in Van Nuys. He allegedly threatened customers by smearing feces on the walls. .
She recalled pulling into a Target parking lot in Valencia and seeing police swarming the car because a snatch robbery had just occurred.
“Sadly, I don’t even recognize my state anymore,” Summerland said. Her two daughters and their spouses had immigrated to Arizona before her.
Although Summerland and Pitek’s politics are polar opposites, the two women said they have no regrets about their decision to leave California.
“I’m much happier here,” Summerland said, adding that she loves the state’s amazing beauty with less crime and homelessness. She plans to celebrate her 60th birthday at the Grand Canyon. “Arizona is beautiful.”
Pitek, who grew up in a small town in the Central Valley, attended fashion school in New York, and worked in corporate human resources in the Bay Area, said her friends in California tried to dissuade her from leaving, telling her she could never return. He said he did. Because she would be priced out of the housing market.
Michele Pitek and her husband Mike moved to Arizona from the Bay Area.
(Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“Once I stepped foot here, everything fell into place,” she said, adding that they bought the sprawling property for less than $700,000 before the pandemic hit and the number of delivery workers increased dramatically. He noted that he has started a small business that provides delivery services to Amazon. Shop online.
This move allowed them to experience a different pace of life.
“I’ve always been interested in holistic, meditation and nature. My husband has a little bit of a hard time accepting those different things,” Pitek said. “But now I find him sitting outside in the early hours of the morning, drinking coffee and just thinking about God knows what.”
She found it easy to make friends at first by joining a local Bunco group. When Bo, an 8-pound pet desert tortoise, escaped from his backyard enclosure, their community took action. (He was found three days later about a mile away.)
The couple’s policies differ from those of many of their neighbors, but they say there has been no friction.
“Political conversations here can get heated quickly because this is a (historically) strong red state, right?” she said. “But everyone is really respectful of each other and I’m glad to see that. … It’s important to have respect.”
