The following is an AZPM original production.

From the radio studios of AZPM, welcome to the latest edition of The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up, the newest member of Congress, Southern Arizona's own Adelita Grijalva joins me to talk about her plans once she gets to Washington, D.C.

And a U of A political science professor on the impact of independent voters and how divided the electorate really is.

Those stories and more next on The Press Room.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) Welcome to The Press Room, I'm Steve Goldstein.

On Tuesday, the special election in Southern Arizona's seventh congressional district took place and the seat that has been open because of the death of longtime Congressman Raul Grijalva has now been filled as his daughter Adelita Grijalva defeated Republican Daniel Butierez.

And I'm pleased now to be joined by Representative-elect Grijalva.

Welcome to The Press Room.

Thank you so much, thanks for having me.

So when you think about going through what your family went through with your father's illness and then you jump into this special election, win a contested primary that some were saying, "Oh my gosh, how close is this gonna be?"

And then you wipe the floor with your opponent.

And then you win this special election.

What has the last six to 12 months been like for you?

It's been really crazy, quite like up and down of emotions and I think, you know, when people say, "Well, how does it feel to replace your dad?"

I'm like, "There is no replacing."

And so being very clear and intentional about that, that many of us, including myself, here especially in Southern Arizona, have the opportunities we have because he got there and then held the door open for the rest of us.

So that's really my intention.

But you know, it's been, I mean, literally rollercoaster is a good way to describe it for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you've won elections before, obviously people in Southern Arizona know you, not just your family's name, but yours.

But how different is it to win a congressional election compared to a supervisor election?

I think it's just, there's a lot of responsibility for every office.

And so when you look at the local offices that I've been fortunate to, been elected to, and still have an opportunity to do all of the things, like go to my daughter's mariachi performance and my son's, you know, the PTA meeting.

And so understanding that that might change has been probably an adjustment for me.

I'm a hovercraft mom and a little bit of a control freak.

And so those kinds of things I'm gonna have to adjust.

But I really do wanna be very present and very intentional about making sure that we keep the lines of communication open.

Because one thing that I have to push back on is this idea that when people go to Washington or go to the state that they just sort of disappear.

And I don't wanna do that.

Well, your ties here are so far reaching and long.

I'm gonna ask you one more question related to your father.

And that is he had great reputation for being someone who was willing to get in the fight.

This is a pretty contentious time.

And also you're coming from, not that there wasn't contentiousness in local office too, but coming from this area, Southern Arizona, Pima County in particular, it is an area that politically at least leans a particular way.

When we look at Congress right now, even though it's close, you'll be in the minority.

And some of the majority-minorit fights have been pretty nasty.

Can I ask you from the standpoint of what you watched your father do, being in both the minority and the majority, specifically what did you learn or what are you expecting yourself?

I think that the toughest, and I'll speak for him because we spoke about it, the toughest office was being on the Tucson Unified School District governing board.

Because really that's a nonpartisan board, but historically leans Democrat.

But we've had some pretty significant battles and differences of opinion that you have to remember that just because we don't agree on one issue doesn't mean that we can't come back to work on other things together.

And that's gonna be really critically important because for me, a lot of the rhetoric has been so personal, so anti, like you're either, everything is very black and white, you're either with us or you're against us.

And for the vast majority of the community, that's not the case.

We, they just want people to fight for them.

And that's what I'm gonna do.

Well, even from the political standpoint, when your father had his memorial service, there were a couple of Republican members of Arizona's congressional delegation.

People might've been surprised because there is so much going back and forth.

Do you think there is hope for some sort of, I would say bipartisanship on certain issues, especially one that comes to mind for a lot of folks, the environment and water here in Arizona.

Do you see there could be some sort of common ground that even though on a lot of issues, it feels like the delegation is really divided?

I hope so, because I've heard from a lot of registered Republicans that are very frustrated with the water situation, with Colorado River, tribal lands that are feeling very left out of conversations.

And I do think immigration is also an area where we can work to come up with something that is workable, at least a step in the right direction.

The system is broken, and so it's not, we need to fix it, it needs to be built up from scratch.

Can we dig in a little bit on that though?

Is there room for, I mean, some people have talked about the patchwork, when there's been talk of comprehensive immigration reform.

There's a feeling of, okay, let's have a guest worker program.

Let's perhaps have a path to citizenship, especially for DACA recipients.

That at least for a while seemed like a lot of people were on board from both parties on that.

And then also, I'm not even sure these fit in the same area, but the overlap of border security to sort of fit in there, to know more about who's coming across the border and when.

In an ideal world, if there's bipartisanship, would you like to see, let's get done what we can get done?

Or would you like to not have it done unless we can do something really far reaching?

No, we have to make, I mean, I do believe that it's naive to think that we're gonna come up with what I believe is an amazing comprehensive immigration reform, and we're gonna snap our fingers, and everyone's gonna agree.

So I do think we have to have pathways and steps, and unfortunately, so many people are just so divided on the issue until it impacts them.

And especially in this community in CD7, we have many mixed status families, many business owners that were going through the legal process to become a citizen.

Had total permission to be here, are business owners and currently detained.

And so once that, you sort of see who is being targeted, the idea that everyone is a criminal is completely inaccurate, and we know that.

And so pushing back on that rhetoric is really important.

And there's been concern about immigration courts as well, obviously, with ICE agents waiting to re-arrest, or in some cases, just arrest for the first time.

Well, cases are being dismissed, and people are following the process.

All I hear is, well, you know, if they would just do it the legal way.

That's what they were trying to do at court.

Why do you think you can find them at home?

Because they're registered, they have a TIN number and are contributing to our tax base.

And so when we continue to see this slip of our economy in this nation, we can point very clearly to when it started to happen.

And it is the tariffs, it's this attack on our immigration, our migrant community, people that are not allowed a pathway to legalization and citizenship, all of those are gonna be huge factors.

And when we look at the jobs report, the honest jobs report that showed that we're in a decline, but you see our allies, Mexico and Canada, their economies are stronger.

And I think it's because what they're gonna start to do is avoid working with us totally.

And we're gonna, the US is going to be the one that's gonna hurt the most, and Arizona is literally on the front line of that debate.

This might be easy to ask a Democrat this, but is it the responsibility of more Republicans, whether business owners, community leaders, Republican donors or Republican members of Congress to say, okay, we're not on board with a lot of things Democrats want, we wanna support President Trump, but some of the stuff is ultimately going to destroy the economy or hurt the economy for everybody.

Well, and that's what we're seeing.

We're seeing Republican representatives voting with Democrats on specific issues that they see are not aligned with what the people of their communities sent them to DC for.

And so when you see those town halls where you have in very bright red states, town halls where they are screaming and upset at their representative who they elected to go to DC, and they didn't send them there to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.

They didn't send them there to send in a private army of ICE agents into our communities to literally kidnap people from our streets anonymously.

I mean, those are not things we want to see.

So we see the very systemic erosion of our personal rights happening literally before our eyes.

This is The Press Room on AZPM.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

I'm here with Representative-elect, Adelita Grijalva, a few more minutes left with the representative- elect.

I wanna call you 'representative', but I have to hold off on that, I guess.

Thank you.

California wants to ban ICE agents from wearing masks.

We have no idea whether the feds would go along with that.

One would suspect they wouldn't.

Do you think that's a good step?

Would you like to see Arizona do that?

I do.

There's a lot of anonymity.

You see ICE agents coming up in regular vehicles wearing bulletproof, but all black, no identification on who they are.

I mean, they look, you know, there's this big criticism about cartel, you know, all over Mexico doing things, you know, where they look like this sort of unofficial army.

That's what ICE agents look like.

And so I saw it literally around the corner from my house.

There was no other way to identify them and they don't introduce themselves.

And sometimes they try to get into locations by really deceptive means.

And we have to do better and we have to protect our community.

Trump Administration seems focused on really large cities when it comes to Los Angeles.

There was obviously the threat to go into Chicago and send troops.

If you heard there was buzz about particular Phoenix or Tucson, but even Phoenix, what would your response be?

How would you want to react to that?

Well, part of the problem is no one is asking for the help, right?

And so when you have this administration making unilateral decisions that is against the wishes of the local elected officials, that's where we see the problem.

There's this whole idea, I find it funny, that you have the Republican Party that says, we want the federal government out of our lives, unless they're targeting the community members that have been scapegoated by this administration.

And so I know our governor would stand up.

We'd have our AG Kris Mayes stand up for us.

And I think it's so important that if you look at the cities that they're targeting, they're bright blue cities in states where Trump is trying to make a name for himself and push his weight around.

That has been an odd dynamic.

None of us is naive.

We know that there is partisansh forever.

That's how our system has worked.

Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other.

But it does feel like there is a lot more noise being made that is wholly partisan, that a lot of people are wondering why there isn't more standing up to this.

Can I ask you what the worst part of that do you think is?

Because a lot of people are saying, quote unquote, "There's a cult of Trump."

Perhaps that applied in the first term.

It feels like this is something different.

Well, I think that when the president of the United States is asked about the division in our nation, and he says, "I don't care about that."

We are disposable.

The people that disagree with him are not relevant.

That's the problem, is instead of having a leader that is going to lead and unite, be a servant leader, he is an opportunist and wants to be a dictator.

And it's really frightening to see how many people in elected office have pledged allegiance to Trump, and not allegiance to the people of their communities in the Constitution and the rule of law.

Considering what people are seeing happen with the Trump Administration, are you disappointed and you'll have a chance to have a bigger impact on this in Washington?

But some people have really criticized the democratic leadership in Congress.

Not that they aren't saying certain things that people might wanna hear, but that there hasn't been enough, let's say, aggressiveness, aggressive opposition.

Do you think that's true?

Do you think that's fair or unfair?

I mean, I'm not in the conversations.

And so I think that I always take a pause when I'm not privy to all of the details.

But I will say that the vast majority of people that I spoke to, and I believe that the people that voted for me, when we talked about it, they want us to fight for them.

Not fight against each other over petty little things, but fight for the people.

And when you have billionaires going up to the White House and essentially buying opportunities, like there is literally a for sale sign outside the White House and that's how it feels.

They're very disappointed in that.

And I believe that our leadership is hearing from all of us, the rank and file.

And once I'm there, they'll hear from me too, basically saying, the people wanna see us fighting, so let's fight.

And I understand leadership's position before.

We're like, the idea of a government shutdown is just so disruptive and so harmful.

And so many people would be out of a job, but even people that are within the federal system are saying, we want you to fight for us.

As we wrap up, a billionaire that Politico mentioned, who is now not living anymore, you were mentioned prominently related to your vote for opening the Epstein files.

Yes.

So is that something that is on your list of priorities?

Has leadership mentioned that to you?

They have not, I am mentioning it.

I will be signature, I would be the number 218th that they needed in order to force a vote on the floor.

So I think that it's important because there is an opportunity, I think, depending on what the issue is, to work together and to work across party lines.

And I'm hoping to see more and more of that, especially as we get close to the midterms.

And when people are facing the very real situation where their constituents are angry with them for voting against their best interest.

And finally, is there, even with all that's going on in the world and people are just saying, God, I want to turn off my TV, turn off my radio.

Do you find some reason for optimism as you go to Washington?

This is hope.

This election, I mean, almost 40 points with me speaking specifically about progressive ideals and the importance of protecting our environment, of public education, of the economy, affordability, protecting our rights and our democracy.

And there was an overwhelming number of people that showed up just to vote in this race.

And so I'm very hopeful.

We have to, we have to be hopeful.

Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, congratulations, thanks for being here.

Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

And The Press Room continues after this.

Hi, I'm Kevin O'Connor, host of "This Old House."

This old house has been on PBS for a long time.

And we want to keep coming into your house week after week.

And just like construction bills, good partners are essential to a project's success.

That's why your support of AZPM is so important.

The financial contributions of viewers just like you is what keeps "This Old House" on the air.

So visit support.azpm.org and make a donation today.

And from everybody at "This Old House," thank you.

Welcome back to The Press Room, I'm Steve Goldstein.

Representative-elect Grijalva will be serving in Washington at a time the country feels as divided as it has ever been, at least in modern times.

What could that mean for voters generally, and independents more specifically?

With me and I'll talk about that and more, Samara Klar, political scientist and professor in the U of A School of Government and Public Policy.

Welcome back to The Press Room, thanks for being here.

Thank you, it's great to be here.

So from 2020 until today, about five years or so, 170,000 were registered Independ in Arizona, about 90,000 were Republicans, and more than 100,000 fewer registered Democrats.

That's right.

What's the rise of the independence there over the last five years?

Why is that in, just based on math, does that make a lot more Democrats to becoming independents, can we read that?

Well, Arizona has been growing as a state, so in large part it has to do with the population increase and more people registering to vote in the state.

But for the past 25 years we've seen independents rise consistently not only in Arizona, but across the country.

So this is a national trend where more and more Americans are deliberately choosing to not identify with either party.

This doesn't mean they don't prefer one of the parties, they usually do, but they don't want to associate with that party publicly.

So Independents, I guess we can't really label, when we think about swing voters, does that fit Independents or are there still those in the Republican party and the Democratic party who are moving toward the middle?

Well, Independents specifically usually do vote for the same party over and over and over again.

So if you ask an Independent, which party do you prefer?

75 to 90% of Independents have no problem telling you that there is a party they prefer.

And what we find is that electio after election, Independents who say they prefer a party are as likely to vote for that party as a professed partisan.

So voting behavior on Independents doesn't typically look that independent.

Now obviously Independents are different from partisans in certain ways, primarily they're not gonna put up the yard sign, they're not gonna have the bumper sticker, they're not gonna volunteer, they may not donate money, so they're not doing things that a partisan will do but when it comes to voting, they look pretty partisan most of the time.

So in this state, if you're an Independent, you have to request a party's ballot to vote in the primary.

And so Independent participation, there has not been too great.

How much does that affect the system as we move forward to the general election?

If Independents, if either that step weren't there, we have to request a party ballot or I can just be Independent and vote for whoever.

Do you think that would involve more, that would get more Independents involved and do you think that would actually lead to perhaps different outcomes than we see?

That is certainly a theory that a lot of people have and a lot of people would like to see tested here in Arizona.

It was in 1998 when Arizona switched to allowing Independents to participate in primaries but as you say, there is this bureaucratic hurdle.

You have to request a ballot, you have to say which party you're gonna be, or which election you'll be participating in.

So if you look at registration data from the 90s to today, if you don't know about the 1998 change, you would notice that in 1998, all of a sudden, tons of people started identifying as Independent.

It seems like this massive shift, which it was, and that was largely because people were now told they could participate in the primary system.

It doesn't mean they do participate in the primary system.

Most Arizonans, Independent or not, are not voting in the primary system but that is something that I think a lot of people would like to see.

You see a lot of non-profit organizations in Arizona and activist groups actively working toward that goal.

So earlier in the program, we had the conversation with Representative- Elect Grijalva.

She defeated Daniel Butierez, the Republican candidate, and last night, actually, excuse me, on Tuesday night, one of our reporters was able to get him talking about the importance of bipartisanship.

Adelita and I have not attacked each other and I've had attacks from my own party because I didn't attack Adelita.

There's a lot of people from the South Side here right now that would have never been with the Republicans.

I've opened eyes, I've showed the Republicans what they can do to win CD7 or to start winning seats within Pima County and it requires them reaching across the aisle and becoming friends with their neighbors so that they can hear what they have to say.

If they're screaming at each other, no one's gonna listen.

You gotta sit down and start talking.

We've got loud people on both sides that are ripping us apart and I'm really hoping I ran to bring us back together to unite us and as you can look around you, that's exactly what I've been doing.

I mean, this room is full of Democrats and Republicans.

So Butierez's words were very focused on, he thinks the Republicans should try to reach across the aisle more, certainly in areas where in his particular case, Democrats dominate.

And yet at the same time, because of perhaps the popularity of Adelita Grijalva, but also the way the districts are drawn, he lost by nearly 40 points.

We'll have the official numbers coming in.

Is bipartisanship possible and does it feel strange to maybe hear that from someone who was in a district that favored one party over another and he had no chance of winning?

Is it good to hear someone like that who lost by a big margin still say that?

Absolutely, we know from political science research that what party leaders say really does matter, especially matters among voters who are really hostile toward the other party.

So we talk a lot about this concept called the affective polarization, which means that Democrats and Republicans really dislike each other more than they used to.

And it's kind of a puzzle in American politics because Democrats and Republicans don't actually disagree with each other any more than they ever have.

They just dislike each other more.

So that's sort of what we're all trying to figure out in political science, where is this dislike and disdain coming from if not issue disagreement?

But what we know is that when party leaders say that they support bipartisanship or they support compromise, when they renounce political violence, it does have an impact.

So I think it's great he said that.

I think that that is what political leaders should be saying because it doesn't ring hollow.

It does have an impact on their voters.

So why is a tough question on this one?

Why don't we see more of that?

Especially from those who are already in elected office, it might actually help what they want to have get done, get done easier.

Well, we know voters want it.

They want civility.

They don't want their leaders to sort of bend over backwards and give up on their values and their principles.

They do want their leaders to fight for what they believe in.

But voters, Democrats and Republicans really dislike all of the sort of name calling and bullying and aggression.

It's why we see more and more Americans not watch the news, except for this show of course.

Except for of course, yes, thank you.

More and more.

We see more and more Americans not, they say they don't like either party.

That percentage is going up.

So would you like the Democrats, Republicans or neither?

A lot of people say neither.

Over a quarter of Americans, the last polling I saw, said they don't like either party.

So voters really do want this.

We also know though that, again, not to disparage the media, but when politicians say outrageous, aggressive, crazy things, they get attention for it.

And that attention can be helpful.

It can increase donations.

It can increase even name recognition and elections.

So that does seem to be the primary motivation or at least the primary incentive to engage in the kind of behavior we know voters don't like.

So in some of the recent work you've been doing, and I guess a book is forthcoming as well.

Recently Out.

Okay.

The phrase, 'the distorting effect of polarization.'

So before we wrap up, I wanna ask you about that.

So where's that come from in the sense that many people, and I hear from people every single day, who say if we just didn't have social media, we'd be all set.

And there may be something to that in the sense that if there are untruths, it's easier to get them out faster.

But what are some of the other factors?

Well, when we're seeing just nonstop aggression, hostility, and sort of extreme right and extreme left figures dominating our media environments, people start to really think of those as the prototypical Democrats and Republicans.

And it's something I say to my students all the time.

I mean, I have very politically diverse students here at the University of Arizona, which I absolutely love.

And we always start the semester by saying, Donald Trump and AOC are not in this classroom.

They're not on this campus.

We have Republicans, we have Democrats.

You agree far more than you disagree.

And that's true of all Americans, not just our students here.

And it's something that people can easily forget if they're seeing this feed of the craziest people in America or the craziest people in politics dominating every headline.

Is there generational hope for that to change then?

We talk about your students because one would think that younger folks are the ones who are most influenced by TikTok, social media example.

About 30 seconds left for this big question.

But is there hope for the future, especially people in your class?

Well, I think young people are really fed up with a lot of the aggression and hostility.

I hope it doesn't turn into disengagement.

We are seeing really high levels of engagement among younger voters.

So yeah, I mean, interacting with my students every day, absolutely gives me hope.

Final few seconds.

You watched the Adelita Grijalva conversation.

I did, yeah.

Do you have reason to think that she could have an impact there or because she's in the minority, probably not?

Well, I mean, it's a real tight minority.

It was a narrow, narrow minority, as you said.

So in that situation, anybody could have an impact.

But I think, you know, listen, if she believes that she wants to fight for what her voters believe in and she wants to do it in a sort of civil way, but push forward, yes, absolutely.

She could make the difference.

Any of them could.

It is such a narrow minority over there.

U of A professor and political scientist, Samara Klar.

Thank you for being back on The Press Room.

Great to have you.

Yeah, Great to be here.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of The Press Room.

We are back next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

(upbeat music) [MUSIC]