Trump courts Arizona voters as GOP divisions shadow midterm push

Trump tried to sell Arizona Republicans on a fresh path to 2026 gains Thursday, but the scene at Dream City Church in north Phoenix suggested a party still leaning on its familiar older base.

The “Build the Red Wall” rally, organized by Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action, was built around turnout operations as much as spectacle. Attendees had to check their voter-registration status to get inside, and the event fed into Turning Point’s broader registration and ballot-chasing push as Republicans look to hold Arizona and other Sun Belt battlegrounds.

Trump came to court young voters, a bloc that has drifted sharply away from him. The Yale Youth Poll found 68% disapproval among voters ages 18 to 22, 72% among voters 23 to 29 and 75% among voters 30 to 34, in a survey of 3,429 registered voters that included 2,008 ages 18 to 34. The same poll showed Democrats leading the generic ballot by 2 points, a warning sign for Republicans trying to build momentum heading into November.

But the crowd in Phoenix told a different story. Despite the outreach to younger conservatives, the audience appeared older, and some attendees talked less about expansion than about division inside the GOP. Arizona’s stakes made that tension harder to ignore. The state’s Republican primary was less than 100 days away, and candidates were still chasing Trump’s backing in contests that include the governor’s race and two competitive House seats.

Those intraparty rifts were on display in the governor’s race. Trump initially endorsed Karrin Taylor Robson, then later switched to Rep. Andy Biggs after pushback from the MAGA wing, a move that underscored how fractured the Republican coalition remains even as the party tries to close ranks for the midterms.

The speaker list reflected that broad effort to unify the Arizona delegation around Trump’s message. Erika Kirk, who took over Turning Point after the assassination of her husband, Charlie Kirk, was listed alongside Biggs, Abe Hamadeh, Paul Gosar, Eli Crane and Juan Ciscomani. KJZZ reported that all but one of Arizona’s Republican House members appeared on the list, with Rep. David Schweikert notably absent.

Outside, No Kings planned counterprotests across the Phoenix Valley, a reminder that the party’s effort to build a red wall is colliding not only with Democratic resistance but with its own unresolved questions about who actually makes up the modern GOP coalition.