The flipping of AZ from red to blue was not accidental. It was planned after the Gore election loss. At that time, Democrats were calling for a boycott of AZ by blue states because they said the state was too Conservative Republican. People just laughed at that effort. AZ State was labeled a party school, with the majority of the student body coming from middle class, Republican parents. Democrats said that had to change and the population needed to become more diverse. I think that John McCain was behind this effort or at least cooperated with it,
The first thing that they did was send in Janet Neapolitan to run for Governor and court the AZ student body. At that time smoking cigarettes was banned on the AZ campus and she used that to win the AZ student vote. Can you imagine? It worked, too.
One of the first things that Napolitano did was change the President of ASU. She brought in the former President of Columbia with the mandate to diversify ASU and boy did things start to change. In one of the first attempts at virtue signaling by the student body, the students elected a Middle Eastern Muslim boy as president of the student body. He quit half way through the year and just said awful things about the ASU women and their lose morals and how stupid they were for electing him. The diversity efforts continued, though smoking was never allowed everywhere on campus.
John McCain continued to push for more immigration, claiming that hotelsm farms, golf courses and restaurants needed more workers. At the same time, residents of CA and WA flooded into AZ partly to take advantage of the housing crash in AZ. Unfortunately, when Leftwingers flee the mess that they supported in their home states, they take their politics with them.
Oh, there was also a huge influx of Canadians to AZ during the housing crash. Canadians love AZ. The AZ housing boom is still going on, as residents are fleeing Leftwing cities, though travel from Canada is still banned. I have never seen so many multi-million dollar houses in my life. What is funny is that these new home buyers put all the latest Southwest decorating touches in their new homes and ended up with ranches that look like a Mexican restaurant. Now, the style is pared down contemporary.
You see the same style thing going in in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Any older person (usually a woman) wearing a hat with a southwestern hatband, wearing a Navajo pattern coat and sporting silver and turquoise jewelry is probably from New York City.
Plus all the fauxdobe houses that are just wood frame with stucco.