Harris brings new energy to Democrats in Arizona, but still faces challenges mending cracks in Biden’s 2020 coalition

Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player… Casa Grande, Arizona CNN —

It is 101 degrees, the desert sun in full force. Yet Pablo Correa and Jacob Dials are smiling as they go door to door, foot soldiers in a progressive army that suddenly has a bouncy spring in its step.

“There’s a lot more enthusiasm,” Dials said in an interview between canvassing stops. “There’s a lot more energy around. … Folks who were still planning on voting are a lot more enthusiastic about voting. Now we are hearing conversations like, ‘Oh, I already told my friends, my family, my neighbor to go out and vote,’ versus ‘yeah, I’m going to go out and vote, probably.’”

The source of the change, of course, is the switch atop the Democratic ticket. Correa said canvassers who were loyal to President Joe Biden are now excited by Vice President Kamala Harris, seeing her as a candidate with more vigor, more diversity and, critically, more support.

“We definitely feel it is our duty to defend democracy,” said Correa, who served in the Marine Corps.

“Duty for us is sustainable and that is how it felt prior to Harris taking the top of the ticket. Now, there’s excitement and if you can throw excitement on top of duty … folks really want to jump in and be involved.”

Canvassing is hard and often thankless work at any time. Correa, Dials and their Rural Arizona Action colleagues, though, are next-level. Their mission is to target rural areas where the homes can be far apart and where residents are sometimes unwelcoming, even hostile. Here, knock on 100 doors and, on average, just 16 or 17 people will answer and engage in at least brief conversation.

Our time with Correa and Dials was spent in two neighborhoods in Casa Grande, about an