As part of a new series, the Guardian looks at Maricopa county’s transformation from conservative bastion to 2020 battleground
For years, Carlos Garcia would grab his bullhorn each afternoon and head downtown to the office of Joe Arpaio, the brash, hardline, anti-immigrant Maricopa county sheriff who became known as “the Donald Trump of Arizona”.
When Garcia’s protests began in 2007, just a handful of devoted activists joined him. A conservative firebrand, Arpaio was re-elected every four years by the mostly white residents of the state’s most populous county. He was seemingly untouchable.
