Arizona's economy is humming. Will 2024 voters notice?

Aaron McDonald remembers coming to Maricopa County nearly 20 years ago as a young blacksmith hoping to get a job building a new football stadium.

Driving from Wyoming for the first time, he was struck by the overwhelming expanse of desert surrounding Phoenix.

Today, those expansive views are dotted with industrial development that is transforming Arizona's economy. A region that was devastated by the 2008 financial crisis is awash with massive projects under construction, fueled in part by President Biden's signature legislative achievements aimed at restarting U.S. semiconductor production.

“There was a shooting range there. It was the Wild West and now there's a giant chip factory there,” said McDonald, who now trains union steelworkers, referring to a huge plant complex that TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is building in north Phoenix. “The growth, to me, really doesn't seem like it's going to slow down at any point. “We know we have Biden to thank for this work.”

The question for Biden's re-election team is whether enough voters in this battleground state will feel the same way in November.

His administration has given billions of dollars to companies like Intel and TSMC and hopes huge investments in green technology and semiconductors can make a difference in a state where Biden beat President Trump by just 10,000 votes in 2020.

But recent polls point to challenges in winning over those voters.

The Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and the CHIPS and Science Act will ultimately send about $24 billion to Arizona, according to data compiled by the White House.

But a majority of Americans recently surveyed nationally said they didn't know enough to say whether the Inflation Reduction Act helped or hurt them in the two years since its passage, according to a recent survey by the American Issues Research Center. Associated Press-NORC Publics. And a majority of registered voters in Arizona thought Trump was “more trustworthy” than Biden on addressing the economy and immigration, according to a recent Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll.

TSMC has committed to spending $65 billion on state construction facilities over the next decade, in addition to the roughly $11 billion in loans and grants it recently received from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The company has said its new facilities, when completed, will create 6,000 permanent and approximately 20,000 temporary jobs.

“When you drive north or south, you see what my wife calls the prosperity cranes. And they are very outstanding,” said Zachary Holman, an engineering professor at Arizona State University.

Intel is also expanding its presence in Arizona, where it had been withdrawing its presence just a decade ago. It received about $10 billion from the Commerce Department, adding to the nearly $20 billion it plans to spend to expand its presence.

But with many of the new jobs coming within a few years, more immediate concerns like rising rents, rising consumer prices and the crisis at the Arizona-Mexico border are getting most of the attention.

Trump and his allies hope to keep things that way, even as they grapple with voter anger over the state Supreme Court's decision banning virtually all abortions. The Legislature voted to repeal the law with some Republican support.

“Arizona voters are ready to vote for President Donald J. Trump this November,” said Rachel Lee, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “Joe Biden is losing in the state and he knows it. “Despite Biden’s best attempts to enlighten voters, they know exactly who is to blame for rising costs, the growing border crisis, and staggering crime rates across the country.”

Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke delivers remarks before President Biden takes the stage during his campaign stop in the city.

(Alexandra Buxbaum / Associated Press)

Kevin Hartke, the Republican mayor of nearby Chandler, said the investment in his city has been a blessing, while noting that it has been a bipartisan push across multiple administrations, making it difficult for Biden to own it exclusively. growth.

“Ordinary people here are going to complain more about the cost of gasoline, the effect of inflation and certainly the housing crisis,” Hartke said. “I think in those areas where there are more 'this hits me' concerns, as people struggle to keep up with those kinds of rising prices.”

In addition to expanding semiconductor production, the money has gone toward renovating the Phoenix airport, expanding Highway 10 through the region and planting more trees in the city.

“The last four years have been transformative for Phoenix,” said Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat. “We are going to have a more diverse high-wage economy for a generation thanks to Biden. “My job is to help people appreciate the change we are going through and how it means they will have more opportunities to stay here.”

This shower of money didn't seem to affect Gabi Zander, 34, who was recently at a farmers market with her mother in Phoenix's Uptown neighborhood. Zander, who has lived in the area for more than a decade and works in marketing, said she is focused on the rising cost of living and the war in Gaza.

The recent ruling banning virtually all abortions in the state, since overturned, infuriated her. But the general state of politics has her depressed and she's not sure if she'll even vote.

“I just wish politicians would spend more time thinking about how to make the city more livable and get more funding for teachers,” Zander said. “I wish they would leave us alone.”

An Emerson College poll showed Biden trailing Trump in Arizona by 44% to 40%, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 9%. A more recent poll from Data Orbital, a Phoenix polling and analytics firm, found Biden and Trump at 38% and Kennedy at 14%.

Steve Sherman, production engineering manager at Saras Micro Devices, introduces his new headquarters and production facility in Chandler.

(Ash reflects / for The Times)

Biden's campaign has identified some combination of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia as essential to the president's re-election.

In 2020, Biden became the first Democrat to win Arizona since President Clinton in 1996. The last Democrat to prevail here before was President Truman in 1948.

The state has been a player in the semiconductor sector for decades, and Intel's presence dates back almost 40 years.

Companies say they can produce these chips at a much lower price in places like Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, but the COVID-19 pandemic and emerging tensions with China have led government and private sector officials to revive the National Production. This was the impetus for the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which Biden signed in the summer of 2022 (CHIPS stands for Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors).

Much of the money ($39 billion) will come in the form of subsidies and tax breaks for Intel and other companies. The other $13 billion will go to research and training.

Arizona was a natural destination thanks to its open spaces and affordable land, a favorable business climate, and the fact that many of these companies already had a presence in the region. Intel and TSMC had already committed billions to build new manufacturing facilities before receiving government subsidies and tax breaks last year.

“Some of these companies were starting to move” to the region, said Eelco Bergman, chief commercial officer at Saras Micro Devices. “I think things like the CHIPS Act helped is that they took that spark and threw some fuel on the flame.”

This Saras Micro Devices space in Georgia is moving to Arizona due to CHIPS and Science Act benefits.

(Ash reflects / for The Times)

Bergman and his partners have moved their manufacturing facilities to be near Intel's Chandler facility. Saras is spending about $200 million to upgrade a building and buy equipment to produce components that can be sold to semiconductor makers, Bergman said.

The business ecosystem is thriving, he added, due to heavy investment and its proximity to schools like Arizona State University, which graduates 7,000 engineering students a year. Intel hires more people from ASU than any other school in the country, and there is a shortage of people trained in the disciplines needed to work in these industries, according to the company.

Regardless of how policy ultimately plays out, the region has seen a monumental shift from an economy based on real estate and tourism to one heavily stratified with manufacturing going forward. Some of the investment predated Biden, but increased during his term.

“No one is getting all the credit for the big picture success story … because it happened over such a long period of time,” said Rep. Greg Stanton, a Democrat and former Phoenix mayor. “The more interesting political question is: Who gets credit in the short term for the United States finally having an industrial policy that has been absent for such a long period and in which we can finally respond to the challenge that it represents? China?

“I think President Biden will get proper credit for that. “Arizona has and will benefit better from the CHIPS and Science Act than any other state,” Stanton said.

Blacksmiths like the ones McDonald is training are hopping from job site to job site, watching huge warehouses and manufacturing sites emerge from the desert. The work is dangerous and can be chaotic, but it is creating a future for people like Shawna Irwin, 25, originally from the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona.

Her late uncle, a blacksmith, inspired her to enter the field. She later enrolled in a training program sponsored by Ironworkers Local 75 and led by McDonald. The roughly four-year program, sometimes called Iron University, has grown to nearly 250 ironworkers who receive supplemental training while continuing to work on job sites. McDonald would like to train 500 ironworkers at the facility she runs by 2026.

“It opened a lot of doors for unions,” Irwin said, “and there was a lot more work for us because of [Biden] finance the chip plants.”