'Country over party': Arizona Republicans channel McCain with Harris support

At a traffic-choked intersection in stifling desert heat, a group of Arizona Republicans are campaigning for their preferred presidential candidate -- Democrat Kamala Harris.

The political temperature in this battleground state is rising as the United States hurtles towards a bitterly contested election on November 5 in which some life-long Republicans say they cannot support Donald Trump.

"I'm just doing my patriotic duty, defending my country against someone who actively sought to take down the Constitution," pilates instructor Amy Wudel tells AFP.

Drivers in Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, honk their horns as they pass the intersection, in what appears to be a show of support for the nearly two-dozen people standing there with "Arizona Republicans for Harris" signs.

But there are also shouted insults and the occasional middle finger.

Trump lost to Joe Biden in this western state in 2020 by a wafer-thin 10,500 votes.

But many in the local Republican Party still refuse to believe it, claiming -- without any evidence -- that the ballot was rigged.

For some stalwarts, it is baffling that their party still professes blind obedience to a man who encouraged his supporters to overrun the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

"That makes him completely unfit for office," said Wudel.

As a Mormon, the 47-year-old has always struggled with the billionaire's lifestyle -- he's been married three times, allegedly had a fling with a porn star and then lied about the payments he made to cover it up.

For Wudel, all that stands in rather stark contrast to Harris.

"She's a prosecutor who respects the rule of law, while he is a convicted felon," she said.

- Orphans of John McCain -

Like Wudel, other demonstrators say they no longer recognize the party they joined, which has been swamped by Trump's "Make America Great Again" brand.

Many define themselves as "fiscally conservative and socially moderate," invoking the memory of John McCain, the 2008 White House nominee who died of cancer six years ago.

Trump's narrow loss in the state in 2020 -- the first time a Republican has not carried Arizona since 1996 -- was, at least partly, because these orphaned Republicans refused to fall in line with their party's nominee.

Some feel so strongly that they are prepared to take a national stand against Trump.

Mesa Mayor John Giles spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August, when Harris formally accepted her party's nomination.

McCain, for whom Giles worked as a lawyer when he was younger, "was well known for saying 'Country over party'," he told AFP.

That credo would not allow election denialism, the scuppering of a bipartisan immigration bill, or opposition to military support for Ukraine, he said -- all articles of faith for MAGA Republicans.

"I need to remind particularly Republicans in Arizona to follow the example of Senator McCain and to not have displaced loyalty to a party that has lost its way," he said.

It's a message that had resonated with several old-school Republicans.

Among those who have thrown their weight behind Harris are Dick Cheney, George W. Bush's former vice president, his daughter Liz, one of the few Republicans to have participated in the congressional commission investigating January 6, and McCain's son Jimmy.

- 'Politically homeless' -

In and around Phoenix, dozens of giant "Republicans for Harris" billboards line the highways.

The effort to keep Trump out of the White House was less obvious in 2020, when a handful of posters professed support for Biden.

This year, organizers say they have already raised $120,000 from small donors in Arizona, twice as much as they did in the last cycle.

In the neat front yard of his suburban home, Daniel Schweiker is one of those who has erected a pro-Harris sign.

At 75, this retiree is nostalgic for the old Republicans -- the Bush family or even disgraced former president Richard Nixon -- and thinks of himself as "politically homeless."

Polls are tight in Arizona -- fivethirtyeight.com says Trump has the edge by 1.5 percentage points in an average of recent surveys.

But Schweiker wants to believe that the former president will end up being penalized because of the way his campaign has catered to the extremes of the party.

He cites Kari Lake, who is underwater in her run for the US Senate after aggressively disputing her clear defeat in the race for the governor's mansion two years ago.

Schweiker thinks Arizonans don't reward such uncompromising positions.

"The MAGA Republicans can win a primary election because they're the only ones who vote in the primaries," he said.

"But to win a general election, you have to move to the middle, and those people don't know how to do it."