Yana Kunachov

so much in all of my reporting and it makes it a really interesting place to work and I think answer some of those bigger questions about like what is America going to look like moving forward given the reality of these political divisions.

Yeah, interesting.

I think that I think of Arizona first and foremost as a libertarian state.

People like to be able to feel that they can do what they want with their life.

And I think that can play out in different ways.

But I think the other thing that's really big in Arizona is just the population is changing here.

It's growing here in a way that I don't know if it is everywhere in the U.S.

And so I think that the question of what Arizona is, is like an actively moving issue.

Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing about Arizona that I think is interesting, you know, I was recently in an area where there's a number of new mines proposed that was historically a mining region.

And there's a number of ranchers that maybe traditionally would have been in favor of those mines, but it's now going to impact their wells and their access to water.

So I think the other thing about Arizona is that

You are not really like insulated essentially from any of like these big picture existential questions where I think what political leaders think about those can really change.

Can you live in your home in 10, 20, 30 years?

Yeah, I think that to me, the two big issues of the 2024 election, one of them did definitely feel like immigration.

The other one felt like affordability, which is something that I do think that the Trump campaign was good at messaging on.

Like I went to a rally that said, make housing affordable again.

When I think of the election, I just also think of people's relationship with democratic politics, democratic politicians in their communities.

So I don't think it's all necessarily a pull towards the right only issue.

Yeah, I think that is what I have seen.

And I think that I have seen a number of newly elected Democrats in the last year and a half step up in a way that I think has been really interesting.