The city’s busiest intersection for months has been occupied every Saturday morning by Trump supporters. But today, it was taken over by more than 80 demonstrators backing the Harris-Walz campaign exactly a month before the historic 2024 presidential election.
Traffic from ongoing construction at the intersection of John Wayne Parkway and Smith-Enke Road slowed motorists and all but guaranteed they would witness the spectacle. In the morning, everyone was out there.
Trump supporters from the Maricopa Republican Club gathered on the northeast corner at about 8 a.m., near CVS Pharmacy, toting their flags and signs as usual before leaving at about 9:30 a.m. The Pro-Trump group, which made its way to the cover of the July issue of InMaricopa, scattered before reporters could interview them.
Independent counter-protester Jeff Northrup stationed himself on the same corner with anti-Trump signs and a Trump-shaped piñata, one of his signature props.
The large group of Harris supporters gathered on the southwest corner near Circle K for their first time ever at 9 a.m., according to Province resident Lisa Brauch, an organizer of the group who admitted she thinks Maricopa might be “a little more red” than other parts of the metro.
Attendees hoisted pro-Harris and anti-Trump signs and flags, wore Democratic attire and one even dressed up as a poodle as a joke about Trump’s debate-stage allusion that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten pets.
They garnered many solidaric honks, but not without the occasional middle finger or charged slur.
Brauch said she realized there were more Harris-Walz supporters in her Maricopa neighborhood when she started passing out yard signs, which she bought by the dozen. In August, InMaricopa reported Democratic yard signs in Province were being stolen.
“Arizona is such an important battleground state,” she said. “For all of us, it’s just so refreshing to know that we are not alone.”
“I got to think we’re making a difference,” Brauch said.
It is unclear why the Trump supporters left early, whether it was the heat, or the unexpectedly large turnout from their opposers, but one lonesome Trumper who remained said the Harris-Walz demonstration would not sway her vote.
The woman, who only identified herself as Cindy J., sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat, told InMaricopa she was recently invited to the demonstration by another GOP picketer at The Home Depot when they saw her MAGA cap.
Cindy conversed with Harris supporters, some of whom took over the street corner that Maricopa Republican Club members have long claimed.
She compared American politics to a grandfather clock in an analogy she credited to her late mother.
“Society and the government, it’s like a pendulum, because if it goes a little bit to the left, and a little bit to the right, the clock works properly,” Cindy said. “But if it goes too far either way, it crashes into a million pieces.”
