In recent elections, political consultants have considered these areas a barometer of swing voters, including women and college-educated white voters who have recently shifted Democratic. Many live in Phoenix’s East Valley suburbs popular with young families, including Gilbert, Chandler and Mesa, which traces its modern history to a settlement founded by pioneers from the faith in the 1800s. There are about 436,000 Latter-day Saints in Arizona, according to church statistics. Trump won Arizona in 2016 by 91,000 votes. Clustered in solidly Republican states, they have long been a major force in GOP primaries and local politics across the West, but they have not held much sway in national elections. To be sure, Latter-day Saints have traditionally voted Republican and are likely to remain part of the GOP coalition. More than 200 people identifying themselves as Republicans who belong to the church published an open letter Wednesday declaring their opposition to Trump and calling him “the antithesis of so much the Latter-day Saints community believes.” Trump Jr., said he was in Utah at the time for a fishing trip. Last month, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., hosted a conference call with reporters to commemorate Pioneer Day, a church holiday celebrating the arrival of the first church settlers in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Trump “has stood for the religious freedom of every American of every faith every day of this administration,” Pence told the group of about 200 people. Pence, who often serves as Trump’s emissary to religious conservatives, appealed to church members’ opposition to abortion rights and longstanding concerns over religious liberty. This past week the Trump campaign launched its Latter-day Saints for Trump Coalition, sending Vice President Mike Pence to Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, for the kickoff. Many are clustered around Phoenix, areas where Republicans have struggled to hold their ground in the Trump era. His standing has slumped in several pivotal states, including Arizona, where members of the faith make up 6% of the population. Once just a headache for the White House, Trump’s relative weakness with Latter-day Saints is now a growing political liability. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, among the best known members of the church. ![]() It hasn’t helped that Trump has made a show of feuding with Sen. His penchant for foul language clashes with the church’s culture teaching modesty and self-restraint, and his isolationist foreign policy is anathema to a faith spreading rapidly around the world. While many conservative-leaning religious voters warmed to him long ago, Trump has struggled to win over Latter-day Saints. Sanchez’s view isn’t as unusual as the Trump campaign would like.
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