With President Trump set to address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, many voters in Arizona’s divided First Congressional District remain hopeful for his new term, even amid partisan rancor.
Keith Mann, a self-described independent voter, sat out the 2024 election, dismayed by both candidates for president.
He still does not care for President Trump’s character. But more than a month into Mr. Trump’s second term, Mr. Mann, a 41-year-old Phoenix resident, said he was cautiously optimistic about what he had seen so far.
“He’s doing what he said he would do,” Mr. Mann said. He was encouraged by reports of fewer migrants crossing the border, in favor of reducing aid to Ukraine and hopeful that Elon Musk would root out excessive government spending and, “like Robin Hood,” deliver the savings to citizens in the form of $5,000 dividend checks.
“I’m just waiting to see how it pans out,” Mr. Mann said. “At the end of the day, he’s our president — you can’t just wish him bad.”
As Mr. Trump prepares to address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening — a stand-in for the State of the Union during a president’s first year in office — voters in battleground districts around the country are trying to make sense of the frenzy of executive orders and other actions that have so far defined Mr. Trump’s second term.
In Arizona’s First Congressional District, around the swingy suburbs of Phoenix and Scottsdale — areas that helped flip Arizona blue in 2020 before shifting rightward again last year — reactions to Mr. Trump ranged from elation among Republicans to disgust among Democrats, with a few wary independents wedged in between.