(Bloomberg) -- The candidates vying to represent Arizona’s 3rd congressional district, which includes much of Phoenix, disagree sharply about climate change. Democrat Yassamin Ansari wants to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and embraces the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity drives global warming. Republican Jeff Zink supports the US pulling out of the Paris climate accord in recognition of “divine control over Earth’s phenomena.”
But there’s no denying that the heat in Phoenix can pose a serious danger. Temperatures in the city have now topped 100F (38C) for more than 100 consecutive days. Both candidates have adjusted their campaigning plans to keep themselves and their teams safe.
“When it’s 117, 120, that becomes very dangerous,” says Zink, who worked in sports medicine before launching his bid for the House. As a candidate, he’ll brave the heat himself — often with lots of water — but he doesn’t ask the same of his volunteers, he says.
Ansari’s campaign put together a memo with tips on how best to avoid heat illness. When it comes to the heat, “we have to really plan around it,” says Pasquale Luz, Ansari’s former campaign manager.
Candidates up and down the ballot in Arizona and Nevada have had to adapt to record high temperatures this summer while making their pitch to voters. Those best able to do so could gain an edge in a year when it matters: Nevadans and Arizonans have outsized influence over which party will win control of Congress and the White House. Both of the swing states also have high-profile ballot initiatives proposing to expand local abortion access after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
That’s probably why Democratic vice-presidential nominee and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz visited the states earlier this week, for the second time since he joined the Democratic ticket mid-summer, and why Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is back in the Southwest, holding rallies Thursday in Tucson and Friday in Las Vegas. On the latter stop, Trump will be campaigning against a backdrop of wildfire smoke and after more than 200 area heat deaths this year.
Campaigning is already a hard job, with long hours and often little to no pay. Unrelenting heat makes it all the harder, complicating classic outreach strategies that rely on being outside for hours, such as door-knocking and outdoor meet-and-greets. Here’s how campaigns are navigating the triple-digit temperatures.
Personal Cooling Tech—and Lots of Water
There are a lot of ways to connect with voters, online and in person. But campaigns insist that nothing quite compares to visiting them at their homes. “Knocking on doors is the most effective way to campaign,” says Tucson Council Member Kevin Dahl, a Democrat who is not up for reelection this year but has been campaigning for others.
The problem is that canvassing in extreme heat is exhausting and potentially dangerous. This doesn’t stop campaigns from doing it, but many have tried to lessen their exposure to the sun and high temperatures.
Take Drew Johnson, who in June won the Republican primary for Nevada’s 3rd congressional district, which includes part of Las Vegas. “When we were knocking during the primary, it was over 100 most days, and over 110 a couple days,” says Johnson, who before running for Congress worked as a columnist and policy analyst. To safely get through knocking on some 23,000 doors, he and his team wore light, long-sleeved tops and big hats and carried around gallons of water. Some people brought other tools to avoid overheating. “A lot of them do use cooling fans, or those cooling towels they wear around their neck,” Johnson adds.
In the lead-up to the Arizona primary on July 30, Ansari’s campaign went a step further: It purchased some 30 cooling vests, which can hold multiple ice packs, for door-knockers to wear. Ansari and her supporters also strategically went out either in the mornings or between the late afternoon and early evening to avoid the hottest midday temperatures. They used the buddy system so that people could keep an eye on one another to watch for early signs of heat illness, says Luz. The campaign says it knocked on more than 165,000 doors ahead of the primary.
Still, nothing beats access to air conditioning. “We have somebody driving a car that just keeps the air conditioning on, keeps the car going, and is able to pick people up and give them a few minutes’ break,” says Johnson. “I think that’s the real key for us — making sure that there’s some sort of place to go to get a little rest from the heat.”
Zink says he also keeps his car running with the AC on blast when he’s hopping between homes. Braving the heat is a sure way to prove one’s commitment to voters, he explains. “They understand that somebody is serious about representing them if they are able to be in that kind of heat,” says Zink. “I see it as an advantage.”
What Counts as Too Hot?
Some campaigners delay their in-person outreach. “I’ve done some [door-knocking] this summer but I won’t really start doing it every week until it starts cooling by the end of September,” notes Dahl.
Everyone’s heat limit is different. Many groups are at especially high risk of getting heat illness, including pregnant people, the elderly and those with certain chronic health problems or taking some kinds of medications. Even a young, healthy person can get sick when they are out in high temperatures for too long. So campaigns have a long list of things that supporters can do apart from door-knocking.
“We know that door knocking in 100 degrees isn’t for everybody,” says Johnson. He had supporters write postcards instead, describing this as “a really big part of our game plan during the primaries” and continuing through the general election.
“Making phone calls is good. Texting is good. There are also drops,” says Dahl. “Rather than knocking, you leave literature or packets at the door. It’s not as effective, because people respond to people more than literature, but especially when time is of the essence, at the very end [of a race], you want to reach a lot of people who you know haven’t voted,” he says. “You can get out there at five o’clock in the morning.”
For some campaigns, there’s a hard limit to how much heat they’ll tolerate before they head inside. “Above 110, 115 — that’s too hot, even with all the precautions,” says Luz.
Similarly, organizers and volunteers for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris don’t work outside when temperatures top 112F, her campaign says. The campaign steers people to phone banking and indoor canvassing when it’s too hot to go outside. And it’s benefited from the Covid-19-era push of online organizing and donation drives via Zoom call — originally motivated by the need for social distancing but still going strong.
Heat Risk at Rallies
The top of the ticket has also felt the intense heat. “I’m up here sweating like a dog,” said former President Trump during an outdoor rally on June 9 in Las Vegas. “This is hard work.”
A few days earlier, around a dozen people who had waited outside to attend Trump’s indoor town hall in Phoenix, where the temperature hit 113F, were taken to the hospital “for heat-related injuries,” according to Phoenix Fire Department Captain Rob McDade. A similar scene played out later in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt says that when planning events, “it is our team’s utmost priority to protect attendees” and that in extremely hot conditions, the campaign “has provided cooling tents, a sufficient supply of water and coordination with EMS personnel for cases of emergency.”
Even moderate heat can affect people at outdoor events. Speaking on Aug. 7 to a crowd outside in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where temperatures were in the 70s, Walz paused his speech upon seeing a person struggling. “Can we get somebody to help? Somebody’s hot,” he said. While waiting for help to arrive, he told the rest of the crowd: “Drink some water, folks. It is hot out.”
When Walz and Harris held an indoor rally at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas a few days later, temperatures hit 110F outside. Workers had placed rows of chairs under tents for people waiting to go through security; inside, there were misting fans set up every 10 feet. Some 40,000 water bottles and 10,000 Gatorade bottles were passed out to attendees, according to the Harris-Walz campaign.
The campaign is “making sure we’re doing everything we can to keep staff, volunteers, and supporters safe,” said spokesperson Seth Schuster.
Many congressional and local campaigns also take part in outdoor events despite searing temperatures. In Phoenix, “most campaigns that have competitive primaries have no choice but to operate and do events outside,” says Jordyn Hodges, Ansari’s current campaign manager. Water is usually available, she adds.
Campaigners in Arizona’s sprawling 2nd congressional district, which encompasses Flagstaff and multiple Native American reservations, sought out Fourth of July parades this summer to reach voters. Volunteers for Democrat Jonathan Nez, the former Navajo Nation president who’s now running for the seat, planned to go to multiple parades, according to his campaign manager, James Gravitt. But it was so hot that day that two parades in Pinal County were canceled, and another in Prescott that weekend had low turnout.
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