Republicans, not Latinos, doomed Arpaio

Audio By Carbonatix

(Note: This story comes from the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting through a Creative Commons license. AZCIR is a nonprofit investigative newsroom.)

The fall of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio didn’t result from a surge of Latino voters, despite the opposition he drew from the Hispanic community over his immigration enforcement tactics. Instead, support for Arpaio cratered in reliably Republican areas, denying his bid for a seventh term, an AZCIR analysis of precinct-level voting tallies found.

Arpaio, who once boasted that he was “America’s Toughest Sheriff” and the most popular politician in Arizona, delivered landslide victories between 1992 and 2000. The former DEA agent made a name for himself: He housed inmates in surplus Army tents, clothed them in pink underwear, fed them green bologna, marched them around his jail in shackles, and frequently invited the media for displays of his methods.

But since 2000, Arpaio’s election margins narrowed, while protests over his immigration enforcement tactics more frequently filled the streets around his office, and the U.S. Justice Department mounted a lawsuit over racial profiling and eventually contempt of court for failing to follow court orders.