I attended a Harris and Trump event. Here’s what I learned from swing state voters.

Home sweet battleground state.

In Arizona, the land of cacti, 100-degree days in October, and some of the closest election polls in the nation, political junkies like myself have enjoyed ample opportunity to hear from high-profile party campaigners on both sides of the aisle.

This week alone, we have been graced (or disgraced, depending on your perspective) by Senator J.D. Vance, former President Bill Clinton, Beto O’Rouke, Donald Trump Jr., former President Donald Trump, and President Joe Biden. To close out the busy week, Governor Tim Walz will campaign in Phoenix on Saturday. (He will enjoy one of those merciless 100-degree days.)

Their mission is clear. It’s the same as in every other swing state: Get out the vote. Vote early. And make sure everyone you know votes early.

You know the drill.   

With ten days left to make their closing arguments, both campaigns are energized and high-strung. Neither side is confident.

No surprise there. The margin-of-error scrimmage for Arizona’s 11 electoral votes could easily tip in either direction. Both sides project self-assuredness (i.e., Arizona will make so-and-so the next president of the United States), belied by grandiose, over-the-top cautions about what will happen if we fail to vote. Beto O’Rourke, for example, compared voting to fighting in Normandy on D-Day.

While such comparisons are certainly overdrawn, the sobering reality is that both sides are fearful about the upcoming election. They are fearful, I realized in talking to voters at Harris and Trump events, because the federal government has effectively become a weapon. Trump voters fear that Harris will use that weapon against them. Harris voters fear that Trump will use that weapon against them. It’s a zero-sum game. Whoever wins will endanger roughly half the populace in this home state of mine — or, at least, that’s the perception on the ground at campaign events. 

SEE ALSO: Harris and Trump hit the swing states

Putting boots (or Nikes) on the ground this week, I had the opportunity to ask voters a simple question: Do you think the federal government has too much power or control over your life? The vast majority responded with an immediate and definite, Yes.

“Of course.” “It does, right now.” “Absolutely.” “Most definitely.” “Probably.” “Yeah.”

Those who appeared more skeptical always quantified their claims. One gentleman I spoke with, for example, seemed dubious about the question. But then, he offered probably the most nuanced answer I received all week: “I think that if the federal government acts under its legal powers, no [it does not have too much power]. If it overreaches — I think the federal government is overreaching its power.”

Another interviewee reacted bluntly, “No, I don’t think the federal government has too much control over our lives.” But then he clarified: “I think… one of the kind of beauties of the United States is that we live in a free country where there are a lot of restrictions on what the federal government can do.”   

A third effectively described the general welfare clause: “Certain things… definitely should vary state by state,” she said. “And that’s where the federal [government] doesn’t need to have control so much.… If you had an insurance policy for something about floods and then you enforced it in an inland area where they don’t get floods, it doesn’t make as much sense. When there’s, like, differentiation that’s when, like, state levels need power.”

Many appeared torn between wishing that Washington would do more in certain areas while also recognizing the many pitfalls of an overly controlling federal authority. Therein lies the danger of government power: it’s tempting to use that power to accomplish what your side would like to see done, but, by the same token, disquieting when the other side seeks to do the same.

No wonder the Founders aimed to keep decision-making power as close to home as possible! We have never been a homogeneous nation, and we never will be. For as long as we seek to make all of the most important decisions at the national level, where we agree about the least, elections will only continue to become more and more tense.

November 5 will determine who will carry the unconstitutionally powerful weapon that is the federal leviathan. Only an Article V convention can utterly dismantle that weapon. If you are at all uneasy about the future of liberty in this country, please sign the petition below to support our efforts to disarm the federal government and return decision-making power to We the People.