A Republican mayor talks about the border – and why he supports Harris

You may have seen John Giles, a lifelong Republican and the mayor of Mesa, Arizona, speak at the Democratic National Convention in August. He leads a conservative city in a key swing state, but he is opposing GOP nominee Donald Trump and endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris for president. 

Other prominent Republicans have endorsed Ms. Harris, including former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, former Vice President Dick Cheney (Ms. Cheney’s father), and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. More than 100 former GOP officials, including some from the Trump administration, also endorsed Ms. Harris in a letter this week. 

Similar defections are notably absent on the other side, though ex-Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard have joined Mr. Trump’s team. The powerful Teamsters union – amid strong membership support for the former president – decided not to endorse either candidate this year. The Harris campaign is hoping conservative endorsements will help win over wavering Republicans and independents.

The Monitor sat down with Mr. Giles earlier this month in his City Hall office in Mesa, near Phoenix. With a panoramic view of Camelback Mountain as a backdrop, he talked about why he’s endorsing the vice president and how he squares that with his Republican and religious values. Like many in Mesa, he’s a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “I think she’s going to govern from the center, which I’m OK with,” he says. “Compromise is part of government, and she’s demonstrated an ability to do that.”

The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity:

Why are you endorsing Kamala Harris?

I need to back up a bit. I’ve been the mayor of my hometown for the last 10 years, and I have loved this job. And part of what I’ve loved is that I’m elected in a nonpartisan election, and I lead a city council that is diverse and made up of progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans. We get along amazingly well. And that’s because we don’t bring partisanship to the equation. We focus on the middle, and we take a problem-solving approach.

I wade into partisan waters only very rarely, but I’m compelled to take a side in this presidential campaign because a second Donald Trump presidency would not be in the best interest of my city. Donald Trump made a lot of promises. None of them came true.

Can you delve into that?

Infrastructure is a huge issue for us. Under President Trump, “Infrastructure Week” became a running gag. Literally nothing occurred as far as federal participation in helping with infrastructure.

During the Biden administration, we’ve had the Chips Act, which has had this dramatic impact in the Phoenix area. TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.], Intel, both are making multibillion-dollar investments in chip fabrication facilities. A lot of the supply chain economy that supports those fabs is in Mesa. Taiwan Semiconductor is literally making the largest foreign investment in the history of the United States here in Arizona. That’s because of the Chips Act, where there’s federal funds involved. These investments will have a generational impact. So the Biden administration deserves credit for that.

Similarly, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act – that’s had a significant impact in Mesa, particularly out of our airport. We got a new terminal and a new air traffic control tower.

I want to ask about your own personal journey in this switch. Was there a turning point for you?

It’s been death by a thousand cuts. For the last several years, I’ve walked into the office and asked my staff, “Can I leave the Republican Party now?’’ But I came to the conclusion that it would be a mistake to do that.

I continue to be in the Republican Party because I really do identify more with Republican principles and the Republican emphasis on personal responsibility and smaller government. I think it’s important that voices like mine don’t leave the party but continue to point out its flaws in hopes of a system where we have two strong parties.

The Republican Party might be a lost cause. But having multiple strong parties is a cause that’s worth fighting for. It’s still important that there be loyal opposition in the Republican Party.

How much blowback have you gotten?

Any time you’re in national media and you say something provocative, you’re going to get hundreds of emails comparing you to a little brown emoji. I was censured two years ago by the local Republican Party, and I’ve been censured again. I fully expected all that. What I’ve been more taken aback by is the positive reaction that I’ve gotten from strangers who walk up to me and say, “You don’t know me, but I’ve seen what you’ve said. Thank you for giving a voice to what I’ve been feeling for the last few years.”

How do you square your conservative values with what Ms. Harris stands for?

Vice President Harris is very different from the candidate that she was four years ago. The experience that she’s had in the White House has taught her the importance of governing from the middle. I am not afraid of a Harris administration coming in and being this hair-on-fire, progressive administration that the Trump campaign is painting it to be. 

The bipartisan immigration and border bill was very much a compromise. It was green-lit by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. And if the votes were there, that was going to happen. Until Donald Trump decided that it was not in his best interests.

Kamala Harris has already said she would sign that. To me, that’s an indication that she’s pragmatic. 

The same is true of her economic policies. They’re focused on food inflation, on housing affordability and availability, on real-life, Middle America problems. It’s not a socialist agenda.

Donald Trump’s economic policies are troubling because he’s going to double tariffs. I don’t think that’s a very Republican policy. He’s going to create housing supply by deporting millions of people. I don’t think that’s a smart policy that economists and Republicans would endorse. 

Mesa has a lot of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which you also belong. Do your LDS values inform your politics?

For many years, people like myself have been taught in church: “Hey, it’s okay to be a Democrat. It’s okay to be a Republican. Sometimes you need to zigzag between the two.” But there’s been an underlying, maybe less-said, emphasis on, really, you can’t be a Democrat because of abortion.

Now that Donald Trump has been successful in overturning Roe and in turning abortion from a federal issue to a state issue, there’s no longer a need for people in my religious community, who felt duty-bound not to vote Democratic, for any loyalty to the Republican Party on the abortion issue. Of course Kamala Harris is pro-choice, but do you think there’s going to be 60 votes in the Senate for a national abortion bill? That hasn’t happened in 250 years. It’s not going to happen now.

You chair the immigration task force for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Do you see a way forward on immigration?

The short-term solution is that Donald Trump needs to lose this election, because he’s going to continue to use the issue for political purposes. With that mindset in the White House, nothing is going to happen. Kamala Harris has already said that if she is elected, she will pick up where we left off with the bipartisan border bill. 

Executive orders can in some marginal ways impact the number of border crossers. Donald Trump, on this issue, was fortunate to be president during the pandemic, because under Title 42 he could use the pandemic as an excuse to put limitations on border crossers. But executive orders are no substitute for congressional action.

If we just separate the political gamesmanship from it, immigration is very solvable.

But when we have things like, at the Republican convention, chanting for “mass deportation now,” that’s not helpful. Arizona is a great example of that. When we had SB 1070 – where the state got involved in enforcing federal immigration laws – it was devastating to our economy.

The tradespeople, the skilled workers, were predominantly immigrants. And when the state pulled people over for “driving while brown,” that had a chilling effect on the Hispanic community, and they left.

What difference do you think Republicans for Harris will make?

It will make a difference because, in Arizona, we are a very closely divided state. Joe Biden won the state by about 10,000 votes. The middle is going to decide this. And so moderate Republicans, moderate Democrats, independents, former Republicans – that’s the battleground within the battleground state.