Voters share the economic impacts of Trump’s megabill in battleground Arizona

By John King, CNN

Tucson, Arizona (CNN) — Opening a new restaurant is always a risk, but this one even more so: It’s a scorching summer in the Arizona desert, meat prices are up and the economy is unpredictable.

“I’m a little nervous,” owner Ray Flores tells a visitor to his new project on Tucson’s northern edge. “Are you a gambler?”

Charro Steak North is almost ready: The bar is stocked, the supplies delivered and the new team hired. For that last part, Flores gives President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress some credit, specifically for their sweeping new policy bill, which among many other changes temporarily eliminates taxes on tipped wages and overtime for many workers.

“We had a really robust hiring fair,” Flores said in an interview. “Lots of applicants. Way more than we have had in previous hiring fairs. A lot of quality applicants. A little higher quality, it seems, than in the past four or five years. …. I do believe that those messages of some kind of tax relief created some of this.”

The steakhouse is in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, one of the top battlegrounds as Republicans try to hold their tiny House majority in next year’s midterm elections. GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani is the incumbent, and Flores has supported him in the past.

Ciscomani voted for the policy bill, championed by Trump, that includes the changes Flores believes might help his new restaurant launch. But Flores isn’t ready to commit to backing the district’s GOP incumbent again in 2026.

“Right now, we are in the middle of the off-season,” Flores said. “It’s probably a question that needs to be asked a year from today.”

Flores is an independent and a late decider. And he worries Ciscomani is perhaps more concerned with his own standing in Washington — and with Trump — than he is about his evenly divided district here in southern Arizona.

“Unfortunately, once you are elected, that is the treadmill that you are on,” Flores said. “You get nothing done anymore because you are just trying to get reelected or get your party elected. … I always felt that he was somebody for our community. I hope that still remains the case.”

Our visit was part of our “All Over the Map” project; Flores was among the more than 100 voters we visited repeatedly in battleground states last year to track the 2024 campaign through the eyes and experiences of everyday Americans.

Now, our goal is to track public sentiment about the president and his agenda heading into the 2026 midterm elections. This most recent Arizona visit was to get some first impressions of the GOP agenda package, marketed by Trump and his Republican allies as their “big, beautiful bill.”

For a restauranteur like Flores, the bill’s impact on the economy will be the greatest test. So his acknowledgment that the GOP measure likely helped him find a better staff for Charro Steak North could potentially work in Ciscomani’s favor.

But Flores also finds a lot not to like in the new measure.

“I don’t know if we are big enough for it to help us,” said Flores, whose company runs more than a dozen restaurants now. “They’ve got their work cut out to make sure this pays off. I’m concerned that businesses are … all being lumped (in with) these billionaires, and that’s not the case.”

Flores said the GOP agenda bill does nothing to help “back-of-house” restaurant workers — cooks and dishwashers and others who don’t get tips. And it did nothing to solve what Flores considers a problem for the hospitality industry: wildly disparate state laws setting minimum wages for tipped versus other categories of workers.

“I would like to see more from (Ciscomani) and their team focusing on small business,” Flores said. “I wish they would talk to operators more than they do now.”

The economic impact is one metric to track here as we count down the 15 months to the midterm vote.

Latino voter sentiment is another. The district is 25% Hispanic, and Republicans hope to build on the party’s recent gains with Latino voters.

Trump, for example, won 37% of the Latino vote in Arizona in 2020. He narrowly lost the state. In 2024, Trump’s share of Arizona Latino voters jumped to 44%. He won the 6th District and the state on his way back to the White House.

We will get a glimpse of Latino voter sentiment next month, when there is a special election in the neighboring 7th Congressional District. It is overwhelmingly Democratic and 60% Hispanic.

A third midterm test for the Republican agenda bill, here and in other battleground districts, is the impact of big changes to social safety net programs. Democrats are already framing those changes as mean-spirited, accusing Republicans of hurting the poor to help pay for tax and other benefits that mainly benefit the more affluent.

Those coming changes are the source of constant conversation at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, which serves both the 6th and the 7th congressional districts.

“Demand is already up,” said Claudio Rodriguez, the food bank’s vice president for policy and advocacy. “We have a lot of newcomers.”

The food bank served 171,000 people last year. It projects that number will climb close to 200,000 in 2025. Many of the people it serves come several times a year, if not every month. The food bank had 900,000 total visits last year and projects surpassing 1.2 million visits this year.

Those increases come despite the fact that, to date, the impact of Trump administration changes on the food bank has been relatively modest. Rodriguez said a partner agency recently lost federal funding for a lunch program. During a tour of the food warehouse he paused at an area stacked with fresh produce, including a pallet of boxed tomatoes.

“I believe these are from Mexico,” Rodriguez said. “That is going to change soon with the tariffs and all that. So we’re going to see less produce come in.”

Rodriguez predicted some additional cuts or changes when the next fiscal year begins on October 1. But the biggest impact on the working families who depend on the food bank are still down the road a bit.

Popular GOP agenda items such as the temporary elimination of taxes on tips took effect immediately. But the more politically risky policy changes — such as new work requirements for Medicaid and eligibility and changes that could result in people losing food assistance — don’t begin to kick in until 2027.

It creates a challenge for the food bank’s administrative staff. New applicants for help are briefed on the coming changes, so they know that their eligibility for food assistance or medical coverage could be affected as more of the new GOP policies take effect.

“Whether it is cuts to Medicaid, cuts to SNAP, maybe cuts to the resources that are in the Farm Bill, we have to adjust,” Rodriguez said. “So we know there is going to be a change. We just don’t know what the impact is going to look like.”

That many of the provisions kick in at different times over the next several years is a challenge when the food bank tries to make projections about how many people it might find itself serving or how much private money it might need to raise to offset lost federal funds.

That same drawn-out implementation schedule could also make it more difficult for Democrats to gain political advantage.

“Some things are going to roll out after the midterms, which is a very nice play for some folks to wait until after that,” Rodriguez said. “All we can do is prepare and make sure that our community is being served.”

We first met Rodriguez before the 2024 election, in his other work as an organizer for a progressive organization. The food bank is a nonprofit that does not take sides in elections, so Rodriguez is careful when on the clock there.

He would not, for example, say whether be believes Ciscomani deserves another term.

“For some people, he did what he had to do,” Rodriguez said. “For others, they were disappointed.”

Rodriguez did share an email to the GOP congressman, written on behalf of the food bank, urging him to vote no on the big GOP agenda bill because of its social safety net cuts.

Ciscomani ultimately rejected the idea that the measure would hurt working families.

“He believes that it won’t, that he’s attacking the fraud, the abuse, the scam,” Rodriguez said. “When we come here every day on the line, we don’t really see any of that. And if it is one or two people that do do that, why punish the rest? Why punish the seniors? Why punish the kids, the veterans?”

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