08:07 AM MST on Sunday, June 6, 2004

By C.J. Karamargin / Arizona Daily Star

Top Arizona Democrats will join presidential candidate John Kerry at a campaign rally in Tucson on Tuesday.

Gov. Janet Napolitano and Rep. Raúl Grijalva will be among the supporters as Kerry makes his first visit to the largely Democratic city since winning the state's primary three months ago.

Kerry, a four-term senator from Massachusetts, will deliver a midday speech at the Tucson Convention Center.

Democrats say the visit underscores the key role the Tucson area and Arizona will play in the November election.

"He's coming to Southern Arizona because we're important," Grijalva said Friday after meeting with veterans at a West Side American Legion Hall. "We're an important state. We're a swing state."

Although President Bush won Arizona in 2000, Democrats believe they have a shot at capturing the fast-growing state this year. But if the past is any guide, Tucson and Pima County could be far kinder to Kerry come November than the state as a whole.

Pima County is home to about 162,200 of Arizona's 807,000 Democrats. They outnumber Republicans in both the city and the county. In the last three presidential elections, a majority of county voters backed the Democrat.

Statewide, Republicans enjoy a 113,000-voter registration edge. Maricopa County, Arizona's largest enclave of voters, is a GOP stronghold. Only twice in the last 56 years has a Democrat carried the state, Harry Truman in 1948 and Bill Clinton in 1996.

President Bush won Arizona by six percentage points in 2000. Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Bush re-election campaign, is confident the president will do so again.

"This senator from Massachusetts is not only out of touch with Arizona, he is consistently on the wrong side of issues important to the state," Diaz said.

Grijalva, however, believes Kerry can forge a winning campaign by bringing together "disparate constituencies," such as environmentalists and veterans. "They're all being negatively affected by this administration," he said.

Turnout will also be key, Grijalva added. "The larger the turnout, the better we're going to do."

° Contact reporter C.J. Karamargin at 573-4243 or at cjkarama@azstarnet.com.