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Doug Ducey, the former Republican governor of Arizona, predicted that former President Donald Trump will win the key swing states in the upcoming U.S. presidential election during a Harvard Institute of Politics forum Wednesday evening.
The forum — moderated by Landon T. Elks ’27 and journalist and former IOP resident fellow Alison King — focused largely on immigration, an issue at the center of Trump’s campaign, especially in border states like Arizona.
Ducey, who has endorsed Trump, drew a distinction between border security and immigration reform, calling the latter a “broken” system Washington has failed to fix.
But though he said border security has been “largely solved and stable in the last decade,” including in Arizona, he blasted President Joe Biden for allowing too many people to cross the Southern border illegally and failing to treat it as a “crisis.”
He said that of the three presidents he has worked with as governor — Barack Obama, Trump, and Biden — “President Biden has by far been the worst on the border.”
Ducey highlighted that border security is a federal issue requiring attention from Washington, calling for a “stand-alone bill” to address concerns from border states.
But Ducey also called for comprehensive immigration reform, saying, “we have to make legal immigration the most attractive incentive to someone who wants to come here right now.”
Currently, Ducey said, “the incentive is to come illegally, and it’s certainly much easier and much less expensive.”
But Ducey said he was “optimistic” about the future of immigration reform “because I think it’s an idea that both parties have now embraced.”
Still, he expressed apprehension over the upcoming election, which he said is taking place in “a funk of populism and protectionism and isolationism and nationalism.”
He said he is concerned over whether Americans will accept the results of the election, which is likely to be decided by razor-thin margins.
“I am concerned about this cycle, regardless of the outcome,” he said.
Arizona was a hotbed of election denial following the 2020 election, and Trump himself called Ducey asking him to overturn the state’s election results — a request Ducey denied. During the forum, Ducey stood by his decision to certify the election in Biden’s favor.
“I only wish every decision that I had to make was that easy,” he said. “This was a constitutional obligation, required by law.”
Ducey also discussed the importance of K-12 education and his support for Education Savings Accounts, commonly referred to as ESAs, which he said provide choice for Arizona families of all income levels.
“Kids are trapped in failing public schools,” Ducey continued. “It’s time to set these families free.”
Ducey said that education was a top priority of his, citing the fact that even the number one state in the country for education — Massachusetts — had room to improve.
“Outside the suburbs of Massachusetts, a lot of children don’t get good education,” Ducey said. “Fifty percent of the children in Massachusetts can read at grade level in K-12, that’s number one in America. I find that unacceptable.”
Speaking to aspiring politicians in the forum, Ducey said his own experience in the private sector “allowed me to accomplish what I was able to in public life.”
“I encourage them to go do something else, first, go out into the real world, to join the military, to build a business, to turn a school around, to get some real world experience, learn how to communicate with people, how to lead in environments where you don’t have any title or responsibility, and then come back and run for office,” he said.
