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I visited Phoenix a couple of weeks ago, and the falling support for him was more about having an 80 year old Sheriff who brings a lot of unwanted controversial attention to their county with his antics. I wouldn't read to much into it as a Maricopa County's Political shift. I still believe that they are still pretty conservative with a large competitive lefist population.

I think you might be right about soft Libertarian support for Arpaio though. His willingness to bend the law to arrest those for "victimless crimes" has rubbed a lot of Libertarians and civil rights folks the wrong way. But I can't see a lot of Libertarian's choosing Clinton over Trump even though there is a lot about Trump that drive Libertarians and true conservatives nuts.

The Annoyed Man wrote: To put that in perspective, Johnson and Stein combined got 105,406 votes. In other words, democrats have come perilously close to flipping Arizona.

Trump got 49.5% of the vote, Clinton 45.4%, Johnson 3.9%, and Stein 1.2%. Combined, democrats, libertarians, and greens account for 50.5% of the vote, to the republicans' 49.5%.

...
Given:

1. Arpaio's reputation vis-a-vis illegal immigration, and given
2. the democrats' opposition to border enforcement, and given
3. the official libertarian platform of being for open borders, and given
4. the green party's similar platform,

Please don't confuse Libertarian's with leaning Democrat. although free trade used to be a conservative issue. Smaller government is the the heart of Libertarian platform, while open borders is a minor side issue which Liberterians are split on. There may be some somewhere, but I have never met a Libertarian who would vote for a Democrat, while many may vote for certain Republicans if they felt their backs were against the wall. If there were no Green Party or Libertarian Party, Trump probably would have one the popular majority.
Arpio got beat because he is facing criminal charges, facing possible prison time. The idea that Maricopa County Sherrif could serve his term from prison was a big concern there.