President Joe Biden is honoring John McCain in Arizona. Here's why

President Joe Biden is scheduled to arrive Wednesday in Phoenix ahead of a planned speech on democracy and a tribute to his friend, the late Sen. John McCain.

As usual, a presidential visit to Arizona is no accidental gathering. Here’s why Biden is making the trip.

The Electoral College math

Most obviously, Biden, a Democrat, is running for reelection and Arizona is one of the few swing states on the presidential map.

It’s not lost on Biden or his campaign team that he won Arizona by about 11,000 votes in 2020, the smallest margin of any state he carried. The endorsement Biden received from Cindy McCain, John McCain's widow, may have helped persuade a sliver of Republicans to vote for Biden in a race settled by so few.

The nation remains deeply divided over politics, but Democrats or Republicans have strongholds over most states. With a little more than a year to go before voting gets underway, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin figure to get outsized attention from the leaders of both parties because their partisan lean is less clear than most.

That means Arizonans can expect this week’s trip will likely be one of several from Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other high-profile Democratic surrogates as part of an effort to keep the state and its 11 Electoral College votes in its column for 2024.

Live coverage: President Joe Biden visits Phoenix for private fundraiser, public tribute to John McCain

McCain was a friend, Arizona legend

Beyond that, Biden had a long and real friendship with McCain, R-Ariz., who died in 2018 from brain cancer.

Biden went to the Senate after the 1972 elections and McCain, the nation’s most prominent prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, became liaison to the Senate for the Navy five years later.

Their lengthy Senate careers overlapped for 22 years, beginning with McCain’s first election to that chamber after the 1986 elections and running through 2009, when Biden became vice president. Their relationship endured even the pressures of the 2008 presidential race when Biden was Democrat Barack Obama's running mate and McCain was the GOP nominee.

Both men had reputations in the Senate as gregarious lawmakers and were products of an era when crossing the partisan aisle for social reasons was not uncommon. They both had keen interests in foreign affairs, even if their domestic agendas were far apart.

Biden eulogized McCain at his funeral service in Phoenix. McCain knew what his cancer diagnosis meant and knew his standing in the nation’s political landscape. He wanted Biden for that role and knew how others would interpret Biden’s presence in Arizona.

Yes, it had clear political overtones, but it also reflected a friendship and civility in public service that both men wanted memorialized for history.

Biden posthumously awarded to McCain the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in recognition of McCain's military and political service.

Earlier this month, Biden visited a McCain memorial in Vietnam near where the former fighter pilot was shot down in 1967 in another reminder of his ties to McCain.

Biden’s brand is on the line

Beyond their personal friendship, McCain and Biden also shared a deep commitment to American-style democracy in a way that has relevance to contemporary U.S. politics.

If Biden’s 2020 victory over then-President Donald Trump was about restoring a sense of normalcy to the White House, expect Biden to frame their potential 2024 rematch as a referendum on democracy itself.

In that sense, McCain — a legend in Arizona politics who won six Senate elections in the state, a man who stood firm against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who condemned authoritarianism around the world and famously feuded with Trump — is an easy association Biden wants to preserve.

Five years after his death, McCain’s political legacy is tailor-made for Biden’s message to voters in 2023.

Trump is under indictment over his efforts to overturn his election loss, and Arizona played a key role in the plan to sidestep voters. Biden has avoided commenting directly on Trump’s legal situation, but discussing democracy in one of the states where Trump tried hardest to reverse the results is a powerful statement on its own.

Biden’s visit comes on the night Republican presidential contenders — with the notable exception of Trump, the GOP frontrunner who will again skip such an event — gather in California for their second debate. The next day he will offer the kind of high-profile counterprogramming being president brings.

It also builds on Biden’s speech about democracy at Independence Hall in Philadelphia last year.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: President Joe Biden visits Arizona to honor John McCain. Here's why