SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. >> Michele Pitek moved to Arizona from California, her lifelong home, with her husband, Mike, about seven years ago in part because they were tired of struggling with the cost of living in the Bay Area despite both earning six-figure salaries.

Once they settled into a newly built home on more than an acre at the edge of Scottsdale, Pitek, 57, said there were some adjustments: learning to depend on a septic tank, treating well water that contains arsenic, for instance. But the abundant desert beauty makes up for it.

The Piteks are part of an exodus of Californians who have moved to the Grand Canyon State — more than 74,000 in 2022, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The influx has led to questions about their impact on politics in this once ruby-red state, which is now among a handful of battlegrounds that will determine whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump wins the White House in November.

President Joe Biden won Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes over Trump in 2020. After the election was called, one of Pitek’s former colleagues from Oakland texted her: “You turned it blue, Michele.”

California is an overwhelmingly Democratic state and it’s the home of many of the nation’s most prominent liberals, most notably Democratic presidential nominee Harris. Yet it is also home to more than 5.5 million registered Republicans.

So it isn’t always easy to discern the partisan preferences of the California expats. But experts say their presence is being felt.

“There’s this general belief among some that Californians are having a progressive effect on the Arizona electorate and there are certainly portions of the state where that’s true,” said Paul Bentz, a Phoenix-based Republican strategist and pollster.

Even before the large number of Californians moved to Arizona in recent years, the state’s politics had been changing. In 2010, Republicans controlled both U.S. Senate seats, every statewide office and held super majorities in both legislative houses.

Now, the governor, secretary of state and attorney general are Democrats, as is one U.S. senator (the other is an independent who was previously a Democrat). Republicans hold two-seat edges in both houses of the Legislature.

But there is palpable frustration among some Arizonans that Californians are changing the state’s politics and culture.

“There is anti-California sentiment,” Bentz said. “ ‘Don’t California my Arizona’ is a very popular and pervasive messaging strategy, particularly for Republicans.”

Patricia Summerland, 59, who moved from Lake of the Woods in Kern County to Glendale, Ariz., last summer, agreed.

“You don’t dare say you’re from California,” said the nurse, recalling walking with her daughter and her daughter’s dog in Scottsdale when they exchanged greetings with an older man who asked them where they were from. Her daughter responded, “California.”

“He says, ‘Why are you here?’ ” Summerland said. “And he goes, ‘Well, that’s Democrat. We don’t want your kind in here.’ And my daughter’s like, ‘Excuse me, I’m a Republican, first of all.’ That was sad, like it made my heart sad. Oh my gosh, how rude, right?”

Summerland was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the region. Her father was a police officer in Glendale.

She once loved living in California, but found the state increasingly unaffordable and said she no longer felt safe in recent years. A friend was attacked and raped by someone in the country illegally, she said, and homeless people would scare off customers and smear feces on the large glass walls displaying Bentleys and Rolls-Royces at her daughter and son-in-law’s dealership in Van Nuys.

While Summerland’s and Pitek’s politics are polar opposites, the two women said they have no regrets about their decisions to leave California.

“I’m a lot happier here,” Summerland said, saying there is less crime and homelessness and she loves the state’s stunning beauty.

Pitek, who grew up in a small Central Valley town before attending fashion school in New York and working in corporate human resources in the Bay Area, said her California friends tried to dissuade her from leaving, telling her she would never be able to come back because she would be priced out of the housing market.

“Once we stepped foot here, everything just aligned for us,” she said, noting that they bought their sprawling property for less than $700,000 and started a small business.

The move also introduced them to a different pace of life.

“I have always been into holistic and meditation and nature. My husband’s a little bit more difficult to embrace those different things,” Pitek said. “But now I find him sitting outside early in the morning drinking his coffee and just contemplating God knows what.”

She found it easy to make friends, at first by joining a local Bunco group. Their community sprang into action when Bo, their 8-pound pet desert tortoise, escaped his backyard enclosure. (He was found three days later about a mile away.)

The couple’s politics differ from many of their neighbors’, but it hasn’t created any friction, she said

“Political conversations here can get very heated very quickly, because this is (historically) a strong red state, right?” she said. “But everyone’s really respectful of each other and I’m happy to see that.… Being respectful is important.”