LAS VEGAS — A seven-state brawl centered on one of the country’s most competitive swing states is poised to trigger a water supply crisis for 40 million people across the West — and put the Trump administration in an impossible political position.
The battle pits two states that flipped for Trump in 2024 — Arizona and Nevada — against two of the country’s deepest-red ones — Utah and Wyoming — in a fight over water that feeds economies from Denver to Phoenix, and half of all Californians.
No state has more to lose in the fight over access to the drought-stricken Colorado River than Arizona. Phoenix and other central Arizona communities — along with the semiconductor manufacturing and data centers that they host — are the first in line for cuts under the century-old legal system that governs the waterway.
But its upstream neighbors have fiercely opposed taking any cuts to their supplies in order to bolster Arizona’s offtake.
