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In a sign that Arizona will be heavily contested by Democrats in this year’s elections, President Obama plans to include a Wednesday stop in Chandler during a post-State of the Union barnstorming trip this week.

Thanks to

Updated Jan 25, 2012, 8:02 am

Dylan Smith TucsonSentinel.com

In a sign that Arizona will be heavily contested by Democrats in this year's elections, President Obama plans to include a Wednesday stop in Chandler during a post-State of the Union barnstorming trip this week.

Obama will deliver remarks at an Intel plant in the Phoenix suburb late Wednesday afternoon.

Other stops will include Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the same day, and Las Vegas and Denver next Thursday. Obama will visit Detroit on Friday, the White House said.

Although the main election battlegrounds are likely to remain Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Democrats are eyeing several western states, including Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, for potential electoral gains as Hispanic voters grow in importance. Republicans plan to press the president's party in economically stressed states like Michigan.

Although Obama lost to Sen. John McCain in Arizona in 2008, he beat the senator in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado.

The state went for President Bill Clinton in 1996, but has voted Republican in all of the other presidential races since 1948.

The Phoenix-area stop will be Obama's fifth trip to the state since his Jan. 2009 inauguration.

Last year, he spoke at a Tucson memorial service honoring the victims of the Jan. 8 shooting rampage.

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He made three Arizona trips in 2009: to Mesa to speak about the housing crisis; to Tempe to deliver an ASU commencement address; and to Phoenix to speak at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. Obama also made a visit to the Grand Canyon with his family before speaking to the VFW.