I grew up in Mesa, (the daughter of a return Mormon missionary that my mom met in a bar lol), and still live in the next town over. Growing up, we had what I referred to "reasonable Republicans." While they were conservative, they were also open to conversation and respectful. They had more of a "live and let live" attitude.
In the early 2000s we started to see the rise of people like Russell Pearce, the author of the infamous SB1070 bill. Suddenly, those that had been hiding their hate and xenophobia had a voice and it divided families and various ward congregations. With the birth of the Tea Party and Obama's run, we saw more and more rightwingnuts who were very vocal about their views while those in the Church that were more moderate shrank into the shadows rather than voicing concerns and promoting their more moderate views for fear of being seen as opposing the Church. I personally know of many families that chose to go to other wards or even stopped going to church all together once this extreme rightwing ethos set in.
Within the Church it is expected that you will vote as church leadership tells you to. Many of these louder, more extreme Rs happened to also be in leadership and therefore pushed congregations to continue to vote for more and more extreme candidates.
Mesa Mayor John Giles is Mormon and has held various leadership posts in the Church. What he and others like those in this article are doing is giving "permission" to those more moderate church members who are fed up with TFG to vote for Harris. Breaking with the directive of the Church is a risk for these people. I've seen repercussions for other infractions "against" the Church ranging from being publicly called out during services to being denied access to things like loans from mtg brokers who are members.
I could write pages about the many issues and negative aspects of the Mormon Church. However, I think it's important to encourage those that are thinking about voting their conscience this time around to do so without drudging up the past nor expecting them to vote democrat forever. This time around is about so many existential threats that we should make room for them and welcome their votes without putting qualifying statements or expectations on it.
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