Arizona is ground zero in the fight for state political power

TUCSON, Arizona — For Arizona Democrats, this election is about more than delivering Kamala Harris a key Sun Belt state. It is a test of the party’s down-ballot strength as Democrats mount their most aggressive campaign yet to flip the state Legislature.

Taking control of Phoenix has emerged as the top target nationwide for Democrats focused on rebuilding state power after more than a decade of GOP dominance in state capitals.

After years of failed attempts, Democrats believe they finally have the right ingredients to capture complete statewide control for the first time since the 1960s: record-breaking fundraising, boosted candidate recruitment and the emergence of abortion as an election-defining issue.

And the fight is tight. Democrats just need to pick up one seat in both the House and Senate to tie with Republicans, and two to claim majorities.

Their messaging is straightforward: Republicans are crazy and have driven Arizona to a desperate place. It reflects a broader national strategy as Democrats settle on their approach for beating former President Donald Trump — and taking back power within the states. Success in Arizona in November could present a roadmap for Democrats working to weaken the GOP’s grip on state governments.

“This is the best chance the Democrats have had in my lifetime of flipping one or both chambers,” said Adam Kinsey, a Democratic strategist.

“It’s not that Arizona is getting so much bluer because of voter registration or demographic changes,” he said. “It’s Democrats are running moderate, populist candidates and Republicans continue to run and elect the most extreme candidates in their primaries.”

But convincing moderate voters to switch sides poses serious challenges in this state where MAGA-ism is firmly entrenched. The home of iconic former GOP Sens. Barry Goldwater and John McCain, Arizona’s independent cowboy spirit made the vast desert ripe for the aggressive conservatism manifested by Trump and his acolytes. Polling has suggested — particularly before Harris ascended to the top of the ticket — that Democrats face an uphill battle. And their strategy depends on everything aligning perfectly on Election Night. With such slim margins, there is no room for error.

“There’s a lot of things about the national Democratic party that seem crazy,” said GOP consultant Stan Barnes. “The guy in the middle is trying to figure out who is the crazier party. That jump ball nature is where the mystery is.”

Canvassing in 100 degrees

When about two dozen Democratic volunteers gathered in a garage in the Tucson suburbs ahead of canvassing in the days leading up to the primary election this week, the energy was high. College students and retirees alike were buzzing about Harris moving to the top of the ticket and speculating over who she would pick as vice president, expressing excitement about the possibility she might choose homestate Sen. Mark Kelly.

But some Arizona political veterans are skeptical about Harris’ appeal to moderates in this swing state that President Joe Biden won by just over 10,000 votes in 2020. Barnes, a former state lawmaker, believes Republicans will be turned off by her familiar California credentials, arguing that “it’s so easy to slap the label of San Francisco liberal on her.”

“Thinking that Kamala Harris can come into Arizona and win on the strength that Trump can be a jackass, I think is faulty thinking,” he said.

On its face, LD17 where the volunteers convened is a GOP safe zone. Republicans hold an eight-point advantage in this upper-middle class suburban district at the foothills of the Catalina mountains. But Democrats have made progress in recent years by appealing to young voters and women, and now believe that winning LD17 is the path to taking the majority. It’s the perfect location “if you were writing a script about how Democrats are able to make inroads in Republican communities,” Kinsey said.

As the volunteers and candidates dispersed to knock on doors before the scorching summer heat became unbearable, Harris rarely came up. Instead their conversations with voters were focused on issues like border security, public school funding and the high cost of living. That’s the tack taken by down ballot candidates: acknowledge the national scene but quickly redirect voters to discussions about what’s happening in their local communities.

“To be honest, I try to deflect the conversation away from the federal campaign and help them understand what’s at stake in the state legislature,” said John McLean, a Democrat who felt the call to run for state Senate in LD17 after Roe was overturned. “I go to issues of women’s reproductive freedom and support for public education and securing our water future in Arizona. They resonate with those issues. I’m finding registered Republicans are not being represented by the party of Trump.”

The Democratic candidates trying to oust the Tucson Republican incumbents fit the party’s mold of the ideal moderate Democrat in Arizona: a pair of business owners frustrated with divisive political rhetoric who are running for office for the first time. McLean and Kevin Volk, who is running for state House, hit the steaming pavement knocking on doors weekend after weekend. Volk estimates he has knocked on close to 4,000 doors so far and has had to superglue his shoes back together.

“It’s about extremism versus the folks who want to get stuff done,” Volk, a former public school teacher, told the group of volunteers. “The whole state, and even the country, is watching what we do here in Southern Arizona in LD17. With enough effort, with enough resources, we are going to work our butts off and we are going to get it done.”

The state senator representing LD17 is one of the most controversial Republicans in the Legislature. Sen. Justine Wadsack, a vocal member of the Freedom Caucus, pushed anti-LBGTQ+ bills like one that would force drag show artists to register as sex offenders if they performed in front of children and repeated conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the Uvalde school shooting. Weeks before the primary, she received a speeding ticket for going 71 mph in a 35 mph zone, prompting the Fraternal Order of the Police to revoke its endorsement.

But Wadsack was narrowly ousted in the primary by former state Sen. Vince Leach, who teed up a rematch after she beat him in 2022. Democrats were hopeful Wadsack would win the primary because they viewed her as more beatable than Leach, who also has a conservative record on social issues but was more focused on cutting taxes during his eight years in the Legislature.

Wadsack did not return a request for comment.

A Trump supporter, Leach said he’s not part of the moderate wing of the party, but also doesn’t fit in with the far-right. He doesn’t believe abortion will help Democrats at the polls as much as they’re counting on because voters care more about other issues.

“In Arizona, you’ve got three things: you’ve got the border, you’ve got taxes … and you’ve got education,” Leach said in an interview.

Huge cash haul

Part of the reason why Democrats failed to capture the legislature in 2022 was they didn’t run enough candidates to make the numbers work.

Nationally, Democrats leave more races uncontested than Republicans. In 2022, Democrats did not compete in 38 percent of all contests, where GOP candidates did not compete in 12 percent of races. In Arizona, a key hub of Trump-fueled GOP election denialism, 33 percent of all races were uncontested in 2022.

The rise of Trump has motivated some Democrats to become more engaged with politics. Candidate recruitment organizations say that challenging Republicans who deny the results of the 2020 presidential election has been a convincing argument to get more Democrats on the ballot. Contest Every Race, a group that works to draft Democrats for public office, has recruited challengers to 93 known election deniers this cycle.

Another obstacle for Democrats? Convincing voters to care about state legislative races and completely fill out their ballots. In a crowded political environment like Arizona this cycle, it’s especially tough for these candidates to break through.

Democrats are alert to the problem of “down ballot roll off,” where voters go to the polls mainly to weigh in on high-profile national races but lose interest in local ones and simply stop completing their ballots. This phenomenon is more common among Democrats: 80 percent of Democrats fail to completely fill out their ballot, compared with 32 percent for Republicans, according to research from progressive group Sister District.

And this year, there’s a lot for voters to consider, like a ballot measure to enshrine reproductive rights and another initiative to crack down at the border — dueling proposals that Democrats and Republicans hope will drive out their respective bases.

Democrats have been building a stronger national fundraising network through the emergence of new groups such as the States Project and Forward Majority, largely in response to getting battered by Republican spending cycle after cycle. That’s on top of the ongoing work of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the arm of the Democratic National Committee that focuses on state legislative races. Collectively, those groups intend to spend at least $165 million in states across the country to try to flip chambers and defend majorities.

“The policy stakes are really significant — we’ve seen that in Michigan and Minnesota when we’ve broken special interest, extremist state legislative majorities,” said Daniel Squadron, cofounder of the States Project and a former New York state lawmaker, pointing to two states where Democrats won full control of the legislatures in 2022. “What we believe is that a state should be defined by who has governing power in that state and what they’re delivering. [Gov. Katie] Hobbs’ agenda has been undermined by the majority in Arizona.”

To earn the Arizona majority, Democrats recognize that they also must play defense and hold onto seats they recently flipped, like LD9 in Mesa, another highly competitive district that has trended blue. In this area outside of Phoenix, Democrats are relying on turning out college students and working class voters — constituencies that were key to Democrats narrowly picking up those seats in 2022. Seth Blattman, one of two Democrats who defeated conservative state House Republicans last cycle, won his race by just 760 votes.

“We are up against extremists and this is a very competitive district, it votes 50/50,” Blattman said this month to a separate group of volunteers headed out to canvas in Mesa. “This is a very critical race. My worst nightmare is that we pick up two seats elsewhere in the state, lose my seat and lose the majority as a result.”

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