TUCSON, Ariz. — For Arizona Democrats, this election is about more than just making Kamala Harris a key Sun Belt state. It’s a test of the party’s strength in the lower-tier of the electorate as Democrats mount their most aggressive campaign to date to flip the state legislature.
With Republicans in control for more than a decade, winning back control of Phoenix has become a top national priority for Democrats as they seek to rebuild power in the state.
After years of failed attempts, Democrats finally believe they have the right ingredients to take full control of the state for the first time since the 1960s: record fundraising, an expanded field of candidates, and abortion as a major issue in the race.
And the fight is fierce. Democrats need just one seat each in the House and Senate to tie with Republicans, and two to take the majority.
Their message is straightforward: Republicans are crazy and have driven Arizona to a desperate situation. It reflects a broader national strategy as Democrats shape their approach to defeating former President Donald Trump and regaining power in the state. Success in Arizona in November could provide a roadmap for Democrats as they work to weaken the GOP’s grip on state government.
“This is the biggest opportunity in my lifetime for Democrats to flip one or both chambers,” said Democratic strategist Adam Kinsey.
“Arizona is not getting greener because of voter registration or demographic changes,” he said. “The Democrats are running moderate, popular candidates, and the Republicans are continuing to run the most extreme candidates in the primaries and get them elected.”
But persuading moderate voters to switch sides presents a serious challenge in a state where MAGAism is firmly entrenched. Home to iconic former GOP senators Barry Goldwater and John McCain, Arizona’s independent cowboy spirit has grown accustomed to the aggressive conservatism displayed by Trump and his followers. Polls show Democrats in for an uphill battle, especially before Harris ascends to the top of the ticket. And their strategy hinges on everything coming together perfectly on election night. With the gap this narrow, there’s no room for error.
“There’s a lot of craziness in the Democratic Party across the country,” said GOP consultant Stan Barnes. “The people in the middle are trying to figure out which party is crazier. That jump-ball thing is a mystery.”
Canvasing at 100 degrees
The atmosphere was high as about two dozen Democratic volunteers gathered in a garage outside Tucson ahead of this week’s primary. College students and retirees alike were excited to see Harris in the lead and excited to speculate about who she might choose for vice president, including the possibility of her choosing her hometown senator, Mark Kelly.
But some veterans of Arizona politics are skeptical that Harris will appeal to moderates in a turbulent state that President Joe Biden won by 10,000 votes in 2020. Vance, a former state lawmaker, believes Republicans will be turned off by her familiar California credentials, arguing that “it’s too easy to label her a San Francisco progressive.”
“I think the idea that Kamala Harris can come to Arizona and win by exploiting the fact that Trump is a dumbass is wrong,” he said.
On the surface, volunteer-run LD17 is a GOP safe zone. Republicans hold an 8-point lead in this middle-class suburb at the foot of the Catalina Mountains. But Democrats have made progress in recent years by appealing to younger voters and women, and they now believe winning LD17 is the path to a majority. “If Democrats are writing a script for how to make inroads in a Republican community,” Kinsey said, it’s the perfect place to be.
As volunteers and candidates fanned out to knock on doors before the summer heat became unbearable, Harris barely showed up. Instead, conversations with voters focused on issues like border security, public school funding and the high cost of living. This is the strategy that lower-ballot candidates take: acknowledging the national situation but quickly redirecting voters to a discussion about what’s happening in their communities.
“Honestly, I’m trying to shift the conversation away from the federal campaign and help people 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. roe Flipped. “I’m talking about women’s reproductive freedom, public education, securing Arizona’s water future. They resonate with those issues. I’ve learned that registered Republicans are not represented by the party of Trump.”
The Democratic candidates seeking to oust the Tucson Republican incumbent fit the mold of the ideal moderate Democratic Party in Arizona. Frustrated by divisive political rhetoric, the two business owners are running for office for the first time. McLean and Kevin Volk, both running for the state House, have been hitting the pavement every weekend, knocking on doors. Volk estimates he’s knocked on nearly 4,000 doors so far and has had to superglue his shoes back together.
“It’s about people who want to get things done and extremism,” Volk, a former public school teacher, told the volunteer group. “The entire state, even the entire country, is watching what we’re doing in southern Arizona in LD17. If we have enough effort and enough resources, we’ll work our butts off and we’ll get it done.”
The state senator representing LD17 is one of the most controversial Republicans in the Legislature. Senator Justine Wadsack, a vocal member of the Freedom Coalition, has pushed anti-LBGTQ+ bills such as requiring drag artists to register as sex offenders if they perform in front of children, and has repeatedly harped on conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the Uvalde school shooting. She was issued a speeding ticket for going 71 mph in a 35 mph zone a few weeks before the primary, which led to the Fraternal Order of Police withdrawing its support.
But Wadsack narrowly lost the primary to former state Sen. Vince Leach, who beat him in 2022 and is preparing for a rematch. Democrats expected Wadsack to win the primary because they thought she had a better chance of winning than Leach, who has a conservative record on social issues but was more focused on cutting taxes during his eight years in Congress.
Wordsack did not respond to a request for comment.
Rich, a Trump supporter, said he is not a moderate in the party, but he is not aligned with the far right either. He does not believe abortion will help the Democratic Party, because voters are more interested in other issues.
“There are three things in Arizona: the border, taxes and education,” Rich said in an interview.
Raise a huge amount of cash
One of the reasons Democrats failed to win any seats in Congress in 2022 was because they didn’t field enough candidates to make a dent in the numbers.
Nationally, Democrats have had more uncontested primaries than Republicans. In 2022, Democrats had 38% of all primaries uncontested, while Republicans had 12%. In Arizona, a hotbed of Trump-fueled Republican election fraud, 33% of all primaries were uncontested in 2022.
Trump’s rise has motivated some Democrats to become more involved in politics. Candidate recruitment agencies say challenging Republicans who deny the 2020 election results is a compelling argument for getting more Democrats on the ballot. Contest Every Race, an organization that works to elect Democrats to public office, has recruited challengers to 93 known election deniers this cycle.
Another hurdle for Democrats? Convincing voters to pay attention to the state legislative race and fill out the ballot completely. In a crowded political environment like Arizona’s this cycle, it’s especially difficult for such candidates to break through.
Democrats are concerned about the problem of “sub-ballot roll-off,” where voters go to the polls primarily to express their opinions on important national races but lose interest in local races and simply do not fill out their ballots. This phenomenon is more common among Democrats. According to a survey by the progressive group Sister District, 80% of Democrats do not fill out their ballots at all, compared to 32% of Republicans.
And voters have a lot to consider this year: a reproductive rights ballot measure and another initiative to crack down on borders, both of which Democrats and Republicans hope will drive away their respective bases.
Democrats have been building a stronger national fundraising network, largely in response to the Republican spending cycle, with the emergence of new groups like the States Project and Forward Majority. This is in addition to the ongoing work of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a division of the Democratic National Committee that focuses on state legislative races. Together, these groups plan to spend at least $165 million in states across the country to flip Congress and defend their majorities.
“Policy interests really matter. We saw that in Michigan and Minnesota when we overthrew special interest, extremist state legislative majorities,” said States Project co-founder and former New York state lawmaker Daniel Squadron, pointing to two states where Democrats will take full control of the legislature in 2022. “We believe that states should be defined by who governs them and what they provide. Gov. (Katie) Hobbs’ agenda was undermined by the party’s majority in Arizona.”
To win the Arizona majority, Democrats know they have to play defensively and hold on to seats they recently flipped, like Mesa’s LD9, a hotly contested, Democratic district outside Phoenix where Democrats rely on college and working-class voters to win. The district was instrumental in Democrats’ narrow 2022 recapture of the seat. Seth Blatman, one of two Democrats to defeat a conservative state House Republican in the last election, won by just 760 votes.
“We’re up against extremists, and this is a very competitive district. It’s a 50/50 vote,” Blatman told a group of volunteers who were out campaigning in Mesa this month. “This is a very important race. My worst nightmare is that we pick up two seats in the state, lose my seat, and lose the majority as a result.”
