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You Can Have Your Cupcake, And Ohio, Too Fund Rural, Tribal Democratic Capacity In Arizona [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-24
You can skip this article and go straight to the cupcakes. Don’t live in one of Bake Back Better’s delivery zones this time? Just donate here to send cupcakes to the staff and first responders at the Stanford Hospital Emergency Room in Palo Alto, California.
We have a classic case of resource scarcity happening in our work on Northeast Arizona sovereign lands. It’s a situation where we as Democrats either find the capacity to walk and chew gum at the same time or we lose vital months we might not be able to make up later in our immense rural turf.
In the past few weeks, we have been heartened to hear from our volunteers and donors that they are dedicating themselves to the Ohio off-year election next month. The Ohio GOP have tried to sneak an anti-democratic constitutional amendment past their citizens that would make it significantly harder for voters to get initiatives onto the ballot. It’s a blatant GOP attack on citizen efforts to protect abortion rights in Ohio. We all want the Ohio voters to soundly reject this attempted power grab. At the same time, we also must keep working to expand and empower the electorate on sovereign lands in Northeast Arizona. There may be an election happening in another state; but our field organizers can’t just stop their work when that happens while funds and volunteer support are directed elsewhere. We have too much ground to cover - literally. The Northeast Arizona Native Democrats organizing region is roughly 37,000 square miles of highly rural terrain.
Our efforts on sovereign lands in the build year doesn’t have election-year urgency but it’s vital work. We still need to register and educate voters through consistent Democratic outreach in a non-election year. Our program’s success in increasing turnout results from the voter engagement we accomplish long before we’re back reminding people to vote. It’s the heart of rural, tribal engagement by Democrats. If we want to win in rural, tribal areas, then we make a commitment as a party to fund tribal organizers on the ground, year-round, every year. Authentic, Native-led organizing is a proven strategy for winning elections in Arizona. The results don’t lie (see the chart below).
Our program increased voter turnout on sovereign lands in Navajo and Apache Counties. The only counties in Arizona with a turnout increase over 2018.
Read enough? Donate now to support rural, tribal field organizers in Northeast Arizona and get cupcakes (for you or a first responder)
If the Party had done this kind of sustained work in rural Ohio all those years ago, we arguably wouldn’t be rushing to defeat an off-year voter suppression constitutional measure there, as our last defense against protecting Ohioans’ right to choose. They will tell you they didn’t have capacity for that kind of rural outreach prior to 2017. You and I know that the capacity to do both rural, tribal outreach in Arizona and get-out-the-vote efforts in Ohio will either be found, or in 2024 we’ll lose Arizona’s Electoral College votes and Senate seat to the GOP as surely as we did Ohio’s in 2020 and 2022.
To be clear: this is a powerful voting bloc. Arizona’s tribal voters flipped Arizona Blue in 2020 to win the White House, and were decisive in defending Mark Kelly’s Senate seat last year. With the White House and another Arizona U.S. Senate seat on the line in 2024, tribal voters are again key to deciding the outcome of elections with national importance. With those races at stake, we are still the only Democratic organizing program with staff in the field right now on Arizona’s sovereign lands.
Organizing on tribal lands is slow and sometimes painful. The operating strategy of our team is that we pay a living wage to a local field staff. Virtually all the funds we raise are salary for the field team. We count on donors like you, and amazing partners like Bake Back Better, to help us pay our team for the work they do year-round, every year.
This team has been doing the work since 2019 and we wont stop.
Bake Back Better was founded on the delicious idea of baking for democracy - for every suggested $35 donation, you receive four cupcakes if you live within one of the California delivery areas. Even if you don’t live in the delivery area, your donation can fund cupcakes for the staff and emergency responders at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California. None of us have forgotten what the medical community did for our country during the pandemic. A cupcake is the least we can do. This year’s cupcake is lemon-blueberry.
We are fortunate to have partners like Bake Back Better supporting our team.
The funds from your cupcakes will be going to our new Youth Votes program, recruiting and training youth vote ambassadors to become relational organizers within their personal networks. We believe that focusing efforts on rural, tribal youth holds the key to long-term power building on sovereign lands. Your donation pays the salary for the field organizer on the ground working with young voters. It’s a bake sale for democracy.
Please d onate now to support rural, tribal field organizers in Northeast Arizona and get cupcakes (for you or a first responder) .
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/24/2182598/-You-Can-Have-Your-Cupcake-And-Ohio-Too-Fund-Rural-Tribal-Democratic-Capacity-In-Arizona
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