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Arizona: The Abortion Factor and Victory in 2024 [1]

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Date: 2023-12-19

I mentioned yesterday that i had spent last week “on the road” visiting the Western states where Hope Springs from Field PAC volunteers had canvassed this year. Some of our volunteers and organizers like to refer to Arizona as the next Georgia, their feelings of betrayal by Kyrsten Sinema have long been palpable and their intention on electing a Democratic senator and president (again) has been nothing less than determined. One of the volunteers who met with me told me that Sinema’s dropping her party identification felt like “we hadn’t actually won in 2018, we hadn’t changed anything.”

At every stop, volunteers emphasized that Arizona is changing and more than once i was told “this isn’t Barry Goldwater’s Arizona.” Of course, there were some who asked who Barry Goldwater was. Perhaps sarcastically. But their big point was, don’t pigeonhole us, because Arizona is growing, thriving and more than just a winter haven for snowbirds.

I’ve been pointing to this all year, but the Arizona Capitol Times noted “The latest voter registration numbers from the Arizona Secretary of State’s office show that independent voters edged out Republicans in July to become the largest single group of voters in the state.” Democrats lost 10,014 voters, but we saw this firsthand. Hope Springs volunteers re-registered 1,162 voters this year, many of them updating their voter registration to join the Active Early Voting List. We noticed that there were voters who had been registered as Democrats who re-registered as unaffiliated “because it didn’t seem that important.” Or they forgot to check the box. So when we talked about this loss of Democrats, volunteers shrugged. Not exactly the response i expected.

The answer is simple, sorta: Over the three years we have been knocking on doors in Arizona, 33,150 voters have self-identified as Single-Issue Abortion voters OR identified Reproductive Healthcare as their Top Issue for the nation OR their Top Issue for Arizona. Single Issue voters made up about half of that (which was the norm in Ohio and Kansas).

Some of our volunteers were disappointed by that, because we had found a lot more in Ohio. But it’s not the same. Reproductive Healthcare was driving the news cycles in Ohio, not just over one election but two (August’s special election and the November general election). And Republicans had gone about the first (or special) election in a pretty sneaky way. Voters were pissed.

But we had also knocked on more than 3 times as many doors in Ohio (it’s a bigger state and had something at stake in 2023), 483,363 doors to 1,439,949 doors in Ohio on our Saturday canvasses. The expectation for Ohio-like numbers wasn’t really realistic. But the stakes in Arizona in 2024 are high, made even higher by the desire to place an Ohio-like ballot initiative on the November ballot.

As the Wall Street Journal wrote:

Arizona is poised to take center stage in state-level battles over abortion this week when its highest court weighs whether to allow a near-total ban on the procedure to take effect. The case will kick off an election-year showdown over reproductive rights that is expected to heavily influence the outcomes of Arizona’s hypercompetitive 2024 races, including contests for Congress and the White House. Activists are gearing up to put an abortion-rights measure on the ballot in Arizona next year.

Arizona for Abortion Access has until July 3 to collect nearly 384,000 valid signatures to get the measure on the ballot. Ohio supporters collected 710,000 signatures, almost double what was required to get on the ballot. Expect Arizonans to exceed that number, perhaps even significantly. Most groups want to collect 2 to 3 times the number required, depending on how they were collected and whether supporters have time to verify the signatures they collect.

Here’s what really seemed to shock our Arizona volunteers. The number of people who came out to knock on doors in Ohio really exploded after schools let out. In Arizona, we never had 500 volunteers knock on a Saturday; in Ohio, we had more than 1,000 volunteers come out 5 Saturdays this year. You just can’t compare — which i think there were some people who wanted to do that.

But the Arizonans i talked to last week not only aspire to get their people’s initiative on the ballot, they aspire to see the same kind of enthusiasm and volunteers out knocking on doors in 2024. “And we get to start sooner.”

This year (2023), Reproductive Rights did not rise to our Top 3 Issues list once, but concerns over Sinema’s betrayal did (3 times) and Trump-related concerns (Defending Democracy, Political Stability, etc) did 8 weeks. And our canvass walk lists tilted heavily towards unaffiliated voters in Arizona. The expectation that Abortion Rights will be higher in Arizonans’ minds isn’t a pipedream.

I’ve talked a lot since the first Georgia runoffs how empowering volunteers gets people to start thinking about what they are doing, what it means and how they can utilize that power for good. Arizona, like Georgia, has had terrific responses to our walking with Constituent Service Request forms. Just like our Georgia volunteers came up with unique solutions to "problems” or concerns they had, the volunteers i talked to last week in Arizona had their thinking caps on. Both men and women were thinking about how to leverage the public mood for greater individual freedoms to increase Democratic or progressive turnout next year.

Most of the volunteers i talked to last week realized that Arizona had exceptional turnout in 2020. “But it was just too close; how can we do better?” Few of them remembered that Democrats didn’t really knock on doors during the pandemic. We will be doing that this time around. It’s a point i keep making, that 2024 won’t be like 2020 (even though pollsters keep “adjusting” their polls to fit the 2020 electorate). The underlying battleground is different, not just because of Covid, and not just because of January 6th. Overturning Roe is a major part of that. But it is definitely going to be different.

I like to point out, as i did last week, that the efforts of Hope Springs from Field volunteers have made a real difference. Arizona exceeded that national (voter participation) average last year. “When was the last time that happened,” i asked.

And no one really remembers.

“See, you are right, Arizona is changing, and changing for the better. You are making that happen. And the data shows us that you are making that happen.”

Early Organizing, Deep Organizing does alter the electoral landscape. Democrats are better prepared in Arizona and Democrats will have access to better data in 2024.

And this was the last point i made in my 7 stops. Before Kyrsten Sinema made it public that she was leaving the Democratic Party, one of her campaign consultants (someone i knew) asked if her campaign could get a copy of our Arizona database. Her campaign knew that the work we were doing on Saturdays would make a difference in 2024.

Unlike most presidential years, 2024 won’t be a traditional campaign where an incumbent president is the driver of turnout and electoral results. Trump, not Biden, is likely to be the focus of most voters, in both good and bad ways. But Reproductive Healthcare Rights is in the mix, and may even exceed the enthusiasm level from supporters of President Biden. You get the sense that voters aren’t really paying attention yet, but the volunteers i talked to last week are.

There is a lot at stake in Arizona in 2024 and Sinema’s betrayal has only confused that issue. But it hasn’t changed anything. It is still a race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, between Ruben Gallego and whoever the Republicans nominate for Senate. 538’s polling average still shows Gallego leading with Sinema not being much of a factor. Biden isn’t doing as well, which is why we think the ballot initiative can change things up in the president’s favor. There’s a lot of work to be done next year, and, as they say in Arizona, at least “we get to start sooner.”

Like everyone else, we are asking for your financial support for these vital efforts. If you are like me, you are inundated with requests. We don’t have any cute pets, or special treats, to offer up to encourage your support. Nor will we try to guilt you by telling you the threat is real, ongoing and getting more sophisticated. We are all getting tired of it.

But if you are able to contribute to our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please do. We need your help:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fistfulofsteel

You can follow that link for our mailing address, as well (for those who would rather send us a check). Thank you for your support! This work depends on you!

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/19/2210848/-Arizona-The-Abortion-Factor-and-Victory-in-2024?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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