Sanders to join Garcia for voter turnout rallies
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders next week will co-host two get-out-the-vote rallies with David Garcia, the Democrat challenging Republican incumbent Doug Ducey in Arizona’s race for governor.
The back-to-back events will be held Tuesday at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, at noon and 5 p.m., respectively. The universities’ Young Democrats groups will host both events.
Sanders — who has been inactive in progressive politics since unsuccessfully running for president in 2016 — said earlier this month that Garcia is “exactly the kind of leader the state of Arizona and our country needs right now.”
“As a first-generation college graduate who went to school on the G.I. Bill, David knows what it means to have access to an affordable education,” Sanders said at the time of his endorsement. “The Arizona Constitution says college should be ‘as nearly free as possible,’ and David has a plan to make that a reality.”
Tuesday’s efforts aim to encourage voters “to participate in this year’s historic election and to take advantage of the new early voting locations opening on campus,” Garcia’s campaign said in a statement.
Democratic Congressman Raúl Grijalva will speak at the UA event. Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego will appear at ASU.
The rallies come as Garcia, an ASU professor who has made public education funding the cornerstone of his campaign, lags in the polls.
His campaign has rejected donations from corporate political action committees and is largely funded through small individual donations, making it difficult to compete with the Ducey campaign’s deep pockets.
He also has been hit hard by attack ads in recent months and has taken heat for his and his staffers’ comments.
Nevertheless, Garcia has sought to energize young and minority voters during his gubernatorial bid and is counting on those populations to turn out for him.
NextGen Arizona, a group funded by San Francisco Democrat and billionaire Tom Steyer, has registered nearly 21,000 young Arizonans to vote since March 2018. It has done so by focusing heavily on state university and community college campuses, according to spokeswoman Belén Sisa.
ASU’s Young Republicans chapter immediately took issue with the Tempe rally, tweeting that the group was “uncomfortable to say the least” given Garcia’s position at the school.
It was not immediately clear whether the criticism was valid under ASU policy. The Republic has contacted the university for clarification.