‘OK ... I have to do something’
Arizona Democrats are fired up for the midterm elections and working hard
It’s a sweltering Sunday morning in the Anthem area, and Jane Rhodes, a retired actuary and one-time Republican is preparing to walk the pristine streets of the north Phoenix suburb to whip up votes for Democrats.
An introvert far more comfortable working in solitude, she admits she hasn’t mastered the art of knocking on strangers’ doors and persuading them to vote in Tuesday’s primary election. With every door, she must summon up courage before she raps.
She doesn’t have an option. After President Donald Trump won the White House in 2016, Rhodes stayed in bed for days.
“I finally said, ‘OK, I’m going to die from depression, or I have to do something,’ ” the 70-year-old Cave Creek resident said. “And I have to do stuff that scares the hell out of me.”
Whether it’s driven by fear, anger or wanting to reshape the future on everything from climate change to healthcare coverage, Arizona Democrats working together in a way that hasn’t been seen in years.
Across the state, scores of newly engaged volunteers are helping bring in thousands of new voters. After a slow start, and with help from people like California billionaire Tom Steyer, Arizona Democrats are seeing growing evidence of what they hope is a blue wave set to wash across the traditionally red desert.
The party is finally matching Republicans in registering new voters, running candidates in every corner of the state and opening offices in places they haven’t been in decades, if ever.
It remains to be seen whether their efforts will pay off in November, but perhaps more than any time in the recent past the party has hope.
Even in the unlikeliest of places, like near Anthem, where Rhodes and dozens of men and women are harnessing hope and anger and turning it into action.
“If people like me don’t get involved, we’re just giving up,” said Rhodes, her eyes welling up.
Changing numbers, colors
Arizona is traditionally a red state, but there are signs it is shifting more purple.
Trump, for example, only carried the state over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by 3.5 percentage points.
Republicans are still the largest bloc of voters at 34.8 percent, trailed by independents at 33.6 percent, then Democrats, at 30.6 percent.
That, too, may be changing. Outside groups like Steyer’s NextGen Rising youth vote program are searching for new Democrats on university campuses and in traditionally ignored parts of the state.
Steyer is spending $3 million to register new Democratic voters, and so far, the organization reports registering 11,463 new voters between the ages of 18 and 35 since March.
Beyond registration, Democratic enthusiasm can also be seen in the sheer number of candidates and turnout for Democratic gatherings, from conventions to meet-the-candidate events.
They are preparing for what could be their biggest turnout in years.
“The party and mainly the activists are determined to give themselves every opportunity to win and catch a wave, even in Arizona,” said Larry Sabato, the political scientist who directs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “It’s a big deal in a state like Arizona ... and the early indication is that Democrats have a reasonable shot at a U.S. Senate seat, not to mention other offices statewide. It’s going to be a Democratic year, we just don’t know to what degree.”
Democrats haven’t won a U.S. Senate race in Arizona in 30 years. Today, analysts rate Arizona’s open seat a toss-up, a sign of Republicans’ perceived vulnerability.
Incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake is not running for re-election.
For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, Democrats are running candidates in nearly every statewide race and legislative district in Arizona.
That is a key sign that the party is positioned to do better in the fall, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin and director of the Elections Research Center there.
“That suggests at least candidates believe they have a shot or they wouldn’t be running,” he said. “It indicates they think it’s a good year for them.”
There are about 112 Democrats running for legislative seats alone, the most in 20 years, according to the state Democratic Party.
The county group, meanwhile, reports the number of precinct committeemen has grown to 1,397 up from 863 during the same time period in 2016. The average turnout for monthly legislative district meetings this year is nearly triple what it was back then, and the number of door-to-door canvassing events are more than double what they were two years ago.
There are twice the number of county Democratic offices so far this cycle when compared to the same time in 2016, said Miguel Medrano, executive director of the Maricopa County Democratic Party.
Those offices are fully staffed, fully furnished, and staffers have the fastestavailable internet speeds, which would have been out of reach a cycle ago.
“A lot of people gauge enthusiasm with a lot of people showing up to Democratic meetings and events,” Medrano said. “It’s also financial commitment to winning these races and you see that almost every Democratic institution is receiving funds like they have not received funds before ... When I’m thinking about my organization that’s the enthusiasm that I’m looking at.”
Burden, the Wisconsin professor, said Democrats everywhere have seen more people getting involved in local turnout efforts, but it takes more than numbers.
“Having people on the ground to actually execute the campaign is helpful,” he said. “I think, among Democrats, there’s a sense the Clinton campaign didn’t do enough of that in 2016. ... Whether all of those volunteers can be harnessed in a productive way, where there’s consistent messaging and coordination of activities, that can be a real challenge.”
Ann Olsen is among those now trying to get Democrats to pull together.
Once an independent voter, she became a Democrat after the U.S. Senate confirmed Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos as the Secretary of Education.
Olsen helped create the Maricopa County Democratic Party’s operation in Legislative District 1, organizing meetings and recruiting members. The group became official in May 2017.
They meet monthly to hear from candidates.
They collect donations at happy hours, dessert parties, “salsa showdowns,” and receive generous donations from supporters. By April, they had raised enough money to open a headquarters in a Southwest-style of- fice complex just off the Carefree Highway.
The $3,000-a-month office space is so new, it still smells of paint.
A poster hangs on the wall saying “Help Create the LD1 BLUE WAVE! EVERY DROP COUNTS!” Post-it notes featuring drawings of water-drops solicit money for printing paper and ink, postcard stamps, water for canvassing and other supplies.
In the “war room,” decorated with maps showing the sprawling district that spans from New River to Carefree, volunteers huddle with their field director, Garth Ruchin, 71.
A transplant from Washington state, he has campaigned for Democrats for 50 years, including both of former President Barack Obama’s campaigns. In 2016, he volunteered with a local Democratic group to clean up voter lists.
This year, he is the Anthem-area group’s field operations director, and is responsible for all of the group’s voter contact operations, which includes phone banking, texting and canvassing. He trains newbie activists how to participate in organized politics.
He gives them basic tips: carry water, don’t wear sunglasses to hide your eyes, know the rules of homeowner’s associations before you start walking neighborhoods.
“We had to take people out in the very beginning and show them how to do it, eliminate their fears and so forth,” he said, as volunteers excitedly bustled around him, fueled by sports drinks and large cups of coffee.
Nearly every day, Olsen watches a parade of new faces pass through the door to canvass neighborhoods, drive volunteers around, phone bank, clean up voter-registration lists, and answer phones.
On this Sunday, there were a couple of faces she didn’t recognize. “That’s happening all the time these days,” she said.
The day before, for example, 16 people showed up to volunteer, five for the first time.
Closing the voter gap
Arizona Democrats have nearly matched Republicans in registering voters statewide since the November 2016 election, according to an Arizona Republic analysis of data from the Arizona Secretary of State.
Those efforts may be magnified at the congressional level, where Democrats have improved their numbers compared to Republicans in five of the state’s nine U.S. House districts.
Since the 2016 election, the Republican registration gains have been concentrated in two ruby red districts, the 4th and 5th. Those areas span northwestern Arizona and the Southeast Valley.
Everywhere else, Arizona Democrats have added more than three new voters for every one Republican.
Nearly all the Democrats’ gains have happened since March, giving Democrats a sense of momentum at the time it matters most.
From the 2016 elections to March, Arizona Republicans added 19,000 net new voters while Democrats lost 1,000. Since then, Democrats have gained 26,000 voters while Republicans picked up 7,500.
At the congressional level, Demo- crats have outperformed Republicans in seven of the nine House districts since March.
Consider the competitive 2nd Congressional District in southeastern Arizona.
In October, fewer than 400 voters separated the two parties in a district that seems likely to determine the overall partisan lean of Arizona’s congressional delegation.
Today, Democrats have a 4,000-voter edge. Since March, Democrats have added 3,500 new voters there while Republicans have lost two.
It is only the most dramatic example of what is happening elsewhere.
In the 6th Congressional District, which primarily includes the northeastern Valley, Democrats have narrowed the GOP registration advantage by 2.5 percentage points.
The district remains likely out of reach for Democrats in 2018, but it could produce more votes for those running statewide than typically seen from that part of the state.
The 9th Congressional District that snakes its way from north-central Phoenix down through Tempe to Ahwatukee and Chandler has flipped entirely. Four years ago, it had 10,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats.
Today, Democrats have a 13,000-voter advantage. It’s one reason that seat, which was drawn in 2012 as a competitive district, now seems to lean to Democrats.
West Valley offers a template
The April special election in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District also gives Democrats new optimism.
Democrat Hiral Tipirneni came within 5 percentage points of Republican Debbie Lesko.
It was a remarkably close finish considering Republicans enjoy a 17-percentage point registration advantage in that district and that the West Valley area’s voters haven’t elected a Democrat to the House since 1980.
Turnout among Democrats and Republicans was identical: 47 percent each. But Tipirneni won handily among independent voters and claimed a significant fraction of GOP votes to make it competitive.
“The best thing and the worst thing happened to us: the special election for CD8,” Ruchin, the field director with the Anthem-area county Democratic group recalled of the organization during the special election.
“I’ve got nothing but newbies — I mean zero — with no political experience,” he said. “We’ve got a special election and it’s in our district,”
In all the campaigns he’s worked for, Ruchin said, he was never more proud.
“Democrats had written off this area,” he said. “There were times when they weren’t even running candidates out of here.”
Both Lesko and Tipirneni are on track for a rematch in November, and, while Lesko remains favored to win again, Democrats can expect higher turnout than they have gotten in that district in cycles past. That, too, suggests the party could cut into GOP margins in statewide races.
Snacking on doughnuts, boxes of Domino’s Pizza and cups of Starbucks coffee, 10 or so volunteers were working the phones for Tipirneni last weekend.
Instead of going to the gym on this Saturday morning, Don Spencer drove to the mid-town Phoenix county Democratic officeto dial voters.
For the first time in 15 years, Spencer is excited to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate whose values align with his. Up until this year, he had never even met one.
Now, he’s volunteering to help get one elected.
Cold-calling voters and reading off of a script doesn’t come easy for him. Sometimes, when he gets voters’ voicemails, he wonders to himself, “OK, how does my voice sound,” he laughs. “Do I sound like Barry White?
“But I can’t complain about it if I’m not participating. Now that I’m participating — and even if i’m uncomfortable about phone banking — I can say I tried.”