Multiple networks are now calling it: Joe Biden has become the first Democratic presidential nominee to win Arizona in nearly 25 years, and it’s thanks to the years-long work led by Latino and Indigenous activists. This organizing was intensified following the passage of racist legislation over a decade ago, galvanizing communities since to build up an impressive résumé of victories, including the 2016 defeat of former Maricopa County sheriff and noted racist Joe Arpaio. But flipping the state hasn’t been the only recent victory there.
Democrats also emerged victorious in the U.S. Senate race, (again) defeating unelected Republican Sen. Martha McSally and electing retired astronaut Mark Kelly. Once he’s sworn in later this month, Arizona will be represented in the U.S. Senate by two Democrats for the first time in nearly 70 years. “A decade of hard work on the ground with a vision of human rights,” tweeted legendary journalist Maria Hinojosa.
Advocacy group Progress Arizona tweeted that advocates and groups including LUCHA Arizona and Mi Familia Vota “made [winning] possible,” this year by knocking on nearly 1.5 million doors, making nearly 20 million phone calls, and registering nearly 185,000 people to vote. “Arizona Latinos got the job done,” veteran journalist Elvia Díaz wrote in the Arizona Republic. “Nobody can dispute the work and enthusiasm of Latinos. They put their heart and soul into getting their own and others out to vote.”
Helping bring this home for Biden and Kelly were results in a populous county terrorized for years by Arpaio and his lawless deputies—that is, until his glorious defeat in 2016. “Thanks to Maricopa County and other fast-growing Latino counties, Arizona may join the rest of the Southwest as a reliably blue state based on the strength of Democratic-leaning Latino voters,” Latino Decisions cofounder Gary Segura said. According to the firm’s election eve polling, 71% of Latinos in the state supported Biden.
Young Latino voters in the state were pumped up, too. Mother Jones reports that advocacy group Voto Latino “estimated that 70,000 new Latinx voters were expected to vote in Arizona this year, half of them young voters between the ages of 18 and 39.” According to NPR, “[s]trategists say that they believe Latinos younger than 30 to have been decisive” in the state.
Navajo, Hopi, and Apache voters and organizers were also vital in helping to flip the state, said Navajo County Democrats-Northeast Arizona Native Democrats Campaign Director Jaynie Parrish.
“We advertised drop-box locations, early voting locations, ran radio ads, coordinated literature drops, utilized social media, print media, had folks standing in high traffic areas with signs reminding our communities to vote and directing folks to the polls,” she wrote at Daily Kos. “We had car parades, cars to the polls, and in one of the most awesome displays of cultural pride and representation, partners on the White Mountain Apache reservation organized a Vote As a Tribe March the day before the election and had their traditional Crown Dancers lead community members to the polls in Whiteriver, AZ. This is the power of local Indigenous organizing.”
“Tribes helped turn Arizona blue in a presidential election for only the second time in the past 72 years,” she continued. “Native voters, on tribal lands, in Apache, Navajo, Coconino, Gila, and Graham counties overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden/Kamala Harris, Mark Kelly, Tom O’Halleran, and all our Democratic candidates up and down the ticket.”
“With Arizona now a solid purple,” Latino Decisions said in its polling, “the question remains whether Republicans will go down the path of California Republicans by doubling down on their extreme message.” Activists and groups that have been doing the work are ready to keep fighting if that’s the path Republicans choose in defiance of Arizona’s progression.
“Something we must absolutely celebrate in the immigrant rights movement is the incredibly high level of participation of Latino voters in states like Arizona,” said Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services leader Erika Andiola, who is from Arizona. “We’re making change in this state because of the years of nonstop organizing and fighting against racists, anti-immigrant laws like SB-1070 and white supremacists politicians like Joe Arpaio.”
“Arizona has been flipped,” Hinojosa continued in her tweet. “This is HUGE. A decade ago it created the most hateful anti-immigrant law. And this created a new generation of organizers. On the street & for the ballot. And this is what it looks like.”
