Native American Turnout will be a decisive factor as Arizona elections come down to the wire.
In 2020, nearly 20,000 additional voters turned out on the Navajo and Hopi reservations, according to the Associated Press. They voted overwhelmingly Democratic. Biden won the state by 11,000 votes.
We have a few things left to do for this election. We are going to get Rep. Tom O’Halleran on the air in Navajo country, We will have recordings from a number of O’Halleran appearances across the Navajo Nation. We are also planning a big election-day event in Whiteriver, the capital of the White Mountain Apache Nation. If you are hungry, stop by for a free hotdog. Our tribal outreach director Jerry Gloshay Jr. has hand-painted signs to put up around town to encourage people to vote. He also did a three-hour stint on tribal radio to encourage people to vote. And he is texting a thousand people from his phone contact list.
If you would like to help us, please donate at ActBlue .
A repeat of that 2020 surge in Native voting could affect many races. Sen. Mark Kelly is currently leading by 3% according to fivethirtyeight. Katie Hobbs is supposedly down by 3% in the governor’s race, according to the latest polling average.
I’m beginning to have doubts about the much-worshipped Nate Silver. In the data, there is a poll that shows Republican Kari Lake defeating Hobbs 53-42. The Phillips Academy poll is done by high school kids who started doing polling in April of this year. George W. Bush went to school there, so they must know a lot about arithmetic. Maybe he cheated off Jeb’s paper.
Other than the kids in Massachusetts, the only other poll that puts Lake over 50% comes from the station in Phoenix where she was a TV presenter for years. A left-leaning news reader before she aged-out of the television glamour role, her new more-MAGA-than-thou persona is a total fraud.
Michael Fanone, a hero cop who was beaten by rioters trying to take control of the U.S. capital, has referred to Lake as a piece of excrement. She earned the label again as she used the attack on Paul Pelosi as a laugh line. Oh, and she wants to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act and “replace it with something better.” After nearly a decade of trying to repeal Obamacare, her party has never been able to put the “something better” down on paper. Lake recently appeared with Steve Bannon, comparing him to George Washington.
If we wind up with this freak show as our governor, maybe we can charge admission.
We are expecting about 2 million ballots to be cast in Arizona. 20,000 is about 1 %, so the vote of Native Americans and every other group will be critical.
Arizonans have so far turned in 1,028,893 ballots, with 39.9 % coming from Democrats and 36.5 coming from Republicans. As I understand it, the Republicans would have to win by more than 6% on the remaining ballots, in addition to making up for any deficit they are suffering with Independents, and any cross-over votes they lose.
There is quite a bit of drama with the ballot boxes. Armed insurrectionists are under court order to back off 75 feet from the drop boxes. They have to stay further away if they want to carry guns and wear body armor. It makes it fairly clear they are out to destroy democracy by force.
We should get a very good turnout on the Navajo Nation and on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.
Thank all of you for your support of our campaign. If you would like to donate, you can mail a check to Arizona Deserves Better c/o Eric Kramer, 1910 Douglas Fir Dr., Pinetop, AZ 85935. Or give at this ActBlue link .
I’ll run through the Arizona ballot propositions one more time for those who are interested.
Prop 128 – No – attack on the people’s right to put issues on the ballot
Prop 129 – No – more of the same
Prop 130 – Yes – increased tax exemption for disabled Veterans
Prop 131 – No – creates lieutenant governor
Prop 132 – No – Requires super majority to pass initiatives
Prop 209 – Yes – Protects against predatory debt collection
Prop 211 – Yes – Requires that the source of campaign money be disclosed
Prop 308 – Yes – Allows in-state tuition for non-citizens who graduate from AZ high schools.
Prop 309 – No – Requires additional voter identification
Prop 310 – Yes – Allows for increased funding for fire departments