Northern Arizona has long been considered to have one of the most competitive districts in the nation, but this year it is taking on added significance as Native Americans redouble organizing efforts and the panicked GOP drops an extra $900,000 in the sprawling district.
The district includes many of Arizona’s tribes, but in the redistricting was joined to the Republican bastion of Prescott. This initially gave the GOP great hope, but a poor Trump-selected candidate, the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe and a strong Native organizing effort has the race in a virtual tie.
We are buying 100 large signs to encourage Native American matriarchs to make sure everyone in their family is voting. We are doing this in support of sister organizations who have teams in the field working to train family leaders to get their relatives to the polls.
If you would like to help us, please donate at ActBlue .
Though the culture of tribes varies, women often play a major role in leading the extended family. It is not uncommon for the matriarch to decide how every member of the group will vote. We don’t really have to ask Natives to vote for our candidate Tom O’Halleran. If they vote, they will vote for Tom. In the Apache village of Cibecue, Democrats recently got 98% of the vote.
Nate Silver has the race leaning Republican 49.6 to 50.4 percent. That helps to explain the astonishing story of the cash-strapped Republican National Congressional Committee investing $900,000 in the district this week. Eight-tenths of a percent is definitely a gap that can be overcome with great field work. There are nearly 20 full-time Democratic organizers on the Navajo Nation alone.
Though the district is very rural – covering a space about the size of Illinois -- $900,000 doesn’t buy that much TV. The stations are in Phoenix, which is the 12th largest TV market in the country. Ad time is very expensive and reaches an audience mostly uninterested in this district. Also, much of the Arizona portion of the Navajo Nation is actually in the Albuquerque TV market, so the $900,000 won’t do anything to reach those homes. And a third of Navajos don’t have electricity, further reducing the reach of TV advertising.
Much of the Republican problem rests with what Mitch McConnell has termed “candidate quality.” Eli Crane is a former SEAL, but he lives in Tucson, far from the district. He hasn’t shown much interest in visiting the district, and can’t get beyond a few MAGA talking points. (In his defense, he did improve the design of a bottle opener made from a spent cartridge. You can buy one for $30.)
His one foray into policy did not go well. Before the Russian invasion, he said the U.S. should do nothing to help Ukraine. Putin is not currently very popular in Arizona.
Cook Political Report lists the race as “likely Republican” meaning that if we win this seat, we should get 45 additional contested seats that Cook rates as more favorable to Democrats.
I created this image to help Crane. If he uses it as a green screen backdrop, he can remain in Tucson and pretend to be in Northern Arizona. It has all the well-known features of Northern Arizona, but they are a little mixed up. It is based around Sedona’s Bell Rock and includes the Window Rock as well as features from Monument Valley and of course the Grand Canyon.
If you would like to help us purchase the signs, please donate at ActBlue . Or you can mail a check to Arizona Deserves Better, c/o Eric Kramer, 1910 Douglas Fir Dr., Pinetop, AZ 85935
Thank you for sticking with us through this long campaign.