Calls are mounting within the Arizona Democratic Party to oust Party Chair Robert Branscomb. The state party Treasurer, Greg Freeman, has publicly called for Branscomb’s removal from office due to his excessive spending and lack of fundraising income.
“The Arizona Democratic Party is dealing with very serious financial issues. Chair Branscomb has showed a limited understanding of these issues and neither interest nor effectiveness in addressing them. The only possible outcome for the Arizona Democratic Party if the chair stays in place is ineffectiveness or bankruptcy,” Freeman said in the video below.
“Removing the chair is the only way to create an Arizona Democratic Party that not just survives, but makes a meaningful difference in the upcoming election cycle,” Freeman said.
The effort to impeach Branscomb began on April 28, when LD8 Democrats Chair Steven Jackson requested that Branscomb resign after Branscomb–astonishingly–started a dispute with:
- Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Kelly
- Democratic U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego
- Governor Katie Hobbs
- Secretary of State Adrian Fontes
- Attorney General Kris Mayes
The job of the party chair is to support elected Democrats, not to fight with them. The top Democratic elected officials then said Branscomb “has lost our trust.”
On July 1, Gov. Hobbs, Secretary of State Fontes, and Attorney General Mayes — all of whom are seeking second terms next year — announced that their grassroots organizing will be outsourced to the Democrats of Navajo County, rather than the dysfunctional Arizona Democratic Party. They chose to bypass the financially strained state party and Chair Branscomb.
An online vote in a special state committee meeting to remove Branscomb is scheduled for July 16, 2025. However, Branscomb has not revealed the Zoom link for the special meeting.
Since April, state party staff have left or been fired, fundraising has dwindled, and Branscomb’s budget was rejected.
The unionized staff members have been poorly treated and have made public statements that Branscomb has engaged in union-busting efforts.
Worst fundraising year
State Party Treasurer Freeman continued, “We spent about $350,000 more than we raised. As of mid-June, we have spent another $220,000 more than we raised in the second quarter. Put another way, we have spent more than a third of our nest egg for the entire cycle in the first six months of this 24-month election cycle.”
“Our fundraising has been historically poor in 2025, and we are on pace for the worst fundraising year in the past decade. As another comparison, we have raised less than a third of what we raised at this point in 2021,” he said.
“We cannot run a negative account balance indefinitely. We have burned through $570,000 of the funds we entered the year with, and there is no sign of this trend changing at the current rate of spending and fundraising. We will be unable to pay our staff or our mortgage or both very soon.”
Freeman said he repeatedly reached out to the Chair, “begging him to stop additional spending and to focus on the income that the Arizona Democratic Party will need to survive.”
“I sent in my presentation, and it shows our dramatically worsening situation. I was asked to give my presentation at that meeting right before the announcement of the hire of new staff members, and right after a newly coordinated initiative to spend an additional million dollars that we don’t have.”
Branscomb has obstinately stood his ground, showing no intent to leave.
A group of 11 Black leaders issued an open letter on May 10, saying, “We reject any attempts to undermine or sideline this leadership.” “We will not sit idly by when new, diverse leadership is met with resistance under the guise of ‘tradition.’”
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Firstly, you have misspelled the chairs first name. I’ll attribute it to a typo.
Next, these thoughts are mine and mine alone.
Treasurer Greg Freeman has painted a bleak financial picture, declaring “There is no money” and that “spending is out of control.” But this ignores a critical fact: he failed to include the rollover of 2024 campaign funds in his reporting—a standard practice every cycle.
Fundraising is down across the board, not just in Arizona. According to The New York Times, the DNC lost $4 million between January and April while the RNC gained $29 million. As of May, Democrats had $18 million in the bank versus the Republicans’ $67.4 million. This is a national issue, not an ADP-specific failure.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/us/politics/dnc-ken-martin.html
This campaign has been coordinated under the guise of party concern, yet offers no clear alternative candidate for leadership. To me, this is divisive, inappropriate, and deeply troubling.
Meanwhile, key statewide Democratic leaders—Governor Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, and Attorney General Kris Mayes—have effectively neutralized ADP’s traditional structure by shifting the Coordinated Campaign to the Navajo County Democrats. This is a historic deviation from how our party has operated.
So—what’s the point?
Who would willingly step in to lead a hollowed‑out party, stripped of real authority and shrinking by the day?
The State Committee Members’ influence is fading under this murky new structure. VAN duties are outsourced, our essential tools diluted—leaving us to navigate in a fog.
ADLCC has already moved away. Will the remaining infrastructure continue to fracture beyond recognition?
And let’s be blunt: the money is gone, diverted elsewhere, and it isn’t coming back.
What’s worse is the subtext. No matter what this group says publicly, the undertones of this effort are tinged with racial and economic divides. That should concern every Democrat in this state.
Meanwhile, as you stated in an earlier blog (July 3), we’re hemorrhaging young voters, not because our values are wrong, but because we’re trying to reach Gen Z using tactics from the Clinton era.
Chair Branscomb has shared a forward-looking strategic plan, including a focus on rural engagement, youth outreach, and registration efforts. The voter registration gap is stark: Republicans at 35.9%, Democrats at 28.64%, and Independents at 33.82%. The plan addresses this head-on, with quarterly updates and clear goals to strengthen Democratic representation across Arizona.
Now we face a Virtual Special Meeting on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, at 6:00 PM, with a single item on the agenda: a vote on the removal of Chairman Robert Branscomb. But is this meeting even within the bylaws?
At the April meeting in Tucson, serious procedural issues occurred:
-Proxy votes were not accepted during the voice vote.
-Non–State Committee Members were allowed to vote.
These violations raise significant concerns about the integrity of the process. Based on these irregularities, all votes taken during that voice vote should be considered invalid and voided. If the rules don’t matter, what are we even doing?
This motion is unwarranted. Because this Chair has not been given a fair chance to lead. And because tearing down our leadership without a plan for what comes next is not strategy—it’s sabotage.
If we want to win in 2026 and beyond, we need unity, not infighting. We need vision, not vendettas. And most of all, we need to modernize how we engage with voters or risk losing the next generation entirely.
As you wrote: The choice is simple: evolve, or become irrelevant.
Given our country’s deplorable history of racism, it is certainly understandable that racism would be top of mind as a reason for critiques of Robert Branscomb’s leadership of the ADP. But AZ SCMs knew he was Black when they voted for him to replace the incumbent, so it is also reasonable to suggest their dissatisfaction stems from other factors. Personally, I believe Branscomb’s victory reflects a longstanding dissatisfaction with existing “traditions” and business practices of the ADP. I believe SCMs were voting for change. Having said that, the changes observed over the first six months are apparently not the changes they hoped to see. The solution, however, is not to go back to business as usual. The solution is to identify what needs to be changed and hire persons with the time, talent and commitment to implement such a plan effectively.