Following the 2024 elections, Vice President of Matters of State Strategies and former Arizona Democratic Party Communications Director Matt Grodsky interviewed with various media outlets, explaining what Democrats did wrong in 2024 compared to their successful strategies and tactics that took Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020.
One of those interviews was with Blog of Arizona.
Grodsky has expressed his views in a new book titled Resolve: Messaging to Win Back Battleground States.
In it, he talks about how he became involved in Arizona Democratic Politics, what worked in 2020, what failed in 2024, and ideas on how to move forward in 2026, 2028, and beyond.
Mr. Grodsky graciously interviewed with Blog for Arizona to discuss the ideas contained in his latest book.
The questions and his responses are below.
Please tell the readers about your and your wife’s love story and what happened to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign that gave you an epiphany on how to change the Arizona Democratic digital messaging strategy when you became the party’s communications director.
“My wife and I met when we were in preschool in downtown Phoenix, and we got a lot of traction for that in the press a few months after we got married nearly 10 years ago. I saw her when I was about three years old. I knew she was the one. I told her as much. She said we needed to wait until we were older. And from high school through college, we dated, and we got married in 2016. My experience seeing how press, social media, and digital storytelling content worked in that situation really opened my eyes to how these communications apparatuses operate.”
How does that segue to 2016 and the epiphany?
“So, I was planning to go to LA and do the Hollywood thing. I had options for screenplays. I had literary representation in Hollywood. The idea was to graduate from film school, come back here for a short stint until my wife graduated, and then we were going to move. But then the election happened in 2016, and I just kind of felt this need to use my abilities for storytelling for something that was going to help our state and the country as much as it could. So, I did the career pivot into more marketing and public relations, doing things like government relations for municipalities and government agencies here in Phoenix. That eventually carried me over to the Arizona Democratic Party, where I led their communications during the 2020 cycle.”
And you worked for David Garcia’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign?
“Yeah, I was a volunteer on that. That started around June of 2017. I just kind of started going out, door-knocking, helped when I could on some fun video projects, and messaging when it was appropriate. He had very nice folks working with him who gave me some leeway. That was cool and a kind of fun way to get integrated into the world. Obviously, that race didn’t go the way that we had hoped, but it gave me some great insight and good connections, and from there, I was able to join ADP (Arizona Democratic Party) in 2019.”
Compare the Presidential elections in Arizona from 2020 to 2024, and please point out what are at least three strategies or tactics that worked in 2020, but did not translate to similar results, except possibly for the Gallego Senate campaign in 2024.
“In 2020, we were messaging and expressing a vision. We were making it clear that ‘He (Trump) has made these things worse,’ listing them out X, Y, Z, and then talking about how we (Democrats) can make things better. We presented a vision for the future while also juxtaposing ourselves. I think tactically, we did a phenomenal job, even with the challenges posed by COVID, of going to rural areas in the battleground. So doing that across the country in swing states, and notably in Arizona. I was working with Executive Director Herschel Fink, Chair Felicia Rottelini, Chief of Staff Kelly Paisley, and an amazing coordinated campaign team at Mission for AZ. The state party had what was called ‘The Rural Counties Count Tour.’”
“Before COVID and after COVID, which pivoted everything to Zoom, we were going to every rural county, talking with voters that weren’t just Dems, and making sure that we were having a baseline number for election night so that it bolstered how we performed in more urban areas. I think what you saw in 2024 is that rural, not just in Arizona, but in a lot of battleground states, wasn’t prioritized as much. That contributed to some of the margins we saw. I don’t think it would have solved the election for us. Obviously, there were a number of challenges. But I think that was a big one.”
“And then messaging really to bring people into the tent. A lot of our brand eroded, I’d say, between 2022 and 2024. There are several reasons for that, which I get into in the book. I think national party leadership is one of those things. The party brand is encapsulated in whoever the leader is. And when President Biden was seen as faltering or getting older, that made us appear as if we were faltering and growing stale.”
“There were a lot of buzzwords that we started to use and infuse into our vernacular that didn’t necessarily resonate with swing voters. We weren’t making the party something compelling for new voters to join. The void was filled by groups like Turning Point and other nefarious actors. And that’s partly what cost us.”
“Obviously, Gallego was an outlier. He ran a great campaign. Voter misogyny helped a little bit, too, because you saw there was this anti-Harris, anti-Lake voter that existed on the basis of gender.”
When you talk about the language used, (Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear) He’s probably going to run (for President) in the next cycle. But he was talking in a similar way about how Democrats use language. For example, say a hungry person is starving. Don’t say they lack food security.
“We come up with words that are designed not to alienate people, and ironically, they actually do because people in the mainstream don’t understand what the hell we’re talking about. The point that I try to make in the book, and when I talk to my clients, is that we can still promote our values. We don’t have to change anything about our beliefs, but we do have to meet people where they are and speak their language. And it’s kind of like the analogy of getting dropped into a foreign country and screaming about things in English when nobody there speaks it. What you’re saying might be really important to the people on the ground, but if they don’t understand what the hell you’re saying, it’s not going to do very much. So you need to reflect a person’s vocabulary, language, and their emotional reality back to them so it matches their world. What the hell is an oligarchy? How about we just End Corruption? Top 1%? Why not just Make Billionaires Pay their Share? These buzzwords get repeated in far-right ecosystems as branded as radical Democratic ideas. Food-insecure families? People shouldn’t go hungry. When we repeat them, we play into those tropes. It’s a constant effort to adapt to that, but we need to recognize we do ourselves no favors by using words that represent caricatures of ourselves, thanks to Fox News.”
“Even working families is troublesome. That term (fresh from think tanks) causes people to scratch their heads. If you’re an Independent voter and a CEO in a swing district, you might think working family means lower economic class or blue collar. You might think that translates to “Oh, they’re only standing up for a certain type of family, not mine.”
“I prefer the term American family because that’s relative. It’s seen as a positive, and everybody can relate to being an American family in a way that means something to them. It holds true for everybody, and you feel like you’re speaking for them. So there’s a lot we can do with language that can help make our jobs easier.”
About the comments on Joe Biden’s age. Fast forward to today, you don’t see as much Sleepy Don.
“Well, it’s because the GOP is hypocritical, but the right-wing media that props him up is shameless. We’ve got to play with the cards we’re dealt. We don’t have as strong an echo chamber as they do. And again, they’re very good at persuading those swing voters with propaganda like that with ‘Sleepy Joe’ and ‘Let’s go Brandon’ and all that stuff. It’s imperative for us to brand our opposition, which I think we’ve done a really good job of over the last several months. After 2024, people were like, Democrats are in the wilderness. The party’s dead.They say that every time one party gets its ass kicked in a cycle, right? There’s essentially always a rebound. And I think we’ve rebounded well. What concerns me is I don’t want us to have victories this November and take the wrong lessons away from it. We still need to remember what messaging tactics work and don’t work so that we’re not seeing a repeat of 2024 in a few years.”
In your opinion, did the left wing of the Arizona Democratic Party, thinking that the Blue Wave was permanently entrenched in the state, drive Senator Kyrsten Sinema away, or did she do it all by herself with her votes against the minimum wage increase or not wanting to get rid of the filibuster? Please explain.
“She did that all by herself. Case in point – Senator Kelly and Senator Gallego exist and thrive with our big-tent, active party. There’s a left, middle, and center for Democrats. Our two Senators know how to build coalitions within our tent and beyond it. They know how to appeal to progressives and moderates. Sinema had that same opportunity. Not only did she fail to do that, she often seemed to relish in flaunting some members of her own party who don’t even identify as progressive but still believe Democrats should have been voting for things Biden promised and representing certain values.”
“Sure, she had certain votes that were obviously good. But you don’t get rewarded for doing the bare minimum of what you’re supposed to do. Oh, I didn’t run anyone over on my way home from work today. Great, do I get a prize for that? No, driving safely is what I’m supposed to do. You don’t get rewarded for doing the common sense, easy stuff. It’s about doing the hard stuff, and I think a lot of the things that contributed to the Democratic backlash or a lack of enthusiasm post-2022 were that we had said there were all these things we were going to do when Biden got in there, and Democrats took control of Congress. And when we finally had control of Congress, remember that was very late; January 5th is when we got Georgia. And then we didn’t follow through on that because of obstructionists in our own party and our small window of opportunity (voting rights, gun safety, family leave); it evaporated after the 2022 election. So if you’re a voter that’s being told again, oh, just elect Democrats, and we’ll take care of that for you, that just pisses you off, especially if you’re a young person or a voter who feels like they’ve been manipulated over and over again.”
On page 125 of your book, you list all the policy proposals that the Biden-Harris Administration and Democratic Congress could not pass, including paid family leave, expansion of Medicare, free community college and pre-K, ethics reform for the Supreme Court, and passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. And actually, I think this is a question you and I talked about after the election. Please forgive me if I’m being repetitive. Should Biden-Harris have run a campaign that stressed, look at what we did in the first term, give us four more years with more Democratic senators, and we can finish the job?
“Yeah, absolutely. You had a President who was struggling to message his accomplishments. Then you had a new candidate who had the impossible job of defining herself in 100 days, defining the opposition, and trying to run on the record of an administration, which had been struggling to articulate their message and had been seen as gaslighting folks on the economic pain they were feeling. I think what people wanted to hear was that costs are too high, and all they heard coming out of our mouths were the economy is great, we’re here to protect abortion. As important as that issue is, we weren’t syncing up with where the American sentiment was. And so that’s where I think we missed the boat.
We have to run on our accomplishments. We have to run on a promise of what we’ll continue to do. But I it was a perfect storm of things that shot us in the foot in 2024.”
As you know, the Arizona Legislative Democrats have a message that’s the slogan, ‘An Arizona You Can Afford.’ Governor Hobbs is running in part on achieving Arizona’s Promise. Are these winning messages for this year? Please explain what content, voucher reform, for example, or message delivery recommendations you would add to it, if anything?
“Yeah, I would keep it all focused on affordability right now. I would also take a compassionate tone instead of an “I told you so” tone with voters who were duped by Trump. When you’re trying to have that persuasive conversation with voters, it’s very much of, ‘hey, we understand you might have voted for Trump or Republicans because you were feeling certain economic pain and you thought they were better positioned to fix that. The reality is they lied to you. They didn’t get those things done. They’ve made your life worse. They’ve put our country in a worse off position. We’re here to fix that, make it better, and make sure we don’t repeat those same mistakes over and over again. Can you help us do that? Great, vote Democrat.”
“But you can’t carry the same message from this cycle into the next cycle and the next cycle. And that’s the problem we’ve got. Very often, we’re running on the last election’s talking points, and the messaging doesn’t always translate, and that’s why you saw us trying to run on 2022 content in 2024, and that didn’t carry over very well. So right now they’ve got the right messaging for the moment, but they need to stay relevant in 2028.”
That would apply to Governor Hobbs, Senator Sundershan, and Representative De La Santos on the state side.
“Yeah. I mean, I think they’re correct where they’re at right now, and fortunately for the Governor, all she’s got to do is stay right on her message right now, and she doesn’t have to worry about 2028. But yeah, I think for folks that have to run every two years or for Senators that are going to be running again in 28 and Presidential hopefuls, these are the things to keep in mind.”
The Progressive Caucus in Congress has released a new affordability agenda. The Pragmatic Progressive Wing, the New Democratic House wing, has unveiled the American Promise Plan. To what extent do you recommend the two wings blend their ideas and run a united front like a Project 2029? I think Illinois Governor Pritzker has used that term.
“The method is right in terms of what they’re focusing on from a content perspective.
I think where we could hurt ourselves, and this is why I want us to be smart about it, is getting back to the language we use. You know, as we’re messaging that plan and those values, let’s use words that the American people can relate to and understand. Let’s not let think tanks dictate that so that we’re not running around throwing out terms that fall flat.”
“On the project 2029 stuff, I don’t like it as a reaction to Project 2025. It’s like, ‘Oh, they had a project. So now we must have a project.’ We shall throw a year on the end of it and make t something new! Nope.”
“The Republicans win that battle because it’s their product. We can have a vision for the future and have ideas, but we can be more creative than just simply taking a project and throwing the year we want behind it. This is probably too complicated, but why not a report from the year 2050, showing all the great things that have come to pass for the country because Democrats were elected over subsequent cycles? It’s basically a book report of The West Wing.”
You mentioned this in the book, but you also mentioned this right after the election. With regard to party registration, to what extent are Democrats improving in their numbers? What messaging strategy should the party adopt to keep new Democratic voters from leaving? How do you keep those people, for lack of a better term, who are flexible, from leaving the Democratic Party?
“There’s perpetual anger and backlash for every incumbent party. So the challenge we face is when we get back in power, you’ve got to retain those people, and you’ve got to retain them by giving them a reason to stay, and you give them a reason to stay by articulating an ongoing message. That means you have to stay relevant with them and be flexible; if they want to be an “Independent,” stay in communication with them. What we need to do a better job of is saying, ‘hey, we value folks that don’t want to be labeled. We value being independent of thought, not wanting to be partisan. But when you switch back and forth like this and when you’re voting for an R this year and a D next year, you’re sacrificing a long-term vision, and you’re sacrificing a long-term set of values.” We need to ask them what their long-term vision looks like, what their goals are, and then match up with it. Engagement and shared goals, that’s how you retain voters and register new ones.”
“A lot of times, those values are universal. We all want to have a better future for our children. We all want better schools. We all want to make more money so that we don’t have to work three jobs to make ends meet.We have different ideas of how we get to those spots. What we need to do is a better job of articulating that one party is adverse to solving all those issues, and the other party is constantly trying to solve those issues and fix the destruction that the other party (the GOP) caused. We need to make that case to either keep them in the party or if they’re going to go back and become an independent, to keep voting Democratic, even if they change their party label.”
“You asked about what we’re doing to improve our voter registration numbers. Since we got Charlene Fernandez in office as chair, she’s obviously attacked that issue head-on. I’m incredibly proud of what Patti O’Neil has been doing at the Maricopa County Democratic Party. I was beating that drum on registration back in 2022 when it was clear our train was headed towards a cliff. Now the party is working to remedy it. We’re not going to close that gap by any means between now and November, but the idea is you help with our margins, stop the bleeding, and then keep building it up. So my goal is to get back to where we were in 2020 when we were close to tying Republicans. That’s where we need to be, because after 2024, we fell back to 2016 levels.”
At the end of your book, you advise readers to look at the energy of the No King’s Rallies, the 2025 and 2026 Democratic election results, and the total mismanagement of the federal government, and move to autocracy in Trump 2.0. You asked the readers to help reach out to swing voters who were swayed on the Democratic side. What should be their two or three bullet points? What personal outreach and social media strategy should they utilize? Please explain.
“Keep in mind, the book went to print before the ICE shootings that happened in 2026, before Venezuela and Iran. So, there’s a lot of additional content that people can use that has happened since the book was finished. But you have to follow what’s in there in terms of universal values. What are you speaking to people about?”
“Come at persuasion from the standpoint that we both don’t want this country to be destroyed. Let’s dispel with this idea that your party or my party is out to burn the country down. Now, let’s you and me have a conversation about how we should solve issues at the local level and the national level. In most conversations like that with individuals, it can be very cordial and productive. That’s how you establish trust and take the temperature down.”
“That includes how you engage with them on social media. A lot of us have ample opportunity within our own families and our own friend groups. I’ve got a lot of Republican friends. I try to have these conversations with them. I’ll get testy if I need to, but by and large, I have very positive conversations. And when you remove the buzzwords and the jargon and a lot of the crap you see in the news, you can have productive and fruitful conversations with people. And sometimes you change minds. And when you arm candidates and organizations with those tools, that’s where you see progress.”
“In terms of being optimistic and keeping your eye on target. You can look at a lot of these special elections that have happened. And you can see where the momentum is swinging, but victory is not inevitable. We have to keep doing the work.
Is there anything not covered in the first eight questions that you’d like the readers to know about your book, Resolve, and the current state of Arizona Democratic politics in general? Please explain.
“What motivated me to write an updated version of this was an interview I did the day after the 2024 election. The narrative among everyone was the sky is falling, Democrats are lost, what are we going to do? And it reminded me of where we were in November of 2016 and early 2017, where the sky was falling, and I wanted to remind people that we’ve been in these situations before. And yeah, the stakes are higher now, and you’ve got a horrible administration that’s unprecedented. But the fundamentals haven’t changed.”
“Our long-term challenge is to make ourselves more likable so that we’re not just seen as the alternative that people have to hold their noses with and just vote for. Make us cool again, the way we were when Obama was the nominee in 2008, right? And we can get back to that, but I think it’s going to take consistent leadership, consistent messaging, and not falling into some of the traps that we’ve fallen into in recent cycles. Read the book for more.”
Please click below to find out more about Mr. Grodsky’s book Resolve: Messaging to Win Back Battleground States.
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