Progressives Seek the Right Message and Candidates to Turn Rural Arizona Blue

In the 2020 elections, Joe Biden won five of Arizona’s 15 counties. Three of those counties — Coconino, Maricopa, and Pima — contained virtually all of the Grand Canyon state’s major cities and suburbs. Another (Apache County) is populated by a substantial portion of the Navajo Nation. The fifth one (Santa Cruz County) borders heavily Democratic Pima County.

These were the vote totals in the remaining, largely rural, ten Arizona counties where Trump beat Biden:

• Cochise:  59 percent to 39 percent.
• Gila: 66 percent to 32 percent.
• Graham: 72 percent to 27 percent.
• Greenlee: 66 percent to 32 percent.
• LaPaz: 68 percent to 30 percent.
• Mohave: 75 percent to 24 percent.
• Navajo: 53 percent to 45 percent.
• Pinal: 58 percent to 41 percent.
• Yavapai: 64 percent to 35 percent.
• Yuma: 52 percent to 46 percent.

The bulk of the local Republican-held seats in Arizona come from these areas.

While some of the vote margins may appear insurmountable, there is an opportunity for Progressives and Democrats, in an incremental and bottom-up strategy, to make major inroads in rural communities, especially in those like Yuma, Pinal, Navajo, and Cochise counties.

Remember, Joe Biden owes his 2020 election in the Grand Canyon state partially because of the gains Democrats made in rural Arizona in the last two election cycles.

The key moving forward is finding the right message that will resonate with the rural community and recruiting candidates for local offices that many Democratic groups have let Republicans claim unopposed. And not just for the 2024 elections. For the 2021, 2022, and 2023 elections when many local and state offices will be contested.

On September 18, 2021, organizers like Rural Arizona Engage (RAZE,) Indivisible, Contest Every Race, Save Our Schools Arizona, the Progressive Organizing Roundtable, and Civic Engagement Beyond Voting met at the Arizona Rural Summit. The goal: to brainstorm a way to move forward on devising strategies to reach out better to rural communities and recruit local progressive-minded candidates for local offices.

At the end of the conference, coalitions of Northern and Southern Arizona groups were formed to take the next steps toward accomplishing the aforementioned goals of connecting better with rural Arizona.

A message that will Resonate with Rural Arizona.

One of the major themes at the Arizona Rural Summit was what message needs to be taken to communities outside of the Grand Canyon state’s cities and suburbs.

Rural Arizona is not just an area populated by white farmers. There are artist enclaves, college towns, and Latino/Native American/Black farmers and communities.

Participants at the Summit recognized that Rural Arizonans feel:

• Democratic progressive policies will not help them. President Biden recognizes this issue and has gone to great efforts to advertise how his plans will benefit Rural America, including those in the Grand Canyon state.
• That the news they receive on Facebook is just as reliable as any other source, even Fox News.
• Trump cares for them more than Biden. This finding was by a two-to-one margin.

Core issues

While recognizing that not one size fits all, the summit attendees agreed on several core issues that most Rural Arizonans want to address. These include. 

• The full funding of public schools and staffing them with qualified teachers.
• Protecting the rights of women and other groups.
• Expansion of rural broadband, including for education, and telehealth purposes.
• Providing accessible and affordable health care.
• Promoting effective forest fire management and prevention.
• Protecting the water supply and the environment, including the impact of mining.
• The concerns and needs of Indigenous Peoples.
• Immigration enforcement and reform.
• Combatting the disinformation from the radical right.

Following the summit, many attendees offered their perspectives on the issues that should be discussed with members of the rural community.

Nicky Indicavitch, the Outreach Director for the nonpartisan and nonprofit Saving Our Schools Arizona stressed that rural communities have been largely neglected and that has led to greater radicalization in these communities from the far right (just look at Paul Gosar and Wendy Rogers in Northern Arizona.) Ms. Indicavitch commented:

“We want our organizers and activists to know they have the right to push back against the radicalization in their communities like at school board meetings. Our economic message is pretty clear. They see the new administration supporting working families. They know the Administration is helping and we need to get on state leaders to do the same and help expand the middle class. We need representatives that represent what our families and rural communities are going through. Progressives in Arizona are starting to get that message forward and are being a little firmer.”

Cathy Sigmon, the Finance and Operations Director of Civic Engagement Beyond Voting, echoed Ms. Indicavitch’s contention that members of the rural community feel largely ignored and their concerns are not listened to. Sigmon highlighted that Progressive and Democratic groups should focus with rural residents on the issues where there is broad agreement and “shared values” like “education (especially funding where many rural districts can not pass budget overrides,) infrastructure like broadband, health care, water, and mental health.”

Matt Capalby, a Flagstaff resident and member of the Carpenters Union relayed that activists and candidates should discuss bread and butter issues called union economics with rural residents and asking questions like “what can help your family or job or future or retirement that will help you provide a home, car, and college: middle-class lifestyle?” Capalby also said that reaching out to rural residents “is about promoting jobs that pay a good livable wage and benefits and pensions. That is important to all areas of the state, especially rural where those jobs are hard to come by.” He also championed the passage of the Biden/Harris infrastructure plan, saying “this will have a positive impact either via improved schools, broadband, and roads. This will provide support to rural communities seeking to survive this economy.”

Karen Ann Moscato, the President of the River Valley Democrats agreed with Capalby that the Biden/Harris infrastructure plan would be a positive advertising point for members of the rural community. She also suggested that discussing voting rights and the fact that Democrats are the only major “Pro-democracy party” in the country along with the importance of Social Security and Medicare would also generate a positive reception.

Finding Progressive candidates to run in rural Arizona

Compounding the issue problem is finding candidates, with roots in the local area, to run for office in rural communities and discuss the issues that affect the populace.

As Pablo Correa of Rural Arizona Action commented on the need for finding candidates, “if we want to win in the decade, we need to be winning now and vice versa.”

He also said, “the difficulty is no one has built a bench. We need to emphasize lower-level seats like the city council, school board, and legislative district. So, our goal is to fill those seats to build a bench that we can win in 2024 and beyond. We need to grow those leaders.”

According to Gracie Fleming of Contest Every Race, Democrats leave up to 75 percent of the 520,000 elected offices uncontested. If those numbers project out, Democrats could fail to recruit a candidate for 825 of about 1100 races in Arizona in 2022.

Democrats and Progressives can not hope to promote good governance, turn out voters, and build a bench of future candidates if a large portion of the local offices is being left for Republicans to scoop up for themselves.

These offices include those for:

• School board.
• County seats.
• Legislative District seats.
• City or Town Council seats.

According to Fleming, the key will be recruiting candidates in local areas that recognize that results may not be instantaneous. Building a presence in some rural communities may take more time than others but the investment in forging a core of Democratic-Progressive candidates that win local offices will pay dividends for future local, state, and national races.

Fleming points out their success in Arizona to demonstrate the positive results that could happen if Democrats just run. In the last cycles, Contest Every Race recruited or assisted 699 candidates in Arizona. The great majority were for Precinct Committee spots. 633 of them won.

Moving forward, Fleming pointed out that local candidates need to be “reassured” that victory in their race is possible and “there are so many resources coming” to them.

She also emphasized the value of forging coalitions among local progressive, party, and activist groups like labor so resources can be pooled and shared. Ms. Fleming rationalized this approach by stating “the more people we bring to the table, the more localized our program, and the more support our candidates get.

On that last point, Jay Ruby of the Progressive Organizing Roundtable agrees. Mr. Ruby commented after the summit that:

“The ability for progressive organizations to mutually support each other can lead to an expansion of people who understand the goals of each organization within the consortium. In Rural Arizona, often, we are isolated from one another geographically. Even in Prescott, there are different bubbles of activity and the roundtable can be a way of opening up each organization’s message to the other organizations. If any organization has a critical or urgent action, the rest of the organizations can lean in and support that… The important thing is to let the other know what everyone is doing and let the interactions fuel the collaboration… The main thing is to come together and support each other like in steering city council policy like in the areas of water. Ultimately, there can be a lot of cross partisan work where people and organizations can get together, understand what each other is doing, and work to achieve goals.”

Karen Moscato, echoing an earlier point raised by Nicky Indicavitch, pointed out the need for these gatherings to be held in safe locations, especially in the extreme red areas of Mohave County, where the most violent of the radical right would not interfere.

Cathy Sigmon of Civic Engagements offered that these local candidates need to be able to persuade rural residents, commenting, “We need to speak in the words that rural residents care about. It has to do with issues, beliefs, emotions, affinities, and moral structure. Just saying here is the factual basis for how you should vote is not very effective. Our method is persuasion.”

Moving Forward

There is a lot of work to do in order to make Rural Arizona bluer.

The activists that attended the summit are wise to recognize that this work may take several election cycles for some counties. Others may take less time.

The first step is organizing, and these groups are starting with that by arranging coalitions and recruiting Precinct Committee members. Growth at this first stage is still needed. At the Rural Summit on September 18, 2021, about 100 people attended. A monthly meeting at Arizona Legislative District 18 routinely generates close to that number.

Moving forward, once organized, it should be easier to recruit candidates that can speak to the issues that rural community members care the most about and persuade them that the Progressive message and Democratic Party are the vehicles that can help them and move the state forward.

Progressives and Democrats champion accessible and affordable health care, a stable retirement safety net, public safety, fully funded public schools, a middle-class living, sustainable infrastructure, environmental justice, and safe water, and equal rights (including voting) for all in a democratic society.

When was the last time most Republicans said they supported any or most of that?