Indivisibles,

In April, Ezra told you about the big investment we’re making in Arizona to rebuild a Democratic trifecta. That work includes flipping two of the five seats we need to retake the House, replacing Kyrsten Sinema with a pro-filibuster-reform Democrat, and winning the state’s eleven electoral votes to hold on to the presidency.

At the time, a lot of folks wrote in to ask, “well, what about the down-ballot races? Don’t you want to sweep MAGA yahoos out of the statehouse and help Arizonans achieve lasting progressive change in the state?" The answer? Hell yeah we do. 

So today, I’m ready to tell you about the rest of our plans for Arizona. This work centers around a reproductive rights referendum, but it also taps into organizing to flip the state legislature, win judicial and local elections, and build a voter turnout juggernaut in every county from Apache to Yuma.  

While our work at Indivisible National usually focuses on federal races, we can’t ignore what’s happening on the ground in Arizona. For years, MAGAs have leveraged whatever power they have in the legislature, on the state supreme court, city councils, and school boards to advance their extreme agenda on abortion, education, and voter suppression.

Like Ezra mentioned in his email, our work in Arizona involves picking strategic fights that highlight MAGA extremism and running locally rooted campaigns that build our pro-democracy coalition. In practice, that means taking the fight to MAGA Republicans up and down the ballot. 

And let’s be clear -- the work Ezra outlined and what I’m talking about here aren’t separate efforts. They fully complement each other and are each necessary to grow our movement, juice turnout, and make huge progressive gains on the state AND national level. Let’s dig deeper: 

The downballot races we’re targeting

Working closely with local Indivisible groups and our progressive partners in Arizona, we’ve identified three key areas where we can have an outsized impact while also expanding our anti-MAGA coalition in the state:

• Passing a reproductive rights amendment. Last year, MAGA Republicans passed a 15 week abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. There’s an even more extreme ban from 1864 making its way to the conservative-stacked state supreme court. Our top priority at the state level is teaming up with reproductive rights groups to get an amendment on the ballot that enshrines abortion rights in the Arizona constitution. This will secure abortion access for millions of people across the state, put the extreme and out of touch MAGA position on abortion front and center in 2024, and help mobilize the voters we need to win up and down the ballot.
  
  As we saw in Kansas and in special elections since Dobbs, when abortion is on the ballot, 'likely' voters are energized and 'unlikely' voters turn out. 91% of Arizonans want abortion to be legal and when those voters go to the polls, they're also going to know which candidates share their pro-choice views, and which candidates don't (because we're going to make sure they know). 

• Flipping the state legislature. Republicans have a narrow, one-seat majority in each chamber of the Arizona legislature. It was with these slim margins that Republicans managed to pass their abortion ban and a host of other toxic and extreme bills. Last year, Democrats flipped the governorship and now, we’re just two seats away from winning a trifecta. Over the years, Arizona Indivisibles have elected no less than three of their own members to the state legislature -- they know exactly what it takes to win these races. From there, we can reverse the most damaging MAGA policies that got passed in recent years while also pushing forward a positive agenda on voting rights, environmental protection, reproductive rights, and more, with Indivisibles in elected office leading the charge. 

• Winning judicial and local elections across the state. While races higher on the ballot get most of the attention, there are also MAGA Republicans sitting on county boards of supervisors, city councils, school boards, and the courts. Indivisible groups like Civic Engagement Beyond Voting have been raising the profile of these down ballot races and last year, they made history by helping to unseat three Republican-appointed judges. This work continues into 2024 as groups organize around dozens of local and judicial elections, with many Indivisibles running as candidates themselves. 

The down ballot work we’re taking on in Arizona will grow our coalition, strengthen our movement, and help build lasting grassroots power in this crucial battleground state. In a moment, I’m going to explain exactly what we plan to do to achieve our goals and I’m also going to ask you to chip in to help us do it. If you’re already convinced, great! Here’s the link where you help fund this work right now.

What we’re doing between now and November 2024

Indivisible has an incredibly strong presence in Arizona with local groups in every congressional and legislative district in the state. We’re going to leverage our grassroots strength to build a progressive voter turnout juggernaut and a winning anti-MAGA coalition. That work includes:

• 🖊️ Signature gathering: Getting the abortion rights amendment on the ballot won’t be easy. We'll likely have to gather more than 500,000 signatures to qualify -- that's over 13% of Arizona's entire adult population. Luckily, Indivisible groups in Arizona have plenty of experience getting initiatives on the ballot and are the right messengers to gather signatures from key persuadable voters. That’s what makes Indivisible so vital to this effort. 

• 📲 Peer-to-Peer texting: This year, we ran the largest peer-to-peer texting program in Wisconsin, helping to flip the state supreme court and pave the way to restoring abortion rights in the Badger state. Our texting program will also play a crucial role in Arizona and our texters are already experimenting with new ways to recruit Indivisible members, mobilize folks for events, and identify potential progressive voters. 

• 🏠 Neighbor2Neighbor: This is a new simplified micro-canvassing program we developed and launched last year. It gives Indivisibles across the state 5 doors to knock within their community. By using neighbors to contact neighbors, it lowers the threshold for participation and increases the likelihood of meaningful conversations. We’ve already seen this program outperform traditional canvassing by orders of magnitude.

And that’s not all. We’re also planning town halls, phonebanks open to volunteers inside and outside of Arizona, postcards for groups to send to voters, providing media support so local groups can garner press coverage for their actions, running innovative programs to register and mobilize young voters, and providing direct financial support to groups. 

Needless to say, all of this work will require funding. We’re estimating that our campaign for the reproductive rights amendment alone will cost over $1.2 million and our work on other down ballot races can be scaled up depending on the support we get from our grassroots donors. To build on our strength in Arizona, we’re counting on Indivisibles from across the country to help pitch in.

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The work we're doing at the federal level and the state level go hand in hand. The Arizona voters who we are mobilizing to restore abortion rights in the state will be the same voters who can bring us nearly all the way toward a Democratic trifecta that can enshrine the right nationally.  

We’ll have more updates soon on both our federal and state level work in Arizona. In the meantime, if you haven’t read Ezra’s email on Arizona’s importance to rebuilding our trifecta, you can find it here. 

In solidarity,
Mari Urbina
Acting Co-Executive Director
Indivisible