Today, on The Brief, we’re talking Arizona.

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Along with Georgia, Democrats managed massive vote shifts in 2020, helping deliver the state to Joe Biden. Donald Trump still hasn’t gotten over it.   

        Arizona votes (millions)
        2016
        2020
	


	
        Clinton/Biden
        1.161
        1.672
	
	
        Trump
        1.252
        1.662

Trump increased his ARIZONA vote total by over 400,000 in four years, which should’ve been enough to hold the state after beating Hillary Clinton by 3.5% in 2016. Instead, Joe Biden and the Democrats turned out over 500,000 new votes for the Democratic presidential ticket. That’s an unbelievable 44% increase! 

Knowing the Trump base will turn out again, how do Democrats hold on to those gains, if not build on them? Arizona will be a critical battleground on every possible level—Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who held the ground against Trump’s efforts to steal the election, is running for governor. We have to win that race. We must also retain the SoS office. Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Kelly is running for a full-term after winning a special election in 2020. 

We are still waiting on new maps in Arizona, but we are pretty much guaranteed competitive House seats in a tight House of Representatives, and should have a chance at picking up the state legislature. You know what that means, right? No more fraudits, a government that encourages voter turnout, and lots of other things. 

Our guest on The Brief today is Montserrat Arredondo of One Arizona, which worked with partner organizations to register over 250,000 new voters in the 2020 cycle. We needed every single one of them! 

You can watch the show live right here on Tuesdays at 1:30 PM PT/4:30 PM ET, but I realize that’s not always the most convenient, so the podcast is a great alternative. It goes live Wednesday mornings at all the usual places, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. A full list of places to download the show is available here.

And don’t forget, please donate to our slate of grassroots organizations doing critical on-the-ground organizing in key 2022 battleground states.