For the first time since 1996, Arizona swung Blue, and Democrats have Latino activists to thank for that. It’ll only be the second time Democrats have won Arizona in more than 70 years (Bill Clinton won Arizona in 1992; Harry Truman won it in 1948).
Though the race was close—it wasn’t officially called for Biden until November 13, 10 days after the election—Biden was leading by about 11,500 votes with 94% of votes counted. It was enough for networks to call the race.
As results started coming in on election day, one thing was made perfectly clear: Joe Biden didn’t do as well with Latino voters as many Democrats had hoped. In the tumultuous days that followed the election, reactions and think pieces flooded the internet; why, Democrats asked, didn’t more Latinos show up to the polls? Why did some Latinos vote for Trump?
These reactions reveal what many Latino activists have known all along: Democrats still don’t understand Latino voters and have taken their vote for granted despite numerous pledges to the contrary.
For months, progressives have been sounding the alarm that the Biden campaign hasn’t been devoting enough attention to Latino voters. Though Democrats continue to tout the importance of Latino voters, their actions have left a lot to be desired, according to both progressive politicians and activists.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter: “I will say we’ve been sounding the alarm about Dem vulnerabilities w/ Latinos for a long, long time. There is a strategy and a path, but the necessary effort simply hasn’t been put in.”
Trump, on the other hand, made serious overtures to Latino voters in Florida, a strategy that paid off.
For all the times Democrats have repeated that Latinos are not a monolith, there is scant evidence to suggest this message truly sunk in.
A surprise in Arizona
So what happened in Arizona?
Progressive Latino groups happened. The election results have highlighted the work Arizona’s progressive grassroots have done to mobilize Latino voters in a state that was once a Republican stronghold.
Although Biden did attempt to ramp up his efforts with Latino voters in Arizona after receiving some sharp criticism on that front, much of his success can be attributed to groups like Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA).
Rep. Rashida Tlaib credited Arizona turning blue thanks to organizations like LUCHA.
LUCHA is a grassroots nonprofit that “builds power with Arizona’s working families to advance social, racial and economic justice for all,” according to its website. It does this through grassroots campaigns, leadership development, advocacy, and civic engagement. Some of LUCHA’s campaigns are fighting for a $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers in Arizona, protecting voters’ rights, and advocating for fair housing in Phoenix.
LUCHA is the 501(c)4 arm of the Arizona Center for Empowerment (ACE), which is a 501(c)3 organization. In 2018, LUCHA had revenue of $2.5 million, up from an anomalous 2017, when its revenue was $328,218. In 2016, its revenue was $2.4 million.
ACE’s 2017 revenue was $349,224, while its 2016 revenue was $523,644. Between 2011 and 2020, ACE received $604,500 in foundation grants. Notable donors include the Marguerite Casey Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Abelard Foundation Inc.
As one of the founding organizations of the #MiAZ coalition, LUCHA is heavily involved in mobilizing Latino voters. According to its website, #MiAZ is “a grassroots effort to increase civic engagement in communities of color across Arizona by going directly to voters, connecting with them on the issues they care about, and activating them to reclaim their political voice.”
Originally founded to encourage voters to participate in the 2018 midterm elections, #MiAZ has continued its work into the 2020 general election.
“We’re launching a campaign to mobilize one million voters in Arizona to beat Donald Trump. We’re ready to do what it takes, and we’re ready to win,” LUCHA said in a video published on their Twitter.
The other member groups of #MiAZ are: Our Voice, Our Vote; Mi Familia Vota; Case Action; CHISPA; and Progress Arizona.
LUCHA’s (c)3 arm, ACE, has also worked to register voters through its #VOTEriaAZ program, which “seeks to increase civic engagement in our communities and make sure that our elected officials represent all of us.” ACE is also part of the ONE Arizona coalition—a group of 19 nonprofit organizations throughout Arizona who led Latino voter outreach campaigns.
Their efforts weren’t in vain.
According to AZCentral, “more Latinos and voters from other communities of color showed up to the polls in Arizona during this year’s presidential election than ever before.”
AZCentral reports that turnout among registered Latino voters is projected to reach 50%, up from 2016’s record of 44%. Additionally, almost 73% of Latino voters in Latino-majority precincts in Arizona voted for Biden.
“In those precincts,” writes AZCentral, “Latino voter turnout rose by as much as 20 percentage points compared with 2016, according to Mi AZ.”
A wake-up call for Democrats
In an Op-Ed published in the Washington Post, Arizona State University journalism professor, Fernanda Santos, reflected on the Biden campaign’s missteps with Latinos and the important lesson Arizona nonprofits offer Democrats.
“Arizona puts the lie to the notion that political committees can swoop in every two or four years, cut some Spanish-language ads and claim Latinos as allies to their preferred candidates,” Santos wrote. “Instead, our experience shows, they should follow the lead of local Latino grass-roots organizers—who here have seized on the issues that matter to their communities to build broad, winning political coalitions.”
As Santos explains and as numerous other progressive Latino groups have said, Democrats must work with local Latino groups to understand how to reach Latino voters.
If there’s one thing Democrats should take away from Arizona is that grassroots groups delivered Latino voters to Biden. This was in spite of Biden’s lackluster efforts not because of them.
In recent years, Arizona has seen a flurry of anti-Latino legislation. From SB 1070 (colloquially known as the ‘show me your papers’ bill), which allowed law enforcement officials to demand proof of citizenship at any time, to removing all non-English instruction from schools, Arizona’s conservative politicians have discriminated against the state’s Latinos.
Progressive activists have been fighting back the entire time.
“Arizona Latinos didn’t cower,” said Santos. “Instead, they fostered their own resistance movement...They set out to register, educated, and mobilize voters, building connections through shared experiences of being treated as ‘others’ by the state’s White power structure.”
LUCHA was founded in 2010 as a response to SB 1070. A group of Latinos gathered outside the state capitol building to pray the governor wouldn’t sign the bill. She did. And LUCHA—an acronym that spells out the Spanish word for fight—was born.
In an Op-Ed published in the New York Times, LUCHA’s co-executive directors Alejandra Gomez and Tomás Robles Jr., said that the vigil lasted 103 days. Those days were “a training ground for novice organizers like us who would stop by the snack table, gather clipboards and then head out to laundromats and convenience stores to register neighbors,” said Gomez and Robles.
“The ‘show me your papers’ law was intended to destroy Latino families who make up one-third of the state, but it had the opposite effect,” Gomez and Robles wrote. “Since 2010, organizers have registered more than half a million new voters in Arizona.”
The group’s efforts in mobilizing voters helped increase the Latino voter turnout from 32 percent in 2014 to 49 percent in 2018. It also helped oust Russell Pearce, SB 1070’s chief sponsor, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose anti-Latino practices gained infamy throughout the nation.
Gomez and Robles explained in their Op-Ed why LUCHA’s work resonates more with their community: “We talk to working-class families about the issues important to them and how to get involved in politics. Civic groups and political parties used to do more of this work, but they have become disconnected from real people, too focused on donors and elite influence.”
Democrats, Gomez and Robles argue, must work within the communities if they want their votes. Their failure to do so, which many Latino activists predicted long before Biden secured the party’s nomination, almost cost them the election. It was only through Latino activist’s efforts that Arizona’s Latino voters showed up.
On Twitter, Gomez added, “BIPOC & New voters, made history across the country. There is an urgency to building a BOLD vision toward a multiracial progressive Democracy. The lesson for D’s needs to be, deep investment in these BIPOC cmty rather than running frantically to the middle.”
“10 yrs ago, we couldn’t have dreamed of flipping AZ,” LUCHA wrote on Twitter. “But through years of organizing, registering voters, & listening to our communities, we’re here.”
Gomez and Robles added that progressives “should pay close attention to Arizona because it’s a model for how to mobilize Latino people nationally.”
