Raising Arizona: the State Has Become Ground Zero in Fights for the Future
“I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”
Rusty Bowers, former Arizona Republican Speaker of the House
Arizona is not known for earthquakes, but two politically seismic events shook the state in April 2024: the state's Supreme Court upholding a 160-year-old law banning most abortions and penalizing doctors who perform them, and the indictment of prominent state Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, and former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for their alleged involvement in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election in what has come to be known as the “fake electors’ scheme.” The major fault lines of American polarization–abortion, immigration, and election denialism–have converged in the Grand Canyon state, making it a place to watch in 2024. Arizona has now joined Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania as key states in the fight for the soul of America.
Reliably Red?
Before Biden’s narrow 10,000 vote victory in 2020, the state was viewed as a hotbed of conservative Republicanism. Former President Trump handily won its 11 electoral votes in 2016, and the last Democrat to win the Governorship was Janet Napolitano in 2006. In the last 60 years, only two other Democrats, Bill Clinton in 1996 and Harry Truman in 1948, won the presidential contest in Arizona. But the state’s demographics are changing. Fueled by immigration from the south and an influx of moderate-leaning transplants from California and points north, its political and ethnic diversity is increasing. Arizona’s white population fell from 58 percent in 2010 to 53 percent in 2020. Nearly 31 percent of Arizonians now self-identify as Hispanic or Latino, and Biden won this demographic group by 24 points.
Democrats Begin Winning
While Democrats have not controlled either legislative chamber in Arizona since the 1990s, the gap has recently narrowed, and the party is now within two seats of parity in both the 60-member House and 30-member Senate. Part of this is attributable to the presence of the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission, which made it difficult for Republicans to gerrymander themselves into a permanent majority. Another factor rests with Trump, whose antics and style have galvanized Democrats and frustrated independents. In 2018, Kyrsten Sinema grabbed a U.S. Senate seat, and Democrat Mark Kelly followed by winning a 2020 special election to replace retiring Senator Jeff Flake and repeated his victory in the 2022 general election. In 2022, Democrats won races for Governor, Secretary of State (Arizona has no Lieutenant Governor), and Attorney General, dispatching Republican Kari Lake and other election-deniers in the process.
A Changing Republican Party
The Arizona Republican party has also changed. Their “favorite son,” John McCain, died in 2018, and Trump adherents captured much of the party apparatus between 2016 and 2020. It was no surprise, then, that Arizona became an epicenter of election denialism. Almost immediately following Biden’s victory in November 2020, state Republican party leaders claimed fraud. They filed eight well-publicized legal challenges to the results, all of which were rejected by the courts. The Republican-controlled state legislature spent $6 million on an election audit, but it found no major irregularities. Nonetheless, staunch supporters of the "stop the steal" narrative persisted in spinning their election fraud rhetoric.
Abortion Ignites a Fire
For years, efforts by Arizona conservatives to restrict reproductive rights had been thwarted by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. When it appeared that Roe would be overturned, however, the state legislature acted. It passed a measure in 2022 to prevent abortions after 15 weeks except to save the life of the mother. With Katie Hobbs not yet in the governor's seat, there was no veto to block the measure. The overturning of Roe that June and the legislature’s action galvanized activists across the state and helped Democrats sweep major offices in the fall 2022 election. But the reaction to the 2022 events paled by comparison to the outrage generated by a ruling of the state’s Supreme Court in April 2024. In a 4-2 decision, the court held that an 1864 law that restricted almost all abortions and included a mandatory prison sentence for doctors who performed them, a measure passed before Arizona had become a state, was enforceable.
Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez | Arizona Mirror
The public outcry against the court’s decision was swift and powerful, leading to the introduction of legislation to repeal the law. Initially, Republican majorities blocked the measure. But continued public pressure led several key Republicans to cross party lines to join Democrats to win its passage. On May 2, 2024, the Governor signed the bill.
Despite the Governor's signature, repeal is not instantaneous. Since the GOP-majority refused to add an emergency clause that would eliminate the 1864 law immediately, repeal will not occur until 90 days after the legislative session ends, which typically happens in June or July. And even when the repeal is official, the 2022 law that prohibits most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy will remain.
To add more controversy to the November election, two of the Supreme Court judges who issued the decision to enforce the 1864 act stand for election. They had been appointed by Republican Governor Doug Ducey as part of 2016 actions that expanded the court from 5 to 7 judges. And, despite the efforts of the legislature to prevent it, a citizen initiative to guarantee abortion rights in the Arizona Constitution could be on the ballot this fall. Analysts predict these issues to drive turnout.
The Fake Electors Scheme
The "fake electors’ scheme" was arguably one of the most alarming attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and Arizona was in the middle of it. The strategy involved the creation of alternate sets of electors in pivotal states, including Arizona, which could potentially replace legitimately elected Electoral College members to cast votes for Trump rather than Biden. When GOP operatives in Arizona initially created this alternate set of electors, they pitched it as a legal necessity, and argued they were necessary if Trump prevailed in his legal challenges. In short, a slate of electors should be available to serve as Trump’s representatives in the electoral college; otherwise, Arizona would lose the ability to cast its 11 votes for President.
Source: U.S. Select Committee to Investigate January 6, 2021
Notwithstanding this public argument, it soon became clear that this ruse was mere cover for a conspiracy to overthrow the election. Trump’s legal challenges were going nowhere, as case after case was rejected. His allies unsuccessfully attempted to have members of the Republican- controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors alter election totals in that county. Trump supporters like Giuliani and Meadows pressured then- Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers to call the state legislature into a special session so it could reject the results, but he refused, and branded the fraud claims as bogus. Republican Governor Doug Ducey strategically refused to take Trump’s phone call before certifying the results.
Rather than back down, the Trump team intensified their efforts. Memos circulated that the alternate electors were needed to provide Vice President Mike Pence a rationale to reject legitimate slates in key states. Republican legislatures would then recertify the alternate elections and send them back to Washington. On December 14, 2020, in an event Republicans labeled as “The Signing”, 11 Arizonans convened to assert that, despite evidence to the contrary, court dismissals, and the certification of the Governor, Trump had won the state. They then swore an oath declaring themselves the “duly elected and qualified” electors from Arizona. The schemers joined co-conspirators from seven other states who requested that Vice President Mike Pence violate his constitutional obligation to certify the election results, an action likely to plunge the country into chaos. We all saw this cynical strategy unfold on January 6.
Hobbs, Mayes, and Fontes Become Formidable Forces
In 2020, Katie Hobbs was serving as Attorney General, Adrian Fontes was a top election official in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous jurisdiction, and Kristen Mayes was a private citizen, having been previously elected to the Arizona Corporation Commission as a Republican, where she served until 2010.
Hobbs campaigned openly for abortion rights. Immediately after her narrow victory, she an executive order to bar Arizona's 15 county attorneys from prosecuting abortion-related crimes and centralized that authority in the Attorney General's office. In 2019, Mayes left the GOP, citing its embrace of Trump. She won her seat in 2022 by only 280 votes but has been anything but shy since assuming the role. When the abortion decision upholding the 1864 law was issued, Mayes stated that she would not prosecute doctors for violations. Her Republican predecessor showed no interest in the fake electors’ scheme, but Mayes campaigned on a pledge to investigate it. The indictments occurred as a result. And Fontes now has control over much of the state’s election operations for 2024. He is determined not to see a repeat of 2020, preparing election officials for legal challenges and even the possibility of violence.
Will 2024 Be a Repeat of 2020?
Few expected the level of post-election turmoil following Biden’s victory. And they are worried about repeat performances. Trump has already indicated that will not accept the election results unless he wins, a sentiment echoed by vice presidential aspirants Tim Scott and Doug Burgum. Fewer than a third of Republicans see Biden’s 2020 victory as legitimate, and a subset of them may be willing to operate more sophisticated operations in 2024. Fortunately, recent elections in key states have installed officials committed not to repeat the chaos of 2020. Republican election-deniers lost every contested statewide office in Pennsylvania and Michigan and relinquished long-held majorities in both houses of their state legislatures. Wisconsin retained its Democratic governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General.
Part of Trump’s strategy for this fall clearly includes undermining the legitimacy of voting procedures. In Arizona, the Republican Party, joined by a little-known conservative advocacy group called the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC), has sued to overturn Arizona’s 2023 Election Procedures Manual (EPM), the guide by which local officials run elections. In Michigan and Nevada, the RNC and others have sued state officials for allegedly failing to maintain voter rolls and for how absentee ballots are considered. Similar lawsuits in Georgia and Pennsylvania could also impact the conduct of the presidential election. Some of these lawsuits may appear as reasonable efforts to address election integrity—-until they are examined more closely and are found lacking in legal arguments or facts alleged to support them.
To make election integrity more challenging, nine states with Republican governors, including Virginia, recently withdrew from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a bipartisan consortium of states created in 2016 to improve the accuracy of voter rolls. Significantly, Arizona remained in the compact, perhaps because former Governor Ducey was a leader in forming the group.
As the election approaches, unforeseen events can always intervene. And Biden will not win simply because election deniers have been replaced in key positions. But new leaders committed to democratic processes offer hope of a free and fair election in Arizona and other states across the nation.