Face it, Arizona Democrats – your party leaders screwed Election Day from the get-go.
by Amy Silverman | illustration by Dan Page
Stacy Pearson was raised in a bar. So, it makes sense that when she grew up, she got a job in Arizona Democratic politics.
You’ll have to ask her for the backstory on her childhood. Buy her a glass of wine and I bet she’ll oblige. But Pearson’s more than happy to share her thoughts on why the Democrats lost so big in 2024 – no low-key bribery required.
That’s good, because I’ve spoken with a whole lot of Arizona Democrats over the last 30-plus years and no small number in the last few weeks, and Pearson’s pretty much the least bullshitty of all the political bullshitters. (Trust me, she’ll consider that a compliment.)
When I asked Pearson to explain what happened November 5, she sent me the link to a spreadsheet packed with numbers. I had to ask her to translate, and her response is pretty easy to understand. Even so, I know this next part will feel like homework, but whatever your political persuasion, please keep reading.
Despite the state gaining 120K new voters since 2020, the Democrats LOST nearly 100,000 voters (97,180 to be precise) off their rolls in four years. EVERY single county in the state had fewer registered Democrats in 2024 than in 2020. Maricopa County alone lost 72,480 total registered Democrats. Worth noting that Harris lost to Trump in Maricopa County by 71,515 votes.
Both Independents and Republicans made gains on their rosters in the same 4-year period.
In 2024, Democrats trailed Republicans by 259k registered voters – in 2020, that gap was less than 100k. Dems trailed Independents by 200k voters – in 2020, Dems had a 20k advantage over Independents.
Democrats didn’t just slide from 2nd to 3rd place in total registered voters in a single presidential cycle, they tanked to a distant third.
This isn’t just newly registered voters choosing to be Republicans or Independents, this is also Democrats leaving the party in every county in Arizona.
You already kinda knew this – if you’ve read this far. But it’s pretty striking to see it in black and white, broken down to the voter. Pearson began to see the signs at the beginning of 2024. (And started sending me spreadsheets a few weeks later.)
“If we were doctors,” Pearson says now of her fellow strategists, “the symptoms of disease started four years ago when voters in Arizona started to flee the Democratic Party.”
This was explained away as a purge of voter rolls, but “that explanation does not hold up,” she says.
“Folks are moving to Arizona and registering as Independents or Republicans – and Democrats have left the party. A hundred thousand canaries are dead in the coal mine, and party leadership refused to acknowledge it.”
Worse yet, for fans of competitive politics, Pearson predicts this disparity “may not be recoverable for another decade.”
So, how does this happen in the place that handed the 2020 election to Joe Biden, the state that pundits labeled bright purple? We went into the 2024 election season with a Democratic governor, secretary of state and attorney general. The state Democratic Party, currently led by labor union organizer Yolanda Bejarano, had deep pockets in 2024, while the Arizona Republicans claimed to be so poor they couldn’t afford an election night party.
It didn’t matter how much was in the coffers, Pearson says. Arizona Democrats didn’t stop talking long enough to hear what voters were saying.
Her best advice – which no one took?
“Shut the [expletive] up for five minutes and listen.”
“We tell people crime is down,” she continues. “That’s true. But you can’t drive to work without seeing a bus stop with a homeless person at it. That’s scary to most people. Continuing to tell people that the border crisis is not as bad as it is, was insanity.”
And then, there’s the economy.
Yes, on paper the economy isn’t so bad. Not as bad as Trump said it was during the campaign, that’s for sure.
OK, Pearson says, but “tell that to someone who’s got $10,000 floating on their credit card that they used for groceries for the last four years. Telling people that their balances are lying to them is the definition of insanity. When people say they are stuck, listen to them.”
She really knows what she’s talking about on this one. In 2012, Pearson ran Paul Penzone’s campaign against then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio – focused on unsafe conditions in jails and racial profiling. Arpaio won handily. Four years later, Pearson got Paul Penzone into office by concentrating instead on how much money the county had paid out to settle lawsuits about jail conditions including inmate deaths.
“What people really understood in ’16 is that [Arpaio]’s policies were costing them money,” Pearson says. “We were talking about economics in ’16.”
Democrats weren’t talking about the economy in the same way this year, and it cost them the election.
So, what now? Obviously, this is a question being asked all over the country, not just in Arizona.
Both major political parties here should take a lesson from the late John McCain. I’ve written a lot about McCain over the years, and unlike a lot of other journalists, I never worshipped him. In fact, I believe the war hero’s most significant legacy was making Sarah Palin his running mate in 2008, giving far-right extremists a national platform and – I’m convinced – a direct route to a Donald Trump presidency. (Or two.)
But Palin aside, McCain was an astute political strategist. I’m not sure this part is exactly true, but I’ve always had an image in my head of him literally locking the door at GOP meetings, refusing to let anyone out till they emerged united behind one candidate – whether they liked it or not. No messy primaries, no public infighting, no wasted campaign donations. That was the idea, anyway. And it worked.
The Arizona Republican Party has been so fractured lately I figured that lack of unity would do them in. It didn’t, not this time. And obviously, more Republicans are MAGA-ites than we thought.
But the Democrats – they could really use a John McCain right about now, as politicians fall over themselves waiting to line up to “primary” Katie Hobbs. It’s hard to blame them, she’s made a painfully weak showing in her first two years as governor. Vetoing stacks of bills isn’t enough.
It’s clear Hobbs won’t provide the kind of leadership Arizona Democrats need to make a comeback. And I can’t imagine it coming from Mark Kelly, Ruben Gallego, Greg Stanton, Raúl Grijalva… I can keep going, but you get the idea.
There’s so much at stake. Public education is crumbling, affordable housing is out of reach, climate is changing in ways we can’t ignore. And then there’s the economy. Our elected officials on both sides of the aisle need to get it together, fast.
It’s hard to feel anything but hopeless. If you need me, I’ll be at the bar.
