Arizona
Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) organizes working-class people of color to take action on the issues most important to them and to advance social and economic justice for all. Working from the belief that those who are closest to a problem are best equipped to solve it, LUCHA incorporates leadership development with grassroots, issue-based campaigns; advocacy; and civic engagement to create an Arizona in which every resident has an equal voice in determining policy and shaping the decision-making bodies that will govern communal life. For more information, see this in-depth account of LUCHA’s origins in The New York Times.
Recent Achievements
LUCHA’s work helped to achieve historic wins in Arizona in 2022, which staved off the real possibility of MAGA election-deniers holding key statewide offices in Arizona and of flipping the U.S. Senate to GOP control:
Election of Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs
Election of Democratic Arizona Attorney General, Adrian Fontes
Election of Democratic Arizona Secretary of State, Kris Mayes by fewer than 300 votes!
Re-election of Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Kelly
With significant support in 2022 from Flip the Vote, LUCHA was able to expand its reach across the state, bringing the highest number of Latinx voters to the polls in the history of the state. In that cycle, LUCHA:
Knocked on more than 449,000 doors and made 126,000 calls to Arizona voters
Registered 22,000 new voters, thousands more than Governor Hobbs’ margin of victory!
Saw victories of 19 of LUCHA’s endorsed candidates and propositions
Flip the Vote’s continued support in 2023 allowed LUCHA to strengthen its organization in anticipation of 2024’s critical elections.
What makes Arizona crucial in 2024
Arizona is a key swing state for the presidential election
Arizona has one Senate seat up for election in 2024, and Democratic power in the U.S. Senate depends on a win by Ruben Gallego against election-denier Kari Lake
Two very competitive Republican-held U.S House seats in Arizona are essential to flipping the House
Arizona voters will decide whether to add the right to access abortion care to the state constitution
A few thousand votes can reverse the right wing’s hold on a one-seat majority in both chambers of the state legislature, which has enacted extreme anti-voter, anti-education, and anti-abortion policies
What Flip the Vote’s support means for 2024
Flip the Vote’s donors will play a key role in LUCHA’s ability to expand its engagement and turnout efforts into additional counties and rural areas that have large indigenous and Latinx populations. Our support also builds LUCHA’s capacity to collaborate closely with Governor Hobbs to ensure extreme bills from the razor-thin GOP legislative majority are vetoed before becoming law.
“In less than a decade, many organizers who first cut their teeth fighting [the “show me your papers”] bill are now lawmakers, campaign managers and directors of civic engagement groups. While it’s easy to dismiss mass protests as short-lived eruptions of anger, Arizona offers a model for how this energy can become real electoral power: It happens when people learn to work with one another, build deep connections and create something bigger than themselves.”