Arizona No Longer "Solid Democratic" State, As It Was In 2008; Who Knew?

As Pink would say, who knew?  Politico reported earlier Monday that Arizona is among a dozen states that "shifted from solidly or leaning Democratic to competitive."  Just in the past two years.

These words leapt off the monitor and slapped me in the face!  Did Politico - or, Gallup, upon which the story is based - stumble upon an alternative political universe where red is blue and blue is red.  Of course, it is a mistake.

Apparently, even though Gallup did not use those still-confusing-after-48-years two-letter state abbreviations, Politico confused Arizona for Arkansas.  In fact, according to the venerable Gallup organization, Arizona was "competitive" in 2008 and remained so in 2010.

To be clear, Gallup is not using actual party registration numbers or actual election results; what their numbers and labels are reflecting is how many people who they interviewed in the state during an entire year either identify themselves as being Democrat or Republican or suggest that they lean more towards one party or the other.  Gallup interviewed more than 350,000 adults across the U.S. last year to come up with these numbers - not likely voters or even possible voters; many may not even be registered. 7,660 of those interviews were of Arizonans.

Arizona was defined as "competitive" in 2008 and again last year.   That means that the difference between the two parties' affiliations is less than 5%.  In Arizona last year, 40.0% identified/leaned Democratic, 44.1% Republican.

Interestingly, the Gallup story focuses on how Democrats lost affiliation across the country in the past two years.  However, Arizona's Democratic drop was the third-lowest in the nation.  Only 2.8%.  Nevertheless, Arizona Republicans picked up two congressional seats and swept the statewide offices.







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In Arizona, The "Others" Now Outnumber Dems, "May Very Well... Eclipse" GOP'ers in 2012

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett (R) released new January 2011 voter registration figures today, and - for the first time - the number of registered independents (aka "others", including "party not designated", "independents" and other minor parties) exceeds the number of people registered as Democrats. 

And, while Bennett's news release trumpets that notable factoid, at the bottom comes a quote that adds some perspective: Bennett thinks that the number of "others" may also outnumber registered Republicans by the end of next year, too.

"We may very well see the number of registered independents eclipse the number of Republicans around the time of the 2012 election."

Here are the big-picture numbers, in a nutshell:
Republicans: 1,142,605, or 35.80%
Others:          1,010,725, or 31.66%
Democrats:    1,008,689, or 31.60%
Libertarians:       24,880, or 0.78%
Green:                  5,040, or 0.16%
TOTAL:        3,191,939

The smaller-picture numbers are going to be extra important, as the Redistricting Commission will be using them when they begin their work in a few months.  Accordingly, here is the link to the numbers by County, Congressional District, and state Legislative District.  The report also shows the inactive voters in each of these categories and sub-categories.

One other note of interest:  Pima and Santa Cruz counties are the only two counties that showed a dip in the number of registered voters between the General Election registration cutoff (October) and January 1.  This may be the result of removing outdated names off of the registration rolls, fewer new registrations than the other counties, less population increase, or a combination thereof.


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1,142,605

Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva Endorsed Rodney Glassman For State Democratic Chair, But What's Up With This???

Arizona's Politics does not generally wade into the intra-party political maneuvering - and, I am not sure why I got this e-mail - but, the latest is impossible to ignore.

An e-mail from a Democratic District Chair (Jeffrey Rich) is headlined "Another backroom deal courtesy of Don Bivens and your Arizona Democratic Party".  He attaches an e-mail chain setting forth a letter from Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-CD7) and former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard.  Grijalva has endorsed Rodney Glassman for State Party Chair and Terry Goddard has endorsed Andrei Cherny.  The State meeting is set for this coming Saturday.

Grijalva and Goddard set this post-Giffords assassination attempt era as a "moment of sorrow" and an inappropriate time to conclude a contentious battle for the Chair of the Arizona Democratic Party.  Therefore, they detail a proposal to keep current Chair Don Bivens (and the rest of the current officers) with the conditions that he/they will resign in one month.  A new election would then have to be noticed out.

The most interesting part is that the e-mail chain includes one from Cherny agreeing to the delay.  The other one is from Glassman to Rich, with the less-than-concurring subject line of: "FYI- Look at what Bivens and Cherney are planning next".

This would appear to indicate that Grijalva moved forward with this apparently-bipartisan proposal without Glassman's (a former aide of Grijalva's) support.  An interesting move, and one that is sure to make Saturday's meeting buzz even louder than before this attempted quieting proposal.  Rich's mass e-mail is just the first indication of that.

(Arizona's Politics is not posting the e-mail chain at this time because we do not yet have confirmation that the Grijalva-Goddard letter has been sent, and most of the other e-mails were supposed to be private until Rich sent them out.)




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