As a Democratic strategist, I know exactly why we lost Arizona

Despite the tears, the anger and the hand-wringing, there is a path forward for the Democratic Party.

We must get our voters back.

There are many reasons why we lost this cycle. It’s never one thing.

But the reality of 2024 is that a president with a consistent 39% approval rating, despite his historical achievements, would always need help convincing the public for a second term.

Unless the Democratic nominee was going to buck the perceived status quo, headwinds were inevitable, regardless of Trump’s overwhelming disqualifications.

As someone who has been rooting for Kamala Harris since Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, it’s a hard truth to accept.

Democrats’ message has grown stale

As the American Dream has become less attainable for the middle class, perpetual anger has driven the electorate.

Since 2016, voters constantly seek “change” and rebel against what they view as the incumbency. That’s how we can go from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, to Joe Biden, to Trump again.

That doesn’t mean our losses had to be as brutal as they were.

Our messaging has grown stale, and our appeal to broader swaths of the electorate has diminished. These issues must be addressed in Arizona so we can pull voters back into our tent.

Democrats retooled our messaging in 2018 to recapture the narrative with swing voters, and that gave us huge wins.

In 2020, coalition building, consistent media appearances from party leadership, a coordinated campaign built around Sen. Mark Kelly, and a consistent message that we were the party of common sense helped bolster strong voter registration.

Those gains helped flip our state for the first time in 25 years. But as I warned in 2022, this trend wouldn’t last.

The party is hemorrhaging Arizona voters

Since the close of 2020, Arizona Democrats have been hemorrhaging voters.

Until this point, our statewide and swing district victories have relied on Democrats voting a straight ticket, winning the majority of independent voters and carving out enough moderate Republicans to put us over the top.

That worked for a while. But not this time.

There are 4.37 million registered Arizona voters. Republicans represent the largest group with 1,562,091 (35.77%), followed by independents with 1,471,309 (33.69%), then Democrats with 1,266,536 voters (29%).

The Republican registration advantage over Arizona Democrats has grown since 2020. While the Republican Party has maintained some 35% of all registered voters, we fell from 33% in 2020 to 29% today.

Most alarming is that 37,000 Democrats switched to Republicans after Biden’s 2020 victory, while just 19,000 Republicans became Democrats. Meanwhile, nonpartisan registration shot up from 25% to 29%.

The far left cannot continue to define us

Arizona Democrats must enter the midterms at fighting strength. That means having more voters in our ranks. It likely means it’s time for fresh leadership.

Registering requires good messaging. People aren’t choosing our party because our furthest left elements are defining our narrative and taking us off message.

Democrats lack an empathetic tone on the economy. We have monolithic communications practices with communities of color.

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We use borderline Elvish lingo birthed from think tanks that push the limits of political correctness. We lack strength and appeal in rural areas.

All of this must be considered so we can properly persuade new and unaffiliated voters to become Democrats. Messaging on the American Dream must become our north star.

Democrats ignore these trends at their peril

If you’re a Democrat frustrated with having to rely on independents and moderate Republicans to win elections, good. Register more voters in the Democratic Party.

If you’re confused about how voters could back an abortion rights initiative and then vote a straight Republican ticket, good. Go register more Democratic voters.

2024’s results were not an aberration. This was years in the making. People left us, and too few who stayed were motivated enough to vote.

We ignore this at our peril. We must register voters and then convince them to cast a ballot.

Matt Grodsky is a partner at Matters of State Strategies. He was the communications director for Adrian Fontes’ 2022 secretary of state campaign and served as communications director for the Arizona Democratic Party in 2020. On X, formerly Twitter, @mattgrodsky.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Democrats lost Arizona because our messaging is stale. We can fix that

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