Arizona Just Went Bluer

A shocking ruling from the state’s supreme court could cause a political earthquake in November that will shake all the way to D.C.

Photo courtesy of AZCentral

Donald Trump got what he asked for. Earlier this week, in an attempt to get ahead of the thorny abortion issue that has wedged the GOP, Trump finally threw up his hands and announced he would just leave it to the states to decide.

Saying that he was “proudly the person responsible” for ending Roe v. Wade, Trump stated, “My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both.”

(Narrator: Abortion was not where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint.)

On Tuesday, the Arizona supreme court took him at his word. In a stunning 4-2 decision, the state’s Republican justices revived a law from 1864 that banned abortion in nearly all instances. It had been dormant ever since Roe legalized abortion nationwide 50 years ago.

“Physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal,” the state’s highest court said. 

Today, I’m not going to analyze the legal soundness of that decision. Chris Geidner does a fine job of that in his newsletter today, showing how the majority ignored rules of statutory construction to arrive at this sweeping and frankly terrifying ruling. It’s also worth noting that the abortion ban was written by a single man at a time when the state was just a territory and women didn’t even have the right to vote, let alone serve in the legislature. 

Instead, today I will focus on the practical impact of the case. On this front, despite the substantial risk that the 160-year old law will snap back into effect in a matter of weeks, there are reasons for some optimism both on the limits of its immediate effects and on how it could reshape the politics not just of Arizona but of the entire nation. 

That sounds like a big deal, and it really is. I’ll break it down for you today and explain why.

Every vote mattered in 2022

The 2022 midterms were a critical moment for Arizona. Would the state, which now had two Democratic senators and had gone into the blue column by a very narrow margin, continue to elect Democrats? 

The MAGA right fielded extremist candidates up and down the ballot, from Kari Lake for governor to Blake Masters for senator. But the red wave never arrived in Arizona. Even among statewide races down ballot from these marquee ones, Democrats prevailed, if sometimes only by a hair. 

Of critical importance to today’s abortion question was the contest for State Attorney General. The Democratic candidate, Kris Mayes, won her election by just 500 votes out of 2.5 million cast. That’s just 2/100th of a percent, if you’re wondering.

That narrow victory meant that today, the state’s law enforcement, under Mayes’s leadership, will not prosecute alleged violators of the 1864 law. And Mayes will hold that position for another two years at least.

For now, and so long as Mayes is at the helm, women, health providers and doctors do not need to fear being criminally charged and jailed simply for receiving or giving abortion care within the state.

Enshrining Roe within the state’s constitution

Proponents of a November ballot measure that would protect reproductive rights in the state’s constitution announced last week that they have gathered in excess of the number of signatures they need to qualify the referendum for the upcoming general election.

Arizona for Abortion Access, which comprises various reproductive rights organizations including the ACLU of Arizona and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, stated that it had obtained 506,892 petition signatures, far more than the threshold 383,923 needed to put the measure on the ballot. There are still over three months to go before the qualification date, so this announcement pretty much ensures that the ballot will meet that minimum, even if a percentage of signatures are disqualified.

The high number of signatories is indicative of the momentum behind the movement. “This is an issue that people are eager to see on the ballot,” said Cheryl Bruce, the campaign manager for Arizona for Abortion Access. “As our volunteers are out collecting, people are coming up to them, folks are coming up to them and wanting to sign this petition. They want to see access to abortion restored in the state of Arizona,” she added. 

The signature gathering process is also a way to inform voters about the need to protect abortion rights within the state. The state supreme court’s decision will now supercharge that effort. The message is now far starker: Without the constitutional amendment, a near-total abortion ban across the state will be in effect.

The twin motivators of a horrific, near-total ban and a chance to undo it is likely to increase turnout among women and younger voters—core Democratic constituencies. And with Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes and control of the House and Senate at stake, the abortion issue now spells political disaster for Republicans.

The House majority

In the race for control of the House, many eyes were already on a key swing district in Maricopa County won by less than one percentage point by David Schweikert (R-AZ) in 2022. With the ruling by the state supreme court, that seat is now in danger of flipping to the Democrats. 

That’s because Rep. Schweikert will have trouble running away from his record on abortion. For example, over the past decade he was a six-time co-sponsor of the “Life at Conception Act.” And when the Dobbs decision came out, he tweeted that he was “pleased” to see that the Supreme Court “reaffirms the right to life.”

Schweikert is now trying to run from that record, posting yesterday that he “does not support” the ruling from the state supreme court and that the issue should be “decided by Arizonans.” But there’s no denying that Dobbs had exactly the desired effect and that everyone knew that the zombie law from the 1860s was hanging out there, waiting to spring back to life as it now predictably has. Women voters may punish Schweikert for his staunch anti-abortion views and votes and elect a Democrat to replace him.

It is much the same story for another swing district now held by Republican Juan Ciscomani of Tucson. Many political bean counters rank Ciscomani as even more vulnerable than Schweikert because Pima County, Arizona, has been trending bluer than Maricopa County in recent years. And the DCCC has targeted his seat among its “red to blue” seats to be flipped.

Tuesday’s decision puts Ciscomani in a bind. In 2022, when Dobbs came down, Ciscomani publicly stated that he applauded the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and that abortion laws should be left up to the states. But after the state supreme court’s revival of the abortion ban on Tuesday, he has done an about face, issuing a statement in which he called the decision a “disaster for women.”

His opponent in the general, who is likely to be Kirsten Engel following the Democratic primary this summer, will be able to point to the entirely predictable outcome of Roe being overturned and use this against Ciscomani, who is vulnerable as an enabler of far-right extremism.

If Republicans were to lose these two swing seats in November because of women and young voters angry over abortion—based on enthusiasm and turnout seen in every other election where abortion rights is on the line—their majority would be at very high risk of evaporating entirely.

The Senate majority

After Ms. Thumbs Down herself, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), realized no one liked her and wanted her to represent them, the Arizona senate race came down to two choices: Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Kari Lake (Q-Pluto).

Lake is an election denier who has sued repeatedly over false claims that she actually won the election that she lost to Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2022. Whether Arizonans want to send an extremist like Lake to the Senate won’t be known until the election in November. But what is known is Lake’s massive flip-flops on the question of abortion.

When she was Ms. MAGA in 2022, and auditioning for the part of best sidekick to Donald Trump, famously even proudly vacuuming the carpet herself near the podium where she would meet her hero…

…Lake was decidedly anti-abortion to please her extremist base.

“My personal belief is that all life matters,” Lake said during the 2022 debates. “I don’t believe in abortion. I think the older law is going to go into effect. That’s what I believe will happen.”

“And you approve of that? At what, conception?”

“I believe life begins at conception,” Lake responded. She went on to say that she didn’t think abortion pills should be legal.

She is now running scared and issuing statements completely at odds with her earlier support.

“I oppose today’s ruling, and I am calling on Katie Hobbs and the State Legislature to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support,” Lake said in a statement. 

But Lake can’t run so easily from her record. And she now directly faces Gallego, who is a firm advocate of reproductive rights. Gallego brought some devastating receipts already, with a recording of Lake saying after Dobbs that she was “incredibly thrilled” that they were going to have “a great law” that’s “already on the books” that “will prohibit abortion in Arizona” and that she thinks “we are going to be paving the way and setting course for other states to follow.”

Because abortion will be front and center for the election, Lake’s earlier full-throated support for the 1864 near-total ban will haunt her, while her present day backpedaling will make her look weak, even to her own voters. This poses an existential threat to her candidacy.

Arizona is a key must-hold for the Democrats if they want to retain the senate majority. The ruling just handed Gallego ample ammunition to keep the seat blue.

The White House

When Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden on Election Night 2020, it threw a huge wrench into Trump’s plans to declare himself the winner. It meant that such a statement would be impossible to back up, especially with momentum moving toward Biden as votes from larger counties came in.

That call wound up being correct, but by a very narrow margin. In order to have any significant chance of retaking the White House, Donald Trump has to flip Arizona back from the blue column to the red.

This map below which I pulled together from 270toWin helps demonstrate why that is. If Biden wins Arizona’s 11 electoral votes among three of the five big swing states, that means Biden doesn’t have to win the two others. Here, Biden wins with Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He doesn’t need Georgia or Michigan.

As another example, here he wins Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He doesn’t need Wisconsin or Georgia… and doesn’t even need Nevada.

From this it’s clear that Arizona becomes a huge problem for Trump if he doesn’t win it back. And now, the chances that he does so just got smaller. Perhaps markedly so.

Biden beat Trump by around 10,500 votes in the Grand Canyon state in 2020. Since that time, Democrats have been outperforming Republicans in statewide ballots precisely because the GOP has been fielding extremists. That includes radical anti-abortionists. On this question, the party is out-of-step with a clear majority of Arizona voters, and Trump is the man most responsible for ending Roe v. Wade.

In fact, he boasts about it.

It’s too late now for Trump to backtrack and wash his hands of what he has done. Voters will remember, and they will be reminded repeatedly of it between now and the election.

And within the state of Arizona, the question of abortion rights will be a red-hot one for November, and women and young voters will be gearing up to douse it with some cold, blue power. In so doing, they could wind up tipping the national election in every important way.