There’s plenty of talk about Arizona’s role in the presidential election and the heated races for its U.S. House and Senate races, but more than just federal control is at stake in this year’s election.

There’s also the potential to flip the Republican-led legislature and land the state its first Democratic trifecta in more than 20 years, with Democratic majorities in both chambers of the state legislature and the governor's office.

Republicans have held a trifecta in Arizona since 1992, but Democratic officials and outreach groups are hoping to change that.

Attorney General Kris Mayes and others teased what a trifecta could look like in the state during an Arizona List fundraising event for the Harris-Walz campaign earlier this month, offering up some very real evidence of what such a flip could do.

In 2022, Michigan voters helped Democrats take control of the state’s House of Representatives and Senate, resulting in the state’s first legislative trifecta in 38 years.

The impact was almost immediate, according to Michigan Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, who made a stop in Tucson for the event.

“I served for 10 years in the minority, so I know what it feels like. And let me tell you, when you win, it is so worth it,” she told attendees gathered at a home in Oro Valley. So, when we finally got power, we immediately got to work.”

And that work has paid off, according to Brinks, who said that in the less than two years since the trifecta went into effect, state leaders have taken significant steps to improve the lives of residents:

• Passing nation-leading clean energy policy;
• Enacting safe storage laws, red flag and universal background check policies to prevent gun violence;
• Adding LGBTQ protections to the state’s civil rights laws;
• Restoring workers’ rights to speak up together for better wages, benefits and working conditions;
• Extending tax relief to parents by quintupling the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit;
• Repealing unfair taxes on seniors and retirees;
• Giving residents the right to determine their own reproductive choices.

“After that, we passed a budget that invested in people and places that had long been ignored, and those are the communities that we represent that Republicans systematically starved of resources,” Brinks said. “This simply could not have been done without the Democratic trifecta and the power in our state legislature.”

Brinks encouraged attendees to help mobilize voters by knocking on doors, manning phone banks or writing postcards.

Mayes had the same message for attendees, mentioning her narrow victory by just 280 votes as an example of why every single vote matters.

“We are so, so close to being able to flip this legislature. One seat. One seat in the House and the Senate,” Mayes said.

She went on to tell the crowd about an unnamed hospital in Arizona that’s left a patient waiting with a ruptured placenta for two weeks, because administrators are fearful that they’ll be sued or prosecuted by what Mayes called an “out of control” county prosecutor.

“This is in Arizona today, and that is why it is so important to not just flip this legislature so we have Democrats who will never let that happen again, but also to pass the abortion initiative to ensconce reproductive rights in our Constitution once and for all and put it into that nonsense forever,” she said.

Several local and state politicians were on hand for the event, including Pima County Supervisor Rex Scott, Arizona Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, Arizona Sen. Priya Sundareshan and Pima County Supervisor candidates Jen Allen and Vanessa Bechtol.

“We have a job to finish, which is to elect a Democratic legislature who will work with the governor and me and (Secretary of State) Adrian Fontes,” Mayes said. “And that job can only be finished by us together, our shoe leather, our sweat, our heart, our will and our desire to talk to our neighbors about this incredibly important election.”

Caitlin Schmidt is Editor and Publisher of Tucson Spotlight. She previously worked for the Arizona Daily Star and has been reporting on Southern Arizona for a decade. Contact her at caitlin@tucsonspotlight.org.