Regional Realignments in Arizona Legislative Elections (1992–2018)

This post traces the recent history of Democrats’ relative strength in legislative districts based in three regions: Maricopa County, rural Arizona, and Pima County. Evolving partisan coalitions have shifted the Democratic caucuses that once came roughly equally from each of the three regions, to mostly Maricopa County-based legislators. With Maricopa County making up over sixty percent of the state’s population, and suddenly becoming swing territory in the Trump era, this shift has Democrats poised to challenge for agenda-setting power at the state capitol.

In the charts and analysis below, districts are categorized as based in Maricopa or Pima counties if the majority of votes cast came from those counties. Districts where the majority of votes came from the other thirteen counties are categorized as rural.

Steady Gains in Maricopa County

The biggest piece of this story is Democrats’ slow-but-steady gains in Maricopa County over the last several decades, gains that have accelerated in the Trump era as the county moved from deep-red to suddenly swingy.

Democrats started from a place of serious weakness in this suburban metropolis. In 1992, while Bill Clinton lost the county by 8.4 percentage points despite a 5.6-point national popular vote victory, the results at the legislative level were even worse for Democrats. They won only five of seventeen Senate seats (29%) and a paltry eight of thirty-four House seats (24%). The Republican wave of 1994 would reduce these numbers even further. But things improved bit-by-bit from there, even as the county remained a Republican stronghold at the presidential level.

The election of Harry Mitchell to the Senate in 1998 gave Democrats a foothold in the East Valley — Rep. Meg Burton Cahill would follow in 2000. The wave election of 2006 that elected Mitchell to Congress also gave Democrats a trifecta in his Tempe-based district, as well as new footholds in the North Phoenix suburbs with Reps. Jackie Thrasher and Mark DeSimone (yikes). Thrasher would lose in 2008, and DeSimone would be replaced by Rep. Eric Meyer.

Barack Obama’s election in 2008 planted the seeds of the Trump era urban/suburban-rural realignment to come. It is fitting then, that 2008 gave Democrats a second foothold in the East Valley in the form of Rep. Rae Waters, while Frank Pratt defeated Ernest Bustamante to claim a House seat and break the Democratic trifecta in a Pinal County-based district. Waters would lose re-election in 2010, Pratt would not.

The 2012 redistricting round brought a new POC-majority district in the Southwest Valley (LD29 is the closest thing to a brand-new district), adding a sixth Maricopa County-based district that Obama would win. Democrats held six of eighteen Senate seats (33%) and thirteen of thirty-six in the House (36%). The county was no bluer at the presidential level in Obama’s elections than in the Clinton or Bush eras, but at least the legislative results were no longer even worse than the presidential numbers would suggest.

The Trump era brought about a sudden urban/suburban realignment towards Democrats, and they have begun to reap the rewards at the legislative level. Hillary Clinton lost Maricopa County 45.7%-to-48.6%, about five points worse than her national margin-of-victory. Maricopa County was now a swing county for the first time. Clinton won districts (LDs 18 and 28) that Obama had narrowly lost in 2012, in areas where Democrats had previously gained footholds under the old maps. Sen. Sean Bowie and Rep. Mitzi Epstein turned a Republican trifecta in LD 18 into a Democratic-majority delegation.

The 2018 midterms saw Democratic growth in the Maricopa County suburbs continue. Kyrsten Sinema won two more districts (LDs 17 and 20) that Clinton had narrowly lost. The former would produce a third Democratic foothold in the East Valley, with Jennifer Pawlik’s victory in the House. Democrats also consolidated earlier gains, with Jennifer Jermaine flipping the remaining House seat in LD18 and Aaron Lieberman doing the same in LD28.

All told, Democrats gained two Senate seats and a whopping nine House seats from 1992 to 2018. They now hold thirty-nine percent of the county’s Senate seats and forty-seven percent of its House seats.

Sudden Collapse in Rural Districts

For much of the period discussed above, Democrats were stronger in rural districts than in Maricopa County. From Clinton’s first election in 1992 through Obama’s in 2008, Democrats won sixty-four rural House seats to sixty-two for the Republicans. Senate Democrats did even better, winning over sixty perfect of rural seats during the period and holding a majority of the rural seats in every cycle.

As recently as 2002, Democrats held as many Senate seats in rural counties as they did in behemoth Maricopa County (2000 in the House). There were signs of things to come. In 1994, for example, David Farnsworth defeated Rep. E.C. “Polly” Rosenbaum to break a trifecta in an ancestrally Democratic district also represented by Jack Brown. But as late as 2006, Democrats held four of seven rural Senate seats and eight of fourteen House seats.

Nationally, the rural side of the urban/suburban-rural realignment kicked into high gear in 2010, the first midterm of the Obama administration. That was equally true in Arizona:

• Steve Smith defeated Sen. Rebecca Rios, and John Fillmore defeated Rep. Barbara McGuire to complete a Republican trifecta in the Pinal County-based district that had elected a Democratic trifecta as recently as 2006.
• Don Shooter defeated Sen. Amanda Aguirre in a Yuma County-based district.
• Gail Griffin defeated Sen. Manny Alvarez, and Peggy Judd defeated Rep. Pat Fleming in a district with population centers in Cochise, western Pima, and Santa Cruz counties.
• Rep. Jack Brown retired, guaranteeing a Republican trifecta in his eastern Arizona district. The Republican ticket, including Sylvia Tenney Allen for Senate, won by massive margins.

These three districts all had slim white adult majorities, with very large Latino adult populations.

Only one Democrat, McGuire, has represented a majority-white rural district since 2010, and she was swept out of the Senate in 2016, as rural white voters flocked to Donald Trump.

The 2012 redistricting had significant consequences for Yuma County. In the previous decade, the county had been the undivided population base of a district that had started with a Democratic lean, but where Republicans ended the decade with both the Senate seat and a House seat in their hands. Now, the county would be roughly equally-divided between two districts that each also encompassed large portions of Maricopa County (LDs 4 and 13, Maricopa County voters being a slim majority in the latter). LD4 would produce a Democratic trifecta.

The rural districts have seen little movement otherwise, with two stable Democratic trifectas and five Republican ones (though LD6 has been close in recent cycles and some portions have been trending hard to Democrats).

Stability in Pima County

The story in Pima County has not been nearly so dramatic as the rest of the state. Like a driver on Tucson’s poorly maintained roads, the political dynamics here have hummed along at a slow-but-steady clip.

Until the 2002 redistricting, there were six districts based in Pima County: three that strongly favored Democrats, one that was more competitive but still leaned blue, and two that strongly favored Republicans. In any given election, those districts produced three or four Democratic Senators and six to eight Representatives. The 2002 redistricting effectively eliminated the Democratic-leaning district in exchange for softening the hard Republican lean of one of the GOP. Across the decade, those districts produced…three or four Democratic Senators and six to seven Representatives.

The 2012 redistricting shook things up a bit more, but not to a massive degree. The new maps contained two strong Democratic districts, two additional districts with Democratic leanings, and one strong Republican districts. The end result: four consistently Democratic Senate seats and seven or eight House seats in each election.

Adding It All Up

Rural strength used to be an essential ingredient to Democratic successes in legislative elections. For example, the split Senate coming out of the 2000 election is most often attributed to the alt-fuels scandal that dethroned House Speaker Jeff Groscost as he ran for a Senate seat in a deep-red East Valley district. While Groscost’s defeat gave Democrats their fifteenth seat, they would not have been in striking range at all were it not for rural Democrats holding seats in districts where that would be unthinkable today: Jack Brown in eastern Arizona, Marsha Arzberger in the southeastern corner of the state, and Pete Rios in a Pinal County-based district (the latter two being Democratic trifectas). Even as recently as 2006, when Democrats won twenty-seven House seats — their high-water mark between 1990 and 2018 — their success was due to both unprecedented suburban strength and their holding eight seats in rural counties (twice as many as they hold today).

The emergence of the rural majority-white districts as a Republican bloc stifled the impact of recent Democratic gains in the urban counties, though it did not cancel them out completely. Had it not been for the rural white realignment of the 2010s, these suburban gains would likely have added up to at least one majority or split chamber by this point.

With no majority-white rural seats left to lose, however, Democrats have a real opportunity to convert further suburban gains in 2020 into legislative power. Redistricting will once again shuffle the deck after that, but these long-terms trends are likely to continue so long as the national party coalitions remain what they are.