Flipping Arizona, From A to Z

By Andrea Lum

We are thrilled to share that Indivisible East Bay is now an official partner with Flip the West! After their overwhelming success in 2018 as Flip the 14, and after months spent researching and strategizing how to convert those purple states to blue, the newly-named Flip the West is ready to roll. By coordinating and supporting grassroots groups on the ground, they work with the folks who know the territory — and Arizona is up first. In fact, some IEB members are headed there in a few days to help canvass and register Arizona State University students to vote with groups such as Field Team 6 and Commit to Flip Blue. Look for a report back on our experience pounding the pavement in Phoenix and Flagstaff.

Why Arizona in January? The push to register Democrats is related to the early primary on March 17 – and in a state where voters are equally split among Republican, Democratic and Independent, it’s crucial to re-register some of those Independents to move the needle on Election Day. Signing up more Democratic voters also means Democratic candidates and progressive groups can more easily identify and contact supporters, too. As we remember too well, we lost Arizona in 2016 by less than 3% – we can’t let that happen in 2020!

What you can do:

As official partners with Flip the West, IEB is committed to offering at least one opportunity to phone bank, text, or postcard each month. Here’s what you can do in January (and keep checking our calendar, because we’ll add more events and opportunities as we learn of them)!

• On Sunday January 19, we’re hosting our first Flip the West Phone Bank for Arizona event, in El Cerrito. Click here for details and to sign up. 
• Register for IEB’s Sunday January 26 All Members Meeting, where we’ll report on our experiences canvassing in AZ, share lessons learned, and more.
• Sign up here to call voters in AZ to register Democratic to vote in the primary, from the comfort of your own couch!
• Find out here how to send issue-based postcards to swing voters in Arizona and Colorado about gun violence. 

Ready to phone bank/textbank/postcard or canvass with your IEB friends? Email Andrea at andrea@indivisibleeb.org to get connected.

Andrea Lum works in higher education by day and as the Volunteer Coordinator for IEB by night.