With less than 90 days until Election Day, the Political Department remains focused on races up and down the ballot. An ever-changing landscape continues to shift some thinking on priorities for final investments and areas of focus. In this edition of the Director’s Corner, we’ll take a look at state constitutional offices, including key races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state.
Investments in our key gubernatorial contests continue to be of utmost importance to the department. Tight races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico remain vital to our interests (while also ensuring that Governor Walz is returned for another 4-year term in Minnesota). While an open seat in Oregon could be closer than expected, we wait to see if further investments will be necessary. And we’re also looking closely at expanding opportunities for working families by winning other governor’s races. Primary results in Arizona would suggest that our endorsed candidate, Katie Hobbs, is in position to flip that state but we will need to help get her across the line. And we still believe that Georgia is very much in play.
Statewide races further down ballot are also important to include in our work. In the last several years, we have invested more heavily in some of these critical elections. From Secretary of State to Attorney General and other key races, voters will have stark choices in November. In particular we are watching Attorneys General races in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada and Wisconsin; Key Secretary of State races for us include: Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico and Nevada (where the Secretary of State also sits on the State Board of Examiners).
As we approach investments for this fall, we will invest in any or all of these races where our spending can make the difference, particularly when our work can help mobilize voters. Field efforts in battleground states like Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan could make all the difference in a close election. Research indicates that key voters can be highly motivated this year on issues such as fighting inflation and corporate greed, pushing back on the MAGA agenda, protecting women’s health, and ending gun violence, and AFSCME recently passed resolutions updating our stances on some of these to reaffirm our commitment to these shared values.
https://www.afscme.org/about/governance/conventions/resolutions-amendments/2022
Next up, The Battle for State Legislatures