Bi-Monthly Newsletter ⚡🌊

News from the Coconino County Democratic Party

July 7, 2020

Monthly Coconino Democratic Action Meeting

Next Saturday, join us on Zoom at 10:00 for our Monthly PC and Volunteer Action Meeting. All Democrats are welcome. We’ll be just 115 days from the General Election! Four candidates will speak at the outset of the meeting. Then we will discuss the status of the campaign and County Recorder Patty Hansen will speak about the impact of COVID-19 on the 2020 Election.

Here’s the full agenda:

Candidate Speakers:

Tom O’Halleran – Congressional District 1 — 10 minutes
Felicia French- Arizona State Senate LD-6 — 10 minutes
Judy Begay — County Supervisor District 4 — 10 minutes
Miranda Sweet – Candidate for City Council — 10 minute

Breakout groups: 10 minutes
What challenges are you facing?
How are you involved?
Formulate Questions for Q&A later

Update from Executive Committee — 3 minutes – Ann Heitland

Election Calendar — Campaigning in the Age of COVID – 7 minutes — Ann Heitland

Patty Hansen — Voting Changes Caused by Pandemic — 10 minutes

Campaign Updates

LD6 – Natalie Burdick – 10 min
Mission for Arizona — Sam Knapp – 10 min
What We Know from ADP — Ann — 3 minutes
Local/County Campaigns — acknowledge candidates present – 2 min — Ann

Q&A and Feedback

Announcements

Office open only by appointment
District 4 Supervisor Forum Tomorrow at 3 p.m.
Other announcements?

Join the Zoom Meeting a few minutes before 10 am — make sure your identity is your real name to be admitted from the waiting room
Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/575911940

District 4 County Supervisor Forum

We have two fine candidates in the District 4 primary — Bryan Bates and Judy Begay. The winner of the primary on August 4 will face off against either Republican Bob Thorpe (yes, that Bob Thorpe — he’s termed out of LD-6 and looking for a new gig) or Stan Piece. Our moderator for the forum will be Ann Johnson, who did such a great job with the Flagstaff Mayoral Forum in June.

For a full list of precincts included in District 4, check out the event listing on our website. The live forum will begin at 3 p.m. next Sunday — here is the link for viewing live or later.

Candidate Signs Available

Some signs are available for LD-6 Senate Candidate Felicia French. Contact: SharonEdgar@msn.com

Two Democratic candidates for County Supervisor have signs available.

For homes and businesses in District 1, signs for Patrice Horstman are available. Contact Patrice at: pmhorstman@mac.com or Jenn at: jvargm@gmail.com or sign up on the website at www.patriceforsupervisor.com

For those of you in District 4, signs for Bryan Bates are available. Write to Bryan at Bryan@BryanBates4Coconino.com.

Primary Ballots Are Coming Your Way

Learn about Democratic Candidates by visiting their websites. Here is a full list of candidates in the upcoming Democratic Primary.

If you’re registered to receive your ballot by mail, you should see it in your mailbox this week. Sixty-seven percent of voters in Coconino County do receive their ballots by mail and we hope you are among them. If you or a friend are one of those people who likes to go to the polls, please ask them to consider making an exception this year. The pandemic is making it harder to recruit poll workers and the safest thing for all of us is to vote at home.

If you don’t want to permanently get your ballot by mail, you can ask the County Recorder to send your ballots only for the 2020 Election. Here’s all you need to get your ballot by mail or to vote early in person for the August 4 primary.

Update on Our Neighborhood Mailing Campaign

In June, we mailed to over 11,000 registered voters inside the City of Flagstaff, providing information about Democratic candidates and about how to vote. Now, we are working on the rest of the county. These letters come from precinct committee leaders and focus on races relevant to the area where the voter lives. This program is designed to encourage people to check their voter registration, sign up for vote-by-mail, and to introduce them to our County and Legislative Candidates. If you don’t get one of these letters, it’s because we believe, based on your voting history, that you are going to vote and vote Democrat! Our targets are people who don’t regularly vote but who are likely to vote Democratic when they do.

This work is a huge effort for our volunteers and staff — an effort made harder by the fact that we can’t gather in the office and fold and stuff in a social setting. Pictured are some of our masked heroes dropping off the work they did at home.

Working Hard for Our Candidates

We’ve fielded a record number of volunteers for Mission for Arizona and our LD-6 candidates. Of course, they are not in the field; they are staying safe on the phone. We have over 100 Coconino PCs and volunteers making calls for these campaigns. Why is it so important to do this so early? Mission for Arizona has been focusing on getting people signed up for the Permanent Early Voting List to make sure people will feel safe participating in this election. Our LD-6 candidates have to narrow the number of people who need to be persuaded, so the work thus far has been surveying voters to gauge their likely support for Felicia French and Coral Evans. This means the work in the Fall — of persuading those who need persuasion — will be focused where it should be. Although our effort is unprecedented, we can always use some more help. please sign up here. (That link also allows you to choose other ways to help besides phone calling.)

If you would like to write postcards for our Arizona Legislative Candidates Felicia French for Senate and Coral Evans for House, there is now a way to target the voters most in need of this outreach. Right now, the campaign is stockpiling postcards to be mailed in September. If you would like to be part of this effort, please sign up here: LD 6 Postcards to Voter Sign-up

The Coconino County Democratic Party and our candidates have made the hard decision that there will be no face-to-face canvassing at voters’ doors. One implication of this is that we must work much harder at other ways to reach voters — like phone banking. Digital outreach is also important in the age of a pandemic and we’re spending money on Facebook ads. But you can help by liking, commenting on, and sharing our posts and those of our candidates. If you are on Facebook, follow us and share our stuff @CoconinoDems and @LatinXCoconinoDems and @TubaCityDems. Tweet with us @CoconinoDems. We will continue to do Facebook Live events to showcase candidates and transmit information about voting.

At Saturday’s meeting, we’ll be talking about other plans to help our candidates win in November.

Training Opportunities Have Gone Virtual!

We encourage all PCs and volunteers to attend one of our orientation sessions. These explain the party structure and give you an opportunity to learn how you can contribute. We are now doing these sessions on Zoom every Tuesday. If necessary, we can schedule an individual session at another time.

If we have no RSVPs, the event will not be held! Call (928) 214-0393 or write
info@coconinodemocrats.org.

If you are struggling with the technology required to participate in the 2020 campaign, get in touch and we’ll help you learn what you need. info@coconinodemocrats.org.

Please Donate If You Can

If you can, please increase your monthly donation or make a special one-time contribution now. We are constantly re-evaluating our budget to make new ways to help our candidates win in November.

Calendar of Democratic Events in Coconino County
Here’s How to Reach Your Ex Com Members