For the first few years he could vote, Max Thomas never missed a chance to cast a ballot: he voted for president, federal and state senators and city council members.
This year, that could change.
As the University of Arizona graduate student has become more outraged over the high death toll of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response to the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7, he has found the political statements of most candidates and elected officials on the conflict have led him to believe voting will not create the change he wants to see.
“I am so disillusioned with the way the Democrats have conducted themselves” he said, naming his concerns over the party’s position on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, a lack of action on climate change and the end of a federal right to abortion access. “I just find the current political economy in the U.S. to be fundamentally undemocratic and more akin to a plutocracy. I don’t believe we live in a democracy, which is why I am skeptical of this election, and this government on the whole. .… Frankly, I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”
Thomas’ dilemma is emblematic of a wider divide: the gap between the traditional base of America’s political parties and many of its members appears to be growing. More people have an unfavorable than favorable view of both the Republican and Democratic parties, a 2023 Pew Research Center poll found. Only 4% of U.S. adults surveyed said the political system is working extremely or very well.
That mistrust is a challenge as election season heats up: when several hundred voters can make a difference between winning and losing an election, especially for lower ballot races, candidates need engaged voters.
In the race for Arizona’s Senate seat, Kyrsten Sinema’s decision not to run for reelection opens up a contest for Arizona’s 1.4 million independent voters. Frontrunner candidates Kari Lake and Ruben Gallego must appeal both to their bases and a broad group of unaffiliated voters.
Since Sinema’s announcement, Gallego has shifted his messaging to appeal to a broader swath of voters, in particular those that are politically centrist.
“I’ve never been afraid to reach across the aisle and work with whomever to deliver for Arizona,” he said in a May 14 statement on X. “I do it in the House and I’ll do it in the Senate.”
Republican voters in Arizona still have a primary election set for July 30, 2024 to weigh in on their preferred candidate between frontrunners Kari Lake and Mark Lamb. While Lamb has steadily continued to visit Phoenix-area gun clubs and share new campaign videos, his opponent Lake has come under fire for modifying her public position on abortion access.
During her gubernatorial race, former newscaster Lake said she was against abortion in any and all cases. In recent weeks, she has shifted her position to say she remains pro-life, but believes each state should make its own rules on when abortion care would be available.
And for traditionally conservative voters who do not agree with Lake and Lamb’s analysis that the election was stolen, neither is a strong candidate.
The coming election is a bellwether for individual campaigns, but for many voters, also a referendum, on how they feel about their democracy and the people who represent them in government.
War in Gaza creates pressure for Democratic politicians
The Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 killed more than 1,200 people in Israel. Another 253 people were taken hostage.
Those actions shocked the world — but so has Israel’s response.
Critics say the Israeli military reprisal for the deaths of Oct. 7 has become a genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. According to the United Nations, more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. From marches to university encampments, people all over the country, including in Arizona, have taken to the streets to call for a ceasefire.
Others have also taken an electoral path: in Arizona, a group of Democrats in a coalition called Vote Ceasefire AZ marked “Marianne Williamson” on their Democratic presidential preference ballot in March as a protest vote against Joe Biden.
Traditionally, Democratic voters are not a monolith: those who want to see continued American support for Israel are also reaching out to their political representatives. At the same time, pro-Israel groups like AIPAC continue to donate in large quantities to candidates.
Paradise Valley-based rabbi Debbie Stiel says she urges political leaders to support Israel because it is an essential democratic ally to America in the Middle East.
“I have spoken with Representative Gallego, and I know he understands the importance of Israel as a sovereign state protecting itself from terrorists. And he also shared his concern that Jews feel safe in Arizona and throughout the United States,” said Stiel. “I am grateful that so far it seems that most of our senators and representatives understand that Israel must protect itself.”
Gallego has taken a strong stance in support of Israel. Lake and Gallego have butted heads on social media over each of their positions on the topic: when Lake said she was “not a fan of funding other country’s wars” in a statement on X in November, Gallego shot back:
“Israel is our closest ally in the Middle East, not just some “other country.” I’m a combat veteran. I’ve fought terrorists. I know how hard war is, and the costs. Kari knows nothing about war, she just knows how to read a teleprompter.”
This spring he stated his support for a ceasefire in Gaza as laid out by the Biden administration, and said any such effort must be coupled with efforts to release hostages.
“Any ceasefire in Gaza must come with the release of hostages — I’ve long said that. Right now, it’s a matter of if Hamas will accept the conditions of a deal and commit to releasing hostages,” he said in a post on X dated March 4, 2024.
His campaign in recent months has moved increasingly to convince moderate or centrist voters who may have moved to Sinema that their best choice is the Democratic candidate. And his fundraising efforts have shown a broad range of support since Sinema left the race: his campaign raised over $7 million in the first three months of the year, according to a campaign press release.
“Thanks to the support of hundreds of thousands of small-dollar donors who have chipped in what they could to help elect Ruben Gallego,” said Nichole Johnson, Gallego’s campaign manager, in a statement to multiple media outlets. “Arizonans are ready to elect a senator who will defend abortion rights, cut costs for families and take care of our veterans — and that’s exactly what Ruben will do.”
Gallego hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment by Arizona Luminaria over several months.
A strategy like Gallego’s move to the center brings with it political risks, including alienating potential Democratic voters like Thomas who see party neutrality on the conflict between Israel and Palestine as a moral wrong.
Others have rejected Gaza as the defining issue for young voters, particularly with reference to the presidential race. A New York Times opinion piece on May 8, 2024 said young people’s dissatisfaction with Biden didn’t “necessarily” doom his election prospects.
The story cited a spring 2024 poll from the Harvard Public Opinion Project showing broad support for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war but economic concerns and reproductive freedom were also key areas of concern.
“It’s equally fair to say that there’s a large group of young voters who are not likely to be single-issue voters on the war in Gaza,” said writer Charles M. Blow.
That’s not true for all Arizona voters. And the war in Gaza and American opposition to it continues to define both international news headlines and public protest actions, including the creation, and subsequent dramatic dismantling, of encampments at Arizona’s two largest universities.
Tucson resident Kaliana Venet became increasingly involved in activism after the Israeli response to Oct. 7, and says the experience of organizing around this issue has changed her view of politics.
“These are the elected officials who are making decisions about whether or not we’re going to send these billions of dollars to rain bombs on Gaza,” said “It is the litmus test of American democracy. We have hundreds of thousands of people in the streets daily, weekly, just like screaming, trying to do everything to make it stop. And it’s taken for months to get even just the slightest bit of movement from our representatives.”
At the national level, 5 Calls Civic Action, a volunteer-run organization that creates scripts and locates congress members’ phone numbers for voters to call their representatives. One of the group’s founders, Nick O’Neill, remembers participant calls being an important stop-gap to efforts to end the Affordable Care Act in 2017.
In recent months, the group has seen more calls for a ceasefire in Gaza than it has for any other cause since 5 Calls was founded in 2017. Still, O’Neill says he is disappointed by the few senators who have shifted their positions.
“There has been a constant stream of hyper-volume calls,” said O’Neill. He estimates at one point they helped field 70,000 calls in a 90-day period. In total, 5 Calls have helped the public make more than 900,000 calls about the situation in Palestine so far, he said.
As the death toll in Gaza has grown — and along with it the ongoing protests and campus encampments calling for a ceasefire — some Democratic politicians have slowly shifted their positions on the issue.
Joe Biden, speaking at the graduation of the historically Black men’s college Morehouse in Atlanta on May 19, said he was working toward an “immediate ceasefire.” On May 31, he called for a permanent ceasefire, saying it’s “time for this war to end.” The impact of that proposal, and whether it could meet the demands of recent activism, remains unclear.
Locally, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly has been one of the politicians that pro-Palestinian activists have pushed to support their calls for a ceasefire.
Tucson resident Jessica Yoder planned a December protest at Kelly’s office, the first she had ever planned directed at a senator, to urge him to support a ceasefire.
“I felt scared but I knew that I was doing the right thing.” the 33-year-old Mennonite said in a phone call. “We chose Mark Kelly because he talks about his work to reduce gun violence in the United States … and we wanted to pressure Mark Kelly to stay true to his morals and end other systems of oppression and violence [in Gaza].”
In his public statements on the conflict, Kelly has said he supports Israel’s right to defend itself following the Oct. 7 attack. On Feb.14, he joined several other Democratic senators in calling for a ceasefire as part of the efforts to release Israeli hostages.
“Senator Kelly believes Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas, which poses a security threat to both Israelis and Palestinians, and also that Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians,” his office said in a statement.
Kelly’s team also said he welcomed constituents’ views and said his office has replied to 740,345 phone calls, emails and letters from Arizona constituents who contacted the office to share their opinion in 2023.
“Senator Kelly hears from Arizonans in a number of ways, including meetings in Arizona and DC, trips around the state, and calls and emails to the office. He takes all these views into account and ultimately makes decisions based on what he believes is best for Arizona and the country,” the statement said.
Mohyeddin Abdulaziz, a Palestinian-American Tucson resident and co-founder of the Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance, said he wants to see peace for Palestinians but also an American democratic system that is responsive to the needs of local residents. In this case, he believes, an overwhelming number of those residents support a ceasefire.
A majority of Americans favor a ceasefire in Gaza, though the percentage changes depending on religious and political affiliation, a February 2024 poll by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding found. Negotiations for a ceasefire are ongoing, but are complicated by the relationship between Israel and Hamas, as well as the goals of Egypt, which is mediating the discussions.
“There is a serious problem in our democracy that makes it possible for those who have the money to have the influence and the power,” Abdulaziz said, noting the uptick in action around support for Palestine in recent months. “What I want people to know is that democracy demands that we work to protect it and to improve it every day, we cannot be silent.”
For Republicans, abortion and elections show political divides
With two months left until the Republican primary for Arizona’s Senate seat, most polling shows Kari Lake ahead of Mark Lamb, but finds that her decisive lead has narrowed in recent weeks. Lake’s support among Arizona registered Republicans declined from 54% in February 2024 to 46% in May 2024, while the number of undecided voters has increased from 17% to 25%. The poll of 1,003 registered voters representing a sample of the electorate was conducted by Noble Predictive Insights in May 2024.
The most recent flashpoint in Lake’s campaign has been her shifting position on abortion. During her gubernatorial run, Lake called abortion a sin and said she supported abortion bans and the 1864 law. More recently, she said abortion laws should be a decision made at the state level.
At a Tucson event in April, an audience member questioned the shift:
“I want to know what you say to the people who trusted you and believed you,” the audience member asked.
The Lake campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
But not all voters are watching Lake’s abortion responses closely.
Marana Republican Steve Selvy says Kari Lake’s stance on abortion, as well as that of her primary opponent Mark Lamb, is a non-issue since the Supreme Court has ruled that abortion healthcare access is up to the states to determine and both are running for federal office.
“I don’t even know why Kari Lake and any other candidate needs to weigh in on it,” said Selvy.
He describes himself as “passionately pro-life” — he believes life starts at conception —but the focus on abortion politics is being pushed by left-wing politicians to bring out voters in support of Democratic candidates.
“The left wants to make abortion the issue because they feel like it’s a winning thing for them, but I still contend that with the majority of people it’s not the biggest, most important priority right now,” said Selvy. “To me it’s like a shiny object. Look at this, forget open borders, forget the economy, forget the rising crime rate.”
This fall, Arizonans of all political persuasions may have the chance to cast their vote in a referendum on whether to codify the right to abortion in the state constitution via a ballot measure.
Another Republican, Janet Wittenbraker, has transmuted her broader dissatisfaction with electoral politics into running for local office: a Tucson-area Republican, Wittenbraker is running for office in part because she doesn’t believe that nudging her political representatives to act on the issues she considers important will be effective.
She is concerned about the number of people crossing into the United States at the southern border without immigration documents, who she says are not being vetted by immigration authorities and, in some cases, given support through tax-payer funded services. But instead of reaching out to her political representatives and asking them to take action, she’s running for local office.
“I have never called my local representation for the Senate or Congress,” said Wittenbaker, who previously ran for mayor of Tucson and is now running for the District 3 seat on the Pima County Board of Supervisors. “The most effective action to take right now is to either run for office or support your chosen candidate. Calling and complaining does nothing to benefit our country.”
Another divisive issue on the Republican side remains who won the 2020 election. Lake has built her platform, in part, on rejecting the results of elections deemed fair and transparent by multiple judicial orders. That’s a position that has alienated some longtime Republicans.
Retired U.S. Army officer Raymond Kimball is one of them — he left the Republican party in 2020 after three decades of membership. At the time, Kimball was registered in Pennsylvania, and he was shocked to see the party reject the 2020 election of Joe Biden and mail-in voting, which he had used his entire time in military service.
Still, his values remain what he calls traditionally conservative: small government; safe, legal and rare elective abortion healthcare access; and in favor of a strong military.
“In many cases I think that the GOP has moved away from core tenets of conservatism, and I disagree,” he said.
Voters wonder if they are heard before — and after — elections
Voters who are disenchanted with candidates from the major political parties are taking a slew of different approaches to November’s election, from sitting it out altogether to building toward systems they think will make elections more fair for future third party candidates.
“I would want to believe that maybe Ruben Gallego is moveable,” said Carol Brochin, a University of Arizona faculty supporter of the pro-Palestinian encampment there. Still, even as she believes in the ability of social movements to push political leaders, she is unsure of how she will vote this year. A candidate’s position on Israel/Palestine “matters for my vote a lot,” she said.
Thomas, the University of Arizona graduate student, said he would willingly cast his vote for any Democratic politician that publicly called the Israeli military campaign in Gaza a genocide and called for an end to sending weapons to Israel. “The biggest issue on my mind is this genocide,” he said. “I want it to end. I’d be out campaigning” for a candidate who felt the same.
Former Republican Kimball has been active in the Make Elections Fair movement. That effort aims to eliminate taxpayer funding for partisan elections, bring all candidates together on one primary ballot and allow every voter to participate in all elections. Those changes would create a more fair representative democracy for independent voters, Kimball and other supporters argue.
“I would have voted for Sinema,” Kimball said. On the Senate race, he is “keeping a cautious ear” to news until the Republican primary. “I want to see which Kari Lake shows up: is it the obstructionist election denier, refusal to accept reality Kari Lake, or is it somebody with a more nuanced view that she has kind of hinted at? For Gallego, I am looking to see how he steps up from the House to the Senate — it’s a fundamentally different animal.”
Voters like Kimball are going to be a challenge in this year’s U.S. Senate election because the race is at the center, says Mesa-based Republican strategist Tyler Montague.
He points to the large number of unaffiliated voters in Arizona. He also says that more progressive or more conservative voters who are unhappy with their candidate are unlikely to vote for the opponent — while a few may skip the vote, he expects most will go ahead and vote the party line anyway.
“The center is where it will be won or lost,” said Montague. “They have to be careful, you can’t be seen to be just a mercenary wind-sock that blows with public sentiment and has no core beliefs.”
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