Youth of Color Are Key to 2022 Midterms in Arizona

In the 2022 midterms, Arizona is among the states where young people, ages 18-29, could have an outsized influence on the outcome, according to CIRCLE’s Youth Electoral Significance Index (YESI). The index includes data on the youth population, state election laws, projected competitiveness, and other factors that can shape young voters’ participation. In our 2022 YESI rankings, both Arizona’s gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races rank #2.

In this analysis, we dig deeper into why Arizona ranks highly as a state where youth can have a decisive impact on election outcomes. Our data highlights:

• Youth voter turnout has been on the rise in Arizona: It increased 16 percentage points (10% to 26%) from 2014 to 2018, and 18 points (33% to 51%) between 2016 and 2020.
• A diverse young population—potentially harmed by voting laws: Latinos and Indigenous youth are poised to have high electoral impact, but also disproportionately affected by restrictive voting laws.
• Youth vote choice critical in close elections: Young people in the state favored Joe Biden by a 31-point margin in 2020, a year in which the president won Arizona by less than half a percentage point and incumbent Senator Mark Kelly won by 2.4 points. 

Rising Youth Voter Participation

Young Arizonans have been breaking their own turnout records in recent years. That means more youth than ever are on the voter rolls, which presents opportunities for campaigns and organizations to reach more young voters and continue expanding the electorate. In the recent presidential elections, youth turnout increased by 18 percentage points, from 33% in 2016 to 51% in 2020, despite challenges to voting caused by the pandemic and Arizona’s vote-by-mail policy. Unlike other states, Arizona did not automatically send voters ballots or ballot request forms in the mail in 2020, instead requiring voters to join the state’s Permanent Early Vote List (PEVL) to receive a mail-in ballot. In 2018, youth turnout in Arizona was 26%, a 16-point increase from 2014 (10%).

In that most recent 2018 midterm, the share of all votes in the state cast by youth nearly doubled the 2014 youth share: rising from 6.3% in 2014, to 11.5% in 2018—and growing even further to 16.3% in 2020. This underscores that young people’s influence on Arizona elections, both in presidential and midterm years, is growing. This growth reflects both interest in political engagement from youth in the state, and investment from organizations in Arizona in registering and mobilizing youth. Those investments must continue and expand to reach more youth in 2022.

Restrictive Voting Policies Target a Young, Diverse Population

The youth electorate in Arizona is larger and more diverse than the national average. Latino youth make up 9% of the state’s entire voting-age population. Arizona also has the 7th largest Indigenous population in the country, and young Native Americans make up 1% of the voting age population.

When elections are close, those votes can be decisive. Indigenous communities in Arizona increased their voter turnout in 2020, casting ballots totaling over 5 times the margin of victory in the presidential race in the state. As with all youth in the state, outreach to these communities was and will continue to be critical, especially in order to help them overcome barriers to voting—some of which have intensified after the 2020 election.

Journalists and advocates have reported on various new and ongoing challenges to voting access in Arizona that disproportionately affect Latinos, Native Americans, and other communities of color. These include the shuttering of polling places (which have predominantly closed in Latino-heavy counties), limiting who can collect absentee ballots, and the invalidation of ballots cast at the wrong precincts, all of which place undue burden on Indigenous voters who often live far from locations to deliver ballots, and who are often placed in the wrong precinct because of a reliance on post office boxes as addresses on reservations.