Following months of infighting and controversy, Arizona Democrats voted Wednesday evening to oust the state party’s chair.
By a margin of 89%, Democratic Party members from across the state elected to remove Robert Branscomb a mere six months after he won a landslide victory to lead the party.
According to the party bylaws, it took a two-thirds majority of all the state’s Democratic committeemen to oust Branscomb, who’s been mired in controversy since assuming office in January.
At Wednesday's meeting, 476 of 532 Democrats who attended the meeting voted to oust Branscomb, narrowly clearing the minimum votes needed: 468.
Branscomb addressed the party members on Wednesday and urged his fellow Democrats not to tear the party apart from within
“Over the past several months, there's been a lot of noise, misrepresentation, cherry-picked narratives, talking points designed not to build the party, but to tear it down. But here's the truth: I didn't walk into a perfect situation when I became chair. I stepped into a party without a strategic plan, internal structures and disarray and with years of unsigned, unsolved tension under the surface. Have mistakes been made? Yes, but I didn't run from it,” he said.
Branscomb went on to defend the work he’s done and noted that fundraising issues aren’t unique to Arizona.
“Let's be clear: Today's recall effort is rooted in misrepresentation, divisive tactics and do not reflect our Democratic values. This effort is not about strength of the party. It's about distraction and dividing us at a time when unity is more important than ever,” he said.
The party’s first vice chair, Kimberly Khoury, will serve as interim chair for now. Democrats could vote to elect another new chair as soon as September.
The meeting took the better part of four hours and was drawn out by technical issues, including many state Democratic committeemen having difficulty casting their votes.
“With all the confusion for all of these hours, we all sat here on this call in good faith, and then we heard a motion to allow people to vote up until this moment, and then it was taken away, and it went back and forth. I am so lost as to what we are here to do. This is supposed to be a family. We are supposed to be fighting against fascism and the policies and practices that are out here harming our community, our neighbors, our family,” Rep. Quantá Crews (D-Phoenix) said in the meeting. “With this meeting, as chaotic as it was, is unacceptable. I don't feel that Robert’s Rules of Order was followed. I don't feel like folks’ voices were heard,” she said.
Branscomb first took the reins of the state party in January. He won a landslide victory over former chair Yolanda Bejarano, who led the party during a devastating 2024 election that saw Democrats lose key races up and down the ballot.
The party also ousted former treasurer Rick McGuire amid allegations of self-dealing in their January meeting.
Branscomb’s victory came as a surprise — despite a poor showing in the previous election, Bejarano still had the support of top elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly and Gov. Katie Hobbs.
At the time of his election, Branscomb pledged to increase transparency and forge a new path for the party. But his time as leader quickly spiraled into chaos, culminating in a letter — sent by Branscomb in April to every member of the state Democratic Party — claiming he’d faced obstruction and backstabbing ever since taking office. The letter included accusations that Kelly threatened to withhold his support for the state party, and that a Kelly staffer had made racist remarks regarding Branscomb, an African American, by remarking that Branscomb’s victory was about “Black folks coming after Latinos.”
Kelly and other top Democrats — Hobbs, Sen. Ruben Gallego, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Attorney General Kris Mayes — denied those accusations in their own letter asserting Branscomb had lost their trust and should step down.
“We’ve spent the last several months meeting regularly with the chair and working to support the party through the transition,” they wrote in April. “Unfortunately, his statement today includes many false claims and is the kind of bad-faith response we’ve come to expect from the new leadership over the last several weeks.”
Other party leaders echoed those concerns in a May letter — signed by 10 of the 15 county Democratic Party chairs — accusing Branscomb of lacking a strategy for the 2026 midterm elections.
By then, some Democrats had had enough of Branscomb’s time as chair. Steven Jackson, the chair of the Legislative District 8 Democrats, submitted a petition to oust Branscomb on May 5.
At the time, Jackson told KJZZ the party needed a chair they could trust.
“I think it has to be a chair that they can work with and who they can trust to manage the money of the party effectively and not destroy relationships around the state,” Jackson said.
Money had also become a key source of concern under Branscomb. At a party gathering in June, the Democrats’ treasurer said the state party was on track to run out of money by the end of the year.
At that same meeting, Democrats changed the party’s bylaws to restrict Branscomb’s authority as chair. That included changes requiring that the chair seek the “advice and consent” of the party’s executive board before submitting an annual budget, assigning duties to the party’s vice chairpersons or hiring an executive director.
The party’s finances grew so dire that top Democrats like Hobbs and Mayes took the unorthodox step of circumventing the state party and instead coordinating fundraising efforts through the Navajo County Democratic Committee.
Still, there are those who’ve defended Branscomb — in May, a coalition of Black leaders from across the state, including Democratic faith leaders and current and former elected officials, issued their own letter defending his time as chair.
Branscomb’s leadership, they wrote, presented an opportunity for the Democratic Party “to engage communities that have too often been marginalized and to deliver real change for working families, young voters, and communities of color.”
All the infighting led to Wednesday’s vote, which itself wasn’t without controversy.
As chair, Branscomb initially scheduled the vote on his fate on the afternoon of June 28, at the same time as the Maricopa County Democratic Party’s convention, leading to allegations that he was trying to drive down turnout for the vote.
The vote was later rescheduled for Wednesday.
KJZZ's Wayne Schutsky contributed to this report.
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