Election Day is two weeks from and all eyes are on swing states like Arizona as we head into this home stretch. In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by about 10,000 votes.
While a lot of attention has been given to the all-important Latino vote here, there are about 250,000 voting-age Black people in the state.
Adam Mahoney, a climate and environment reporter for Capital B, a national newsroom reporting on the Black community across the country, says how they will vote — or if they will vote — is not a given.
He first came to Arizona to report on the growing Black population last year and, this year, he came back to find out how they might impact this election. Mahoney joined The Show to discuss what he found.
Full conversation
ADAM MAHONEY: When we looked at Black political participation in Arizona compared to the other six swing states in this election cycle actually Black folks in Arizona have voted at a lower rate than every state except Wisconsin since the 2016 election and a lot of that which we found through interviews and talking to folks both everyday voters as well as like researchers and political experts, it’s the fact that a lot of folks who are moving to Arizona, they’re moving from states and places where they may have been disillusioned by the both local state and federal government for several reasons so you’re like kinda moving to Arizona as not necessarily a last resort but you have been pushed and pulled in so many different ways where you might not have the same level of trust with the electoral system because you felt like you’ve been let down and the places that you’ve come from.
GILGER: That’s really interesting. So it kind of gets at the reasons why many Black people have moved here in recent years and as you’ve reported in the past, the numbers have really really gone up fast in terms of the Black population in Arizona. It is still about five percent of the total population but many many more Black people are here and are expected to vote, right?
MAHONEY: Yeah, yeah definitely. I mean since 2010, well over 70,000 Black folks have just moved in just to like the Maricopa County area but that number is even larger for the state. And like you said you know the Black population is still relatively small but when we think about the ways that you know historically Black folks have been trying to move the needle in elections. Arizona does really seem like a place where if you did have you know those 70,000 folks voting and voting in a particular way, that would definitely shift the outcome of you know the state's electoral votes.
GILGER: Right, so let's talk about the difference then between the Black populations in you know cities like Chicago or New York or somewhere in the midwest or something like that as opposed to the black population here, it seems like there’s a question of the organization, the lack of community, lack of roots.
MAHONEY: Yeah, yeah definitely. I mean 100% that has been the issue that folks brought up to me in conversations. As you know compared to a place like Chicago or Detroit where there are historic Black communities where Black folks have been concentrated in the same neighborhoods for generations now you know they are operating under the same systems and similar understandings of the world around them.
It allows for a greater consensus in terms of like your preferences both politically and also when we’re thinking about building like community power right and then community organizations and you know the Phoenix Metro area in Arizona more. Broadly, it is a newer population right really the growth started maybe in the 1980’s and it has picked up in the last decade or so but folks here are not living in the same kind of ecosystems that they would be in other cities right. There’s not necessarily a singular Black neighborhood or Black community in the way that most cities operate under.
So it’s harder one for when people move in. They said it’s harder to find folks right into to be around other Black people and to understand maybe the issues and the ways that maybe different electoral issues are affecting Black life here. So that just makes it a little bit more difficult maybe to participate in the system if you’re not coming in with that understanding and you’re not a part of that community. That maybe has a unified voice and that’s not to say that all Black folks vote in a monolithic way but it just does make it a little bit harder to become politically active cause you have to go out of your way to figure out the mechanisms to go about that.
GILGER: And I want to ask you about that lack of monolithic voting in a moment, but one more question on this front first Adam. You talk about the lack of roots in the piece but you also talk about some folks who seem to think the fact that Black people here are not as maybe not as discriminated against not as exposed to the kind of levels of segregation they might have been in the cities they came from there’s almost less reason for them to organize or less community to push against.
MAHONEY: Yeah, yeah that is also something that came up. I mean when you look at the Black folks that are moving in and then just generally the people who are able to migrate across states are usually coming in at a higher social class, higher economic class, maybe the population of the folks who are longtime residents in cities and that’s definitely true for Black people moving in to Arizona and just more generally like Black folks the average income in Arizona is above average when we’re looking at across the country. And if you’re coming to a place where maybe you feel like you now have the resources that you’re lacking before, and you don’t want to kind of rock the boat that is also something that came up in conversations of being a reason why people might be less likely to participate.
GILGER: That’s really interesting. Okay, okay so let's talk about the voting patterns of the Black population here in recent elections. We mentioned right their participation might be lower than it is among the same populations in different states but we should not as you mentioned assume that Black voters are a monolith. How have they voted in Arizona in recent elections?
MAHONEY: Yeah, I mean overwhelmingly Black folks still vote Democrat in Arizona, but compared to other states, compared to you know other western states places like California, Black voters here do vote Republican at a higher rate and actually in the 2020 election, about half of Arizona’s Black voters were either identifying as Republican or Independent so that it does go in ways that maybe historically were not attuned to when we think about the Black vote. That’s not to say that it’s like you know a 50/50 split by any means but it does complicate the narrative of building like a unified “black political power” or a Black community because there are to a healthy extent there are differing opinions amongst folks in Arizona that from my reporting and in conversations you know don’t exist in the same way or as intensely in other states.
GILGER: Okay, so talk about issues a little bit for us Adam here. When you talk about many Black voters here in Arizona what did they say matters most to them?
MAHONEY: Yeah, there were several major issues that folks you know continuously brought up. One climate change, extreme heat, fears around drought and access to water. Another one was housing and that’s a really interesting one because that has actually been one of the biggest drivers of migration to Arizona right is that ability to you know purchase a home but in the last decade or so as there has been that influx of migration both in Black folks and folks of all, all races it has actually you know led to an increase in housing costs in addition to a lot of different private investors coming in and swooping up properties so there’s been fears around access to housing … in addition to reproductive rights, access to abortion and then another large one was fears around for families in particular. Fears around the public education system in a way that the you know the state voucher system has kinda up ended what folks know in Arizona is public education in a way that is funded.
GILGER: So, the big question then I guess to end with and obviously you don’t have a crystal ball here but how do you think the Black population this much larger than it used to be Black population here in Arizona might influence this upcoming election as you mention we are an all important swing state.
MAHONEY: Yeah, I mean if the vote, if everyone came out to vote, the Black vote would be of singular importance but based off of conversations you know I talked to a lot of folks who just are not necessarily for several reasons not necessarily excited or maybe fully interested in voting in this upcoming election and without that full participation it might not have as much sway as Black folks could in the state of Arizona.
GILGER: Yeah, alright. We will leave it there for now. Adam Mahoney Climate and Environmental Reporter for Capital B Joining us. Adam, thanks for coming on, thanks for your reporting on this. I appreciate it.
MAHONEY: Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks for having me.
