New party chair Charlene Fernandez says Arizona Democrats can win despite registration declines

Arizona Democrats have elected a new party chair — again.

In January, Democrats elected Robert Branscomb to replace Yolanda Bejarano as head of the state party. But six months later, members voted to oust Branscomb amid party infighting and controversies over fundraising and other issues.

This past weekend, Democrats elected former state House Minority Leader Charlene Fernandez the new party chair. She won with 58% of the vote over four other candidates. She takes over a party that is losing ground in terms of voter registration and had a disappointing showing in the 2024 election.

Fernandez came by KJZZ’s studios earlier this week. The Show asked her about those voter registration numbers showing people leaving the Democratic Party — and what she plans to do about that.

Full conversation

CHARLENE FERNANDEZ: Well, I think some are leaving to be independent, to the independent party. And I think we have to tell that story about who we are. We have forgotten to tell the story of the Affordable Care Act. Over 44 million Americans are on the Affordable Care Act right now. That was a Democrat that put that into place.

We have to tell those stories. That’s what Democrats do. Think about Social Security. How many million Americans are on Social Security?

Kim Garcia

MARK BRODIE: ... Is the question then the message or maybe the messenger? Because you talked about the Affordable Care Act. That’s been in effect for a while now. I mean, Social Security decades before that. And President Biden thought that he could win reelection based on some of the initiatives that he championed and got through Congress during his term.

And that didn’t work. And even with the Affordable Care Act there, people are leaving the Democratic Party in higher numbers than they are leaving the Republican Party. So ... what’s the disconnect there?

FERNANDEZ: You have to constantly remind them. And I think for a lot of young individuals, they don’t think that applies to them. We need to talk to them about home ownership, the fact that many of them are getting out of college saddled in debt. What can we do about that? So we need to start reminding kids that we’ve done it before and will do it again.

BRODIE: What is an Arizona Democrat right now? And I ask because there’s been so much talk about the brand of Democrats — not just in Arizona but nationally — not being all that great, right? That people don’t have necessarily a great perception of the Democratic Party. So how do you define a Democrat in Arizona?

FERNANDEZ: Well, we’re all over. We are so independent and diverse. You go into my area, Yuma County, very, very ag oriented. So water is real important. So we see a lot of Democrats in that area that wear the boots and the bolo tie and are working out there making sure that water gets to the lettuce — and that it’s cultivated. We have to make sure that the workforce is there.

And then you come up to Phoenix. That’s a whole different ballgame about what Democrats look like and what they need and what their priorities are. So our messaging has to reach a diverse group of people. And I’m sure this is for the Republican Party, too. But our messaging has to match what our Democrats look like.

BRODIE: So do you think that in the past then — maybe the recent past — that messaging just hasn’t been there?

FERNANDEZ: I think we took it for granted that everyone knew. I was with the Biden administration for three years, and we did unbelievable things. If I named some of them, you’d probably say, “What?” So I think we have forgotten to share that story.

BRODIE: I’m curious about your perception of sort of the factions within the Democratic Party — not just in Arizona, of course, because we’ve seen this nationally as well. But sort of the more progressive left wing side versus the more centrist, moderate side. How do you try to bring everybody together? Especially right now when there’s so much debate over what the response should be from Democrats to the Trump administration and some of the things that they’re doing.

FERNANDEZ: Absolutely. I know that’s a problem. The thing is, we’ve never been in lockstep. As long as I have been a Democrat, we’ve been freethinkers. And maybe that’s our downfall. Maybe that’s why our registration is going down. Because we don’t walk in lockstep. We don’t think in lockstep.

I find it an advantage. You know that I was a minority leader at the Arizona State Legislature. It was 15-14. We had the largest Democratic caucus in years — 29 of us. But every day it was 15-14, 15-14. Very different areas all of us were representing. But when it was important, we came together.

So I’m hoping I can bring that same idea to the Arizona Democrats, that we can argue, we can fight, we can have different ideas. I love that we have left, and we have the ones that are not so progressive. I love it. But we have to come together when it’s important for the people of Arizona.

BRODIE: So how do you try to figure out when it is important enough to do that? And how then do you try to convince the different groups of Democrats, “Guys, this is important. We need to rally around this”?

FERNANDEZ: Well, let’s take again the Legislature. I feel that’s what I know. Right now, we’re very close to being in the majority. Not as close as we were when I was there, but we’re pretty close.

And I think we can take the majority. And it’s that’s going to be important. That’s going to be critical. We could change the face of Arizona if we took the majority.

So I think when we start talking about what can happen when we come together, we’ll make great strides.

BRODIE: There’s been a lot of reporting over the past few months about the state of the finances of the Democratic Party. I’m curious how you’re finding them and how you’re planning to try to build them up.

FERNANDEZ: It’s all doable. We had a few months where there wasn’t any fundraising. We’re back on track. We had a successful function just last Friday, not even a week. And it was packed. We know people are coming back. We’re hearing from them. Yeah, we’re in a good place.

BRODIE: What are the challenges you’re facing sort of coming in midstream? I mean, we’re less than a year away from the primaries for the midterms and just a little more than a year away from the general election. And here you are, just days on the job. That seems like an awful lot to try to take in all at once and get up to speed very quickly.

FERNANDEZ: You know, it is tough. The exciting part, Mark, is whatever we do, any small thing we do, we’ll be able to quantify and say, “We didn’t have this before, and now this is where we’re at.”

So I think we have to look at it in the positive. I’m really excited to be here. I keep telling the staff that this is campaign work on steroids. We’re just looking at November 2026. We’ve got our marching orders. We’ve got to make sure that our governor is elected on election night, that our attorney general is elected on election night, our secretary of state is elected on election night. And every other one of the Democrats are elected.

We’re going to run someone in every single legislative district in the state. It’s a reason for Democrats to come out. So we want to make sure we get homegrown people to run for the Legislature and get Democrats out to vote.

BRODIE: How much do you think the Democrats’ messaging should be — as you were discussing before — things like the Affordable Care Act, other policies that Democrats have put in place that people generally seem to like, and how much of the message should be “we’re not Trump”?

FERNANDEZ: Probably both. You know, 50-50. We’re not Trump. We’re able to go out into these rural communities and make sure that we’re getting messages there to talk about what they had before Trump came in. And I know what they had. I was rural development state director. I know what was happening in these rural communities, and now it’s not happening. So we can talk about that.

But, no. And don’t think we’re going to lay back. We are going to fight this tooth and nail. We are going to fight to win. This is not going to be easy. By no means is this going to be easy. I think we can talk about the great things we’ve done and we could do once we get back in two, in four years when we get back in the white House, three years.

And what can happen if we take over the Legislature and we send at least two more Democrats from Arizona to the U.S. Congress. We need to put those guardrails up. We do not want anyone touching our Social Security. We do not want anyone touching our Medicare or Medicaid or the Department of Education. We want to make sure that when we need immunizations for our children and for our elderly, that they’re there.

So I want to make sure that we talk about those things. Maybe I haven’t said “Trump,” but I’m telling you: We’re going to fight it tooth and nail.