WASHINGTON. — President-elect Joe Biden won the close race in Arizona on Thursday, a victory that, except for 1996, had not won a Democratic presidential candidate in a Republican stronghold in more than half a century.
Behind that triumph, achieved with the mobilization of minorities, are also Mexican Americans Marcos Cline, Rodrigo Aguilar, and Juan Massey.
With just a difference of 11,000 votes - or 0.3% -, Biden won the 11 votes of the Electoral College in Arizona, thus burying the aspirations of President Donald Trump's re-election, according to Noticias Telemundo projects.
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For now, Biden has 290 Electoral College votes, 20 more than it takes to win the presidency.
If he wins in Georgia, where he maintains the lead, he would rise to 306.
Cline, Aguilar, and Massey knew that the task of dyeing the state blue, passing it to the Democratic column, was not going to be easy but, in a telephone interview with Noticias Telemundo, they explained this Friday that their fixed idea was to take advantage of the rejection of Trump among minorities.
Emerson Gorman (left), a Navajo leader in Arizona, poses with his family in front of his property near the Navajo Nation town of Steamboat on May 23, 2020. Gorman, 66, reflects on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in your community.
(Photo by Mark RALSTON / AFP) (Photo by MARK RALSTON / AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images
“In past elections,
Democrats lost by not going out to vote
;
So, instead of trying to change well-established opinions, it seemed smarter to launch a campaign to mobilize the vote, "said Cline, Hollywood producer and founder of the Altered LA company.
“I think several things happened here: a lot of frustration over Trump's attacks on the [late] Senator John McCain, demographic changes in Arizona, and the enormous mobilization of Hispanics and Native Americans, who tend to vote less;
without that mobilization, Trump would have won ”
, he emphasized.
[Biden wins Arizona and makes a blue turn to that key state that traditionally votes Republican]
The perfect storm was created in Arizona: The COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession have hit Hispanics and Native American tribes hard.
And voter intimidation by Trump supporters made headlines in the days leading up to the election.
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Although Native Americans make up about 6% of the population in Arizona, numbering nearly 425,000, their vote catapulted Biden into the tight race,
with 60-90% support in most constituencies.
Hispanics, who represent 29% of the population and 23.6% of the state electorate, also tipped the balance toward the Democratic candidate, in a contest that served as a referendum on the Trump presidency.
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Native Americans did not forget or condone Trump's custom of baptizing his enemies and detractors with pejorative nicknames, as he did with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, whom he often calls "Pocahontas."
Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation, which spans 27,000 square miles in the southwestern United States, between northern Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, noted that many of the 22 tribes overwhelmingly supported the Biden-Harris binomial because “ they wanted to cast their vote for the change ”.
Massey, a partner at consulting firm McCabe CPA & Consulting Group, noted that
tribes have for decades faced social marginalization
due to complex structural problems, and this has contributed to their "disillusionment" with the electoral process.
"The arrival of Trump to power
opened the eyes of many people
in these communities," he added, "the Trump Administration revoked the reservation status of the Wampanoag [in Massachusetts], something that had not happened with a tribe since the 1950s. , and that put the others on alert ”.
"To that you have to add the enormous health and nutritional problems that these tribes register, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic," he added.
The group surveyed members of the Navajo tribe - the largest indigenous reservation in the country - and their unique adventure, with the group of Native American Democrats of Northeast Arizona, led them to the production of a score of advertisements with patriotic slogans and messages of artists and celebrities.
“With Marcos and Juan we wanted to mobilize consciences through these advertising messages, so that people would go out to vote despite the fear of the pandemic.
We put this together very quickly but we were always clear that we had to focus on these communities, "said Aguilar, founder of the North American Project company.
"We are very happy with the results in Arizona, and now that we saw that we worked very well, that we achieved it in record time, we are going to do more things where we find a common cause," he promised.
Some of the announcements featured Nez and State Senator Jamescita Peslakai, who encouraged Native Americans to vote in honor of their ancestors, with the idea that they could
"liberate Arizona
.
"
The commercials were broadcast by Chicano filmmaker and activist Salomón Baldenegro, who, like Massey, is married to a Navajo.
The ad campaign paid off: in 2016 Trump won in Arizona by a 90,000-vote margin over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
This year, Hispanics and indigenous groups made the difference between the 49.41% that Biden got, and the 49.07% that Trump got.
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Trump supporters demonstrate outside the state capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, on November 7, 2020. in Phoenix.
Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump, but he is in a lengthy legal battle to challenge the results. (AP Photo / Ross D. Franklin) AP
Lawyer Myrna Pérez, director of the voting rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice, explained in a telephone interview that Trump would lose the lawsuits he filed against the result in Arizona, because they have no basis and are, in his opinion, a “ delaying and diversionary tactic ”.
Trump “is clogging the courts with frivolous lawsuits, and they are going nowhere, because no serious expert gives them credit.
The courts require evidence "not just guesswork, Pérez said.
Trump's campaign team on Friday dismissed his lawsuit before the courts to demand the counting of the votes, estimating that the difference is too great to redeem.