Report shows Arizona's newly naturalized voters could play key role in midterms
A new report released this week highlights the “outsized role” that newly naturalized voters could play in Arizona, a key swing state.
A new report released this week highlights the “outsized role” that newly naturalized voters could play in Arizona, a key swing state that some have called an epicenter of the fight for voting rights.
Between 2016 and 2020, Arizona became home to almost 64,000 new U.S. citizens, according to the report compiled by several voter advocacy, labor and immigration groups.
That number is more than six times larger, according to the report, than Arizona’s margin in the 2020 presidential election, which handed the state to Joe Biden with an edge of just over 10,000 votes.
Amid a race for governor that includes a Trump-backed candidate who still denies the validity of those results, and a competitive Senate contest that could play a major role in determining the balance of power in Congress come November, the research identifies Arizona as one of the states in which the voting behaviors of new citizens could have the biggest impact.
Researchers from a number of advocacy organizations ranked the “political importance” of states using the number of newly naturalized citizens, the average presidential election margins in the three most recent elections, and the presence of competitive Senate and gubernatorial races, among other metrics.
Rating: 5