Draft language, not yet approved
The three definitions on this page are a starting draft written to be argued with. They have not been reviewed or approved. Send edits and they will be replaced wholesale.
Every race on the Arizona ballot is a different kind of problem. Some seats are ours to lose. Some are within reach for the first time in years. Some are steep climbs that still have to be climbed. Treating all of them the same way wastes the one thing volunteers never have enough of, which is time.
So the guide sorts all thirty-one state and federal races, plus the Save Our Schools initiative, into three groups. Here is what each one means.
Category one
Hold the Line
Seats currently held by someone who has voted the way this coalition needs them to vote, now facing a real challenge. Nothing new is won here. What is at stake is whether ground already taken stays taken.
These races get overlooked precisely because they feel settled. An incumbent's name on a ballot reads like a safe bet, and safe bets are how seats get lost by four hundred votes. If you do one thing in a Hold race, it is showing up yourself and making sure three people you know do the same.
Category two
Seize New Ground
Seats currently held by the other side that are genuinely winnable this cycle. Not aspirationally winnable. Winnable on the actual numbers, based on how the district has moved and how thin the last margin was.
This is where volunteer hours convert into outcomes at the highest rate on the whole ballot. A few thousand votes decides these. That is a number a determined local organization can produce.
Category three
Fight Like Hell
Races that are hard. Some are long shots on paper. They are on this guide anyway, and not out of stubbornness.
An uncontested race is a free win, and free wins let the other side move money into the races that are close. Contesting everywhere forces spending everywhere. It also builds something that outlasts one November: a candidate who has run before, a volunteer list that exists, a precinct that has been knocked. Districts do not flip in one cycle. They flip because somebody ran and lost first.
And there is a simpler reason. No Arizonan should open a ballot and find only one name to choose from.
How races get sorted
Four things, roughly in this order: the margin in the last two cycles, how voter registration in the district has actually shifted, whether the seat is open or has an incumbent defending it, and whether there is a real campaign on the ground with staff and a plan.
Reasonable people put some of these races in different buckets. The categories are a tool for deciding where your Saturday goes, not a verdict.
What is coming September 15
All thirty-one races, sorted into these three groups, with a recommendation for each one and a short explanation of why. Where a race elects two people, you get two names. Plus the Save Our Schools initiative.
Until then, the only thing that matters is that you can vote at all.