From left are Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Party and Raquel Terán, chair of the Arizona Democratic Party. /Ward photo by Randy Hoeft/Yuma Sun via AP and Teran photo by Gage Skidmore
By Dillon Rosenblatt | Arizona Capitol Times
In a state that has turned from red to purple, Arizona’s Republican and Democratic parties continue to push away from the center – one opens the door for more voices to be heard and the other shuts out those who disagree.
It was easy to predict who would win each party chair on January 23 — Raquel Terán for the Democrats and Kelli Ward for the Republicans — but what wasn’t as expected was what those margins of victory would be.
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Terán, a Latina state representative in west Phoenix, got her political upbringing in the post-SB1070 movement. She’s a progressive through and through, but told Arizona Capitol Times she will make sure that whether a Democrat is progressive or moderate, they will have the same access to party resources, helping more members pick up seats like the party did in 2018 and 2020.
Democrats won several legislative seats in 2018, and four statewide races including the first U.S. Senate seat in roughly 30 years. In 2020, while less successful, Democrats picked up one seat in the state Senate, the other U.S. Senate seat and also handed its electoral votes to a Democrat for the first time in 24 years.
