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How progressive is Tucson?

by on Apr. 11, 2011, under Arizona, Arizona Legislature, Democratic Party, Progressive Democrats of America, Tucson

PDA

How progressive is Tucson? Yes, it is general knowledge that Pima County is one tiny blue spot in a sea of blood red, but just how liberal are we?

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) started a Tucson Chapter in February. According to PDA leader Phil Lopes, since then PDA’s mailing list has grown to more than 800 Southern Arizonans. As with all mailing lists, they have e-mails and/or street addresses for most of the people who volunteered to receive information about the fledgling organization. Looking at the local PDA members with street addresses in their database, PDA plotted their membership by Legislative District (above) and Congressional District (below).

This map shows where the above Legislative districts are located. LD28– the district with the most PDA members (209)– is Tucson proper; pieces of 26, 27, 29, and 30 are also within the city limits. Yes, this is totally unscientific data, but it does give us a glimpse of Tucson’s progressive leanings.

We see our Democratic Party leaders sidling up to the right, but is this a good strategy? If PDA continues to gain steam statewide, I would venture to say, no! Purely conjecture here, but I can’t help wondering if the dismal turnout at the LD28 Democratic Party meeting last Wednesday (~25 people) is related to LD28′s strong presence in PDA. Pima Dems– take note. Maybe cozying up to the Southern Arizona Leadership Council isn’t such a good idea.

PDA

Raul Grijalva represents CD7. Gabrielle Giffords represents CD8.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 11th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Arizona, Arizona Legislature, Democratic Party, Progressive Democrats of America, Tucson. Tags for this post: , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • jim hannley

    Well done. Your point regarding the wisdom of the Democrats’ lurch to the right under the leadership of Cherny and Rogers is well taken. People do “vote with their feet” oftentimes. This will take the form of staying away from meetings when they disapprove of the agenda.

    • Pamela Powers

      The Democratic Party Statewide Committee Meeting and the Progressive Caucus Meeting on Saturday should be interesting. :)

  • Carolyn Classen

    Not sure the 3 Democratic legislators in LD 29 would agree with the top graph.

    • Pamela Powers

      This is the data from the PDA database. The numbers will change as the group reaches out. Maybe the LD29 bar will grow or maybe the LD29 Democrats are as disgruntled with the party as some others are? There was a very good turnout last night at Drinking Liberally to hear Phil Lopes of PDA.

  • http://eldonpslickartwork.homestead.com/home.html Flora Pena

    Yikes!  It must be the water or excessive exposure to the sun that results in such a great deal of ALBD (Advanced Liberal Brain Disease)  in Pima county.   Our Kenyan president sure dosen’t do much to help.  LA Times story:    http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,2687256.story

  • Don

    These numbers don’t bode well for the fantasy…er, nascent state of Baja Arizona. 

    Assuming that the residents of the new, um, state will secede voluntarily—those numbers in the first chart make me doubt that many residents in LDs 25, 29 and 30 will follow the secessionist fireaters of LDs 26-28 into this new Hacky-Sack Shangri-La.

    Will Baja Arizona be the first state to be enclosed completely within another?

  • http://www.facebook.com/pages/Three-Sonorans/144198198931412 Three Sonorans

    I saw the graph on something else, clicked on it and it got me here… guess graphs do attract more visitors!

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The Tucson Progressive

Pamela Powers Hannley writes the Tucson Progressive blog on the TucsonCitizen.com and contributes articles to the Huffington Post and Salon.com. She has had more than 30 years of experience in written, visual, and electronic communication—including freelance writing, photography, graphic design, and consulting. In addition to blogging for the Citizen, she is the Managing Editor of an international medical research journal.

Hannley has authored medical research articles, print magazine and newspaper stories, and numerous cancer prevention and self-help publications.

She has been a blogger since 2006, joined the ranks of Tucson Citizen bloggers in October 2010, and started contributing to the Huffington Post in 2011 and to Salon.com in 2012.

Hannley holds a masters’ degree in public health from The University of Arizona and a bachelors’ degree in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a native of Amherst, Ohio but has lived in Tucson since 1981.