I received some interesting responses to last week’s post where I showed some math on how few votes it could have swung control of the Arizona State Senate in the 2024 elections and noted that one of the Arizona political parties having proposed eliminating five popular choice programs may have helped Republicans expand their previous narrow majority. One response focused on a relative who voted for Kamala Harris for president but only voted for state legislative Republicans because her grandchildren participate in the Empowerment Scholarship Program. I had not even considered grandparents and relatives (other than parents) of students participating in choice programs, but they are indeed out there and are registered to vote.
Another response noted that the potential coalition against private choice was much larger than that in favor of private choice in Arizona, given that far more students attend school districts than participate in choice programs. The latter part of this is of course true, but I noted that both absolute and per pupil spending in Arizona school districts stands at or close to all-time highs, making it a fairly latent constituency. Notwithstanding a whole lot of windy rhetoric, no one is proposing to eliminate district schools in Arizona (or anywhere else).
Supporters of private choice programs, on the other hand, have watched as Gov. Katie Hobbs proposed eliminating the programs that they rely upon, making them more of an active constituency. I had a couple of readers inquire as to why I did not include charter school students and families. To my knowledge no one has proposed eliminating Arizona charter schools, so I view them as a mostly latent constituency, at least until someone is reckless enough to threaten their existence.
I put together the chart below based on a few different sources of information. Some numbers are from 2025; the tax credit numbers are from the state’s 2023 report. The tax credit donor numbers only count donations, rather than the number of members of the families who made the donation. There is certainly some double counting going on with the original and switcher credits, as many people claim both. The parent figure is an estimate that assumes 1.5 parents per ESA student in 2025 and does not consider the possibility of other relatives. The below list is by no means exhaustive, or even close to it. Also included are the number of swing votes each losing candidate would have needed to win in the swing Arizona Senate races.
Here goes:
By November 2026, these numbers are going to look even less forgiving than they do now. There are a whole lot of registered Democrats in those larger numbers. It might not be a great idea to give them an incentive to split their tickets to vote in their kids’ interests in legislative races.
By the way, did I mention that the margin of victory in Arizona’s 2022 governor’s race was 17,117 votes and, in the attorney general race, the margin was 280 votes?
