WORKER POWER Impact Report 2024
Dear Friends,
While the 2024 election outcomes brought challenges for working communities in Arizona and across the U.S., we at Worker Power are incredibly proud of our electoral and organizing work last year.
At the heart of our 2024 work was building leadership, worker organizing, expanding the electorate, and advancing corporate accountability. Our unique power-building model–partnering with social-movement labor unions to conduct mutually reinforcing worker organizing, electoral, and policy campaigns—enabled us to generate unprecedented victories for working people in Arizona and elsewhere.
On the electoral front, Worker Power’s independent expenditure program mobilized over 600 canvassers to organize thousands of working people—especially young voters and members of communities of color—to fight for policies we urgently need: quality education and health care, affordable housing, environmental action, and reproductive freedom.
To deliver our wins, Worker Power’s canvassers knocked on 1.3 million doors in Arizona and 150,000 in California, contributing to key victories such as passing the Arizona Abortion Access Initiative and defeating a number of anti-democracy and antiworker propositions placed on the ballot by the legislature. We had over 300,000 conversations with 250,000 voters, helping to elect Ruben Gallego to the U.S. Senate, collecting victories in Arizona’s contested Legislative Districts 2 and 17, and delivering the critical margin of victory in California’s Congressional District-45, CA-47 and in CA13. Locally, we achieved historic progress by electing Lupe Conchas to the Glendale City Council (where he will serve as that City’s first LGBTQ City Council member), and strengthening Phoenix’s progressive leadership through the election of Anna Hernandez and the re-election of Betty Guardado to the City Council.
These electoral victories reflect nearly two decades of leadership development, fighting for worker’s rights, voter engagement, and deep coalition-building. The road ahead will be tough, but the power of working people—organized and united—can meet it.
We are deeply grateful to every team member, volunteer, partner, and supporter who helped power this work. Together, we’re building a movement that lays the groundwork for even greater progressive victories in 2026 and 2028—and we’re just
Susan Minato
Worker Power Board Chair
Co-President,
Unite Here Local 11
Campaign by the Numbers
1.45 million Doors Knocked in AZ and CA
300,000 In-Person Conversations
700,000 Phone Calls to Voters
750,000 Text Messages to Voters
250,000 Individual Voters
600+ Canvassers
Outcomes: Federal Races
Arizona
We spoke to
90,221 voters in Congressional Districts 1 & 6
In Arizona, we knocked on 1.3 million doors, speaking to 252,000 voters across 400 precincts; 47% of voters in our universe were affiliated with the Democratic Party, 2% were Republican, and 51% were not affiliated with either party. Of those contacts, roughly 35% were in Congressional Districts 1 and 6, laying the groundwork for future electoral fights.
We helped elect Ruben Gallego to the U.S. Senate, the first Latino ever elected to the U.S. Senate in Arizona. Gallego has consistently and publicly maintained policy stances in line with the values of Worker Power and we expect him to be a true champion for working people in the Senate.
California
In California’s Orange County, our field canvass generated more than 163,000 door knocks and 29,5000 conversations in California Congressional Districts 45 and 47. Our efforts helped deliver the margin of victory in these races.
These wins signify a historic shift in California’s conservative-leaning Orange County, strengthening Democratic representation, advancing progressive policies, and highlighting the region’s growing political and demographic diversity.
Outcomes: Arizona Races
1,300,000 Doors Knocked in Arizona
262,000 Conversations with Arizona Voters
212,000 Individual Arizona Voters
Senate
House of Representatives
State Legislature Ballot Initiatives
With regard to state ballot initiatives and referenda, we spoke to more than 160,000 voters on the need to pass the Arizona Abortion Access Initiative and to defeat half a dozen anti-democracy and anti-worker propositions referred to the ballot by the legislature. We won the Abortion Access Initiative and also defeated nearly all of the referenda, which included a measure that would have killed the citizen’s ballot initiative process in Arizona, as well as effectively lowered the tipped minimum wage in Arizona. Unfortunately, the anti-immigrant Proposition 314 passed, but we and our partner organizations will fight the implementation of that proposition in the courts and on the ground.
By engaging voters early in the year through our partisan voter registration efforts, specifically in Legislative Districts 2 and 4, we increased voter engagement. We also strengthened our longterm presence in these communities. A victory for Kevin Volk marks a shift in a district that was entirely controlled by Republicans in 2022, signaling growing competitiveness and potential for further Democratic gains in the future.
Brian Fernandez LD 23
Stephanie Simacek LD 2
Kevin Volk LD 17
Mariana Sandoval LD 23
Outcomes: Local Races
Glendale
At the municipal level, we were the main force behind electing Lupe Conchas, the first LGBTQ member of the City Council in Glendale, Arizona, taking out a 20-year conservative incumbent in the process.
Phoenix
Also, we moved a step closer to retaking progressive political power in Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the U.S., with our independent effort to elect to Phoenix City Council former State Senator Anna Hernandez, a fierce advocate for women’s rights, organizing rights for workers, and police reform and reelect
Councilmember Betty Guardado, a steadfast champion for workers’ rights, affordable housing, and public safety reform to Phoenix City Council.
Leadership Development
To build lasting power, we invested heavily in leadership development and grassroots infrastructure. Through Worker Power’s Leadership School and field programs, we hired and trained 602 canvassers—59% BIPOC and one-third under 35—to anchor our voter engagement efforts. Our second Leadership School faculty delivered 150 hours of classroom and field instruction to 24 organizers who led field operations across hundreds of precincts.
Expansion of the Electorate
Our voter education and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) operation prioritized face-to-face conversations to increase turnout among potentially progressive voters of all vote propensities, regardless of party affiliation. As in each election cycle, our canvass work focused on turnout among our traditional base of young voters, low-income voters and voters of color. In 2024, however, our canvass expanded to largely-white suburban areas in swing legislative and congressional districts, where both increased turnout and persuasion are necessary for success. We invited every voter we spoke to—in person, by phone, or by text— to join our email and text lists to stay active with us in order to grow durable political power beyond a single election cycle.
Our Strategy
Partisan Voter Registration
Our Strategy
Our partisan voter registration drive added 6,552 new voters among young people and communities of color in Arizona’s battleground Congressional Districts 1 and 6, strengthening the long-term political base for working people.
Technical Capacity Building
Worker Power partnered with renowned computer scientist John Underkoffler to expand and refine a next-generation analysis and visualization software and display room known as the Vehicle in 2024. Designed to strengthen our ability to plan campaigns and clearly communicate strategy, the Vehicle allows users to interact with electoral districts down to the precinct level, instantly accessing and contrasting layers of historical election results, demographic trends, and voter contact history—analyses that would otherwise take weeks and be difficult to visualize. In 2024, our team focused on expanding the Vehicle to include electoral data in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, dating back to 2018, and in California’s conservative-leaning Orange County. The data visualized through the Vehicle played a pivotal role in shaping our strategic field organizing sessions and directly informed the training of canvass leads throughout the 2024 election cycle.
Our Impact in Arizona
For the 2024 election, Worker Power shared our voter-contact universe with the rest of the coalition convened by America Votes, a national organization that coordinates independent expenditure voter-contact coalitions to win statewide elections in battleground states across the country.
Compared to similar voters in that universe who Worker Power canvassers did not contact—including both uncontacted voters
Low and Mid-Propensity Voters
Worker Power made the largest difference among low and mid-propensity voters aged 18-34.
33,210 of the voters we identified as supporters were low to mid-propensity. These voters voted at a rate of 28.5% and 61.8%, respectively.
Compared to overall rates across Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal Counties, this was an increase of 14% for low-propensity voters and 11.9% for midpropensity voters.
+11.9% +14%
Black and Latino Voters
+19.4% +18.3%
Black voters we identified as supporters were 19.4% more likely to vote than Black voters overall in the target universe. Latino voters we identified as supporters were 18.3% more likely to vote than Latino voters overall in the target universe.
Impact on New Voters
Perhaps most noteworthy, half of eligible voters we spoke to who did not vote in 2018, 2020, or 2022 did vote in 2024— a turnout rate almost 20% higher than the statewide turnout rate.
20%
WORKER POWERPeople
To achieve our goals, Worker Power hired, educated, and trained 602 paid staff as well as dozens of volunteers who collectively completed 17,810 shifts during the election season. Of those paid staff, 111 were leadership, data, administrative, and support staff to execute our electoral campaign.
Over 100 of our team members were union members and organizers of the hospitality workers’ union, UNITE HERE, from locals across the country. The rest were community members, students, and volunteers. Of the team members we hired, 59% identified as BIPOC, over one-third were under 35, and 20% were over 50.
David Bonilla Field Organizer
Transforming young rank-and-file workers into movement leaders is essential for the growth of our movement. One standout example at Worker Power is David Bonilla, a 21-year-old Canvass Team Lead who graduated from Worker Power’s Leadership School in August 2024.
David says his personal drive for justice and collective action comes from his mother, an airport worker and member of the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 99, and from living through the deportation of his own father figure during the Arpaio era.
Despite challenges—including canvassing in 115°F heat and threats from armed, raciallymotivated individuals—David quickly emerged as a leader, participating in Worker Power’s voter engagement efforts.
When promoted to Canvass Lead overseeing 15 canvassers, David didn’t yet know how to drive. He practiced every morning and night and earned his license just in time to lead his team at the height of the campaign.
Currently, David is working for UNITE HERE Local 11 and helping nonunion airport and event center workers organize into their union and negotiate their first contracts, using the skills and confidence he gained through Worker Power’s leadership programs. He is part of a broader effort that has already demonstrated powerful results.
Sigrid Bantleon
Field Organizer
Growing up in a military family, Sigrid Bantleon lived in five different cities in the U.S. and abroad before she was 12. This nomadic upbringing cultivated a profound passion for travel, but it also created a challenge.
Sigrid financed her extensive travels through shortterm jobs in restaurant management and school administration.
With no recent rental history, Sigrid struggled with a lot of discrimination when trying to rent an apartment. She found herself homeless, sleeping on friends’ couches while she looked for a place to live. Luckily, a local Catholic Church had an opening for a temporary place and Sigrid lived there until she got back on her feet.
Grateful for the help she was given, Sigrid wanted to give back to the community. In 2022, Sigrid satisfied that desire when she joined the canvassing team of UNITE HERE Local 11, who were working to elect one of their own members, former hotel bellman Hugo Soto Martinez to the Los Angeles City Council. Following this victory, Sigrid was invited to attend the Worker Power Leadership School. She went on to become a Canvass Lead in Georgia in 2022, running a team of canvassers to turn out low-propensity African American voters for elections that will affect their lives, and helping win the Senate runoff election there.
After participating in the 2022 elections as a Field Team Lead with Worker Power, Sigrid joined Worker Power’s permanent organizing staff and soon earned her promotion to a leadership position leading the expansion of our voter registration efforts to southern Arizona.
Looking
Worker Power’s analysis of the 2024 general election clearly reveals two problems for our movement: the Democratic Party has lost massive support among the very voters who should be its base; and the kind of short-term independent-expenditure electoral campaigns we have run with some success over the last two years were insufficient to overcome that development this last cycle.
We also know that the Trump administration is doing everything it can to transfer power and control of wealth and natural resources to corporations at the expense of working people. However, we remain
Ahead
steadfast in our belief in the strength of working people and the power of organizing—as labor and community—to resist those efforts by taking the time to talk to voters and connect their issues with immediate action they can take today. We are already in the field, talking to people about the challenges they face, and how to stand up to corporate control of our communities and hold elected leaders accountable.
We are beyond grateful to all of our team members, partners and supporters, and we look forward to working with you all in the coming year.
Our Staff
Worker Power
Morningstar Bloom Communications
Jordan Greenslade Senior Field Director
Cat Castaneda Logistics
Mike Martinez Field Organizer
Isabel Rose Operations Coordinator
Maggie Acosta Field Director
Sigrid Bantleon Field Organizer
Jawaher Abbas Field Organizer
Yolanda Bejarano Political Organizing Director
Our Board
Co-President, UNITE HERE Local 11
Rachel
Communications Director, UNITE HERE Local 11
Fred
Executive Director, Arizona AFL-CIO
Azra Variscic Development Director
Brendan Walsh Executive Director
Marilyn Wilbur Field Organizer
Rachele Smith Communications Lead Kort Turner Data Manager
Margaret Shultz Policy Analyst
Susan Minato
Yamashita
Sulkes
Our Mission
Worker Power is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization.
We are a multiracial, multigenerational organization dedicated to preserving democracy and improving the lives of working families in Arizona and across the United States through voter engagement and strategic policy interventions.
We draw on the best union and community organizing traditions, as well as the core principles of non-violent direct action to execute electoral and policy campaigns that have a decisive and national impact on issues affecting our lives.
Worker Power recruits and trains workers and young people as agents of political change in their communities. These leaders are building a movement that will elect and support public officials who fight for working people.
Founded in 2020, Worker Power PAC is a 527 Political Action Committee dedicated to delivering wins for progressive political candidates. Worker Power PAC’s extensive contributions to independent expenditure campaigns have provided the margin of victory for numerous progressive candidates.
Worker Power 1021 South 7th Avenue, Suite 202 Phoenix, Arizona 85007 workerpower.com
rights reserved. Worker Power 2024.