2021 Online Video Storytelling – 2020 Election

Political analysts see Pennsylvania as the “tipping point state” needed to win the 2020 presidential election. Here is why Pennsylvania matters.

“LUCHA Blue” is a short documentary following the work of one group who is organizing Latinx voters to turn Arizona blue in 2020. The film follows Alex and Tomás, the co-directors of LUCHA, in the leadup to the 2020 election as they recount the work that got Arizona to where it is today politically, and organize up until the last moments before the election. For the first time in decades, Arizona was considered a swing state in the 2020 election. After electing Joe Arpaio out of the Sheriff’s office in 2016, and electing Kyrsten Sinema, a democratic senator, in 2018, organizers were feeling confident that Arizona voters would vote out Trump and for another Democratic senator. But the organizers at LUCHA (Living United for Change Arizona) knew that this was a change a long time coming, and the outcome of years of work–by mostly Latinx organizers working to educate and listen to the growing Latinx community in Arizona. As Alex Gómez, one of the co-directors of LUCHA, states, Arizona has long been a “petri dish” of anti-immigrant policies, and organizers have been fighting back. LUCHA sought to bring in voters who the parties don’t always try to reach, find out what they need, and work to get local and national leaders elected who will fight for those same communities. While Arizona made national news this election cycle, this film goes deeper into the reasons why Latinx voters made the change possible, and why it was an outcome of years of work, not just this election.