In Arizona, a bloc of New American Voters — recently naturalized citizens that have earned the right to vote — has the potential to play an outsized role in the outcomes of critical federal and state races.

This voting bloc is multiracial, multigenerational, geographically diverse, and majority female. New American Voters hold distinct ideologies, experiences, and viewpoints, and will be motivated by a variety of issues this November.

With a competitive Senate election (rated “toss up” by the Cook Political Report) and a contested gubernatorial election (rated “toss up” by the Cook Political Report), Arizona will be one of the most critical states during the November 2022 midterm elections and New American Voters can sway the outcome.

Arizona ranks 2nd in the nation according to the New American Voters Impact Model, which was created by the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) and the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) at the University of California, San Diego to showcase the potential of this critical voting bloc to influence the outcome of midterm elections in 50 states.

This report offers data that illustrates how New American Voters can have an outsized impact:

Arizona’s cohort is part of an estimated 5.19 million newly naturalized citizens across the U.S., according
to New American Voters 2022: Harnessing the Power of Naturalized Citizens, a report released by NPNA, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and APIAVote.

The power of this potential voting bloc is determined by individuals’ ability to both register and vote this November.

This electoral season presents many challenges, including the need for organizations to adapt their voter
engagement work to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, language access issues, and ongoing efforts to restrict access to voting, particularly targeting voters of color.

One form of voter suppression that has emerged in recent years is the increasing backlog and processing delays of citizenship applications.

According to the latest data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), there are over 700,000 pending citizenship applications nationwide, with 10,092 applications backlogged in USCIS’ two offices in Arizona.

While the national average processing delay is around 11 months, approximately 80 percent of applications are processed within 13.5 months in USCIS’ Phoenix office and approximately 80 percent of applications are processed within 14 months in USCIS’ Tucson office.

This means that immigrants who are eligible for citizenship and who would have otherwise naturalized and have had time to register to vote in this year’s elections may not be able to do so given the naturalization application backlog.

Arizona-based organizations, including CAIR-Arizona and Promise Arizona (PAZ), are partnering with NPNA’s New American Voters Campaign, a non-partisan nationwide effort to address naturalization barriers and encourage newly naturalized citizens to register and vote.