A key Arizona race will test clean energy's electoral power

0:09All right.

0:11Ning Mosberger-Tang: Hello, everyone. This is Volts for July 1, 2026. A key Arizona race will test clean energy's electoral power. I'm your host, David Roberts. This past spring, Turning Point USA, the right-wing group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, poured an extraordinary amount of money and effort into one of the sleepiest elections in the country, a race for the board of an Arizona public power utility called Salt River Project, which serves just over a million people in the Phoenix area. And they lost. Clean energy candidates gained a majority on the board for the first time ever. If you're wondering why anyone fights over a utility board, part of the answer is that SRP, which was planning new gas plants, a new gas pipeline, and new fees on rooftop solar, isn't regulated by anybody but itself.

1:21Ning Mosberger-Tang: It is unusual in that its elected board is the only check on what it charges and what it builds. And even more unusual in that only landowners can vote in board elections. Votes are weighted by the acre. The more land you have, the more votes you get. And renters don't vote at all. It is exactly as feudal and anti-democratic as it sounds. The people who pulled off that win are my guests today. Charlie Fisher ran the Arizona ground operation through his group, Arizonans for a Clean Economy. Ning Mossberger-Tang is behind 1.5 Degree Climate, a funder network targeting state-level climate-significant elections.

2:15Ning Mosberger-Tang: Fresh off of SRP, they are now going after a bigger prize, the Arizona Corporation Commission, the statewide body that regulates all the other state utilities. It is a rematch against TPUSA. And it is a much tougher fight. Every one of the five seats is currently Republican, and a Democratic slate that tried to upend that situation, Volt's listeners may recall that I interviewed one of those candidates, lost in 2024. Can the SRP playbook scale up to win a bigger fight with a real statewide electorate? Can the affordability and anti-corruption messages overcome partisan headwinds? And can they win races beyond Arizona.

3:09Ning Mosberger-Tang: That is what I am going to get into with Fisher and Mossberger Tang. So let's do this.

3:25Ning Mosberger-Tang: With no further ado, Charlie Fisher, Ning Mossberger Tang, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for having us. Charlie, let's start with you. I'm curious, how you got involved in the Salt River Project election at all, it seems kind of small, kind of obscure. And I'm sort of like, one of the things I've been wondering is, did you get into it and then Turning Point came in to fight you? Or did Turning Point get into it and you came in to fight Turning Point? How did you end up getting involved, so involved in this election? Just to give a little bit of background. So I started my career organizing with Arizona PIRG, public interest research group in Environment Arizona.

4:09Ning Mosberger-Tang: And, you know, really a passion for climate and clean energy issues eventually led me to electoral politics. And so really prior to co-founding ACCE in early 2023, I was the executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party. And so I had a fairly deep experience in campaigns and elections in Arizona. And I had never even heard of SRP elections prior to starting AZCE in 2023, which was wild. So the obscurity is hard to overstate here. But the reality is that in the 2024 election was the first time that Arizona for a Clean Economy or AZCE got involved. Turning Point was not involved at all in 2024.

4:51Ning Mosberger-Tang: And so we were very surprised to see their pretty significant investment starting in early 2025. Do you have any idea why they identified this? I mean, at least you're like in Arizona and in clean energy in Arizona. So at least it makes some sense for you. But they're a national organization. How on earth did this come on their radar? Do you know? It's a good question. And I don't know for sure. I think one of the reasons given or one of my theories, at least, is that this was sort of a, you know, an early test of their ground game looking ahead to November of 2026. One of their top priorities, certainly in Arizona and nationally, is the governor's race.

5:27Ning Mosberger-Tang: They have come in heavily in support of Congressman Andy Biggs, who's in the Republican primary. They went so far as to send canvassers out to talk about SRP wearing shirts that said, thank you, Andy Biggs, for saving our utilities, which is a bizarre strategy, to put it kindly. So I think it could have been some early sort of flexing of the field organizing muscles as we move towards November 26. The other information that's come to light is that a couple of SRP board members had made sizable donations to Turning Point USA prior to their involvement. One$200 ,000 donation, I think there was a$20 ,000 donation from SRP board members.

6:07Ning Mosberger-Tang: Of course, they say it's unrelated, but I'm not sure that passes the smell test for me. Well, it's$200 ,000 among friends. So explain a little bit, because I literally had trouble believing this when I was reading about it. It is flummoxing. I mentioned it in the intro, but just explain a little bit about how the SRP election works. It sounds like it is transported from a different earlier era of history. It's wild to me that it still exists. So explain how these board members are elected and who gets to vote. Yes. So you are right. That is, it is from a different era. This is a system was initially established really like pre-statehood.

6:53Ning Mosberger-Tang: So SRP is really is unique because it was essentially created by a group of landowners, farmers, ranchers in the really early 20th century. and they essentially came together, formed an association and put their land up as collateral to convince the federal government to build Roosevelt Dam, which was our first sort of big dam here in central Arizona. And so that was sort of the beginning of the system. And the fact that we still elect these folks on a system based in the early 1900s is clearly a problem. But the way that it works is there are 14 governing board members and not to get two in the weeds, but but there's actually two separate governing boards because SRP is technically two separate entities, water and power.

7:37Ning Mosberger-Tang: But for this discussion, we'll just talk about the power side. So the SRP district governing board is 14 members. And on top of those two 14 members, there's an elected president and vice president. The president, vice president, and 10 of the 14 board members are elected on an acreage-based voting system, which like you mentioned at the top means only eligible landowners even have the opportunity to vote. So you have to own land in SRP service territory, and there's whole swaths of ineligible voting lands in SRP service territory. So just figuring out whether or not you're eligible is a challenge in and of itself.

8:13Ning Mosberger-Tang: But they are elected on four-year terms where half of the body is up every other year. The elections are held in April of even numbered years when absolutely no one is thinking about elections. Yes. I mean, the whole thing seems designed to absolutely minimize turnout, basically. Like, you don't even know if you're eligible to vote. You don't know when the election is. Like, these must have traditionally been tiny, tiny turnout elections. Yes, absolutely. I mean, just to give you a sense, there are around 750 ,000 people who are eligible to vote in SRP elections. Just looking back to 2022, and this is when some grassroots climate and clean energy activists had started running and frankly picking up seats, 6 ,972 people voted in 2022 out of 750 ,000 eligible for an entity that delivers water and power for over 2 million people in central Arizona.

9:09Ning Mosberger-Tang: So we knew that was the first problem that we needed to solve is we really needed to raise awareness, increase turnout. Let's talk then about how you do that. I mean, this is not a normal election. It's not a normal voter base. I mean, a lot of the voter base doesn't even know whether it's the voter base or not. How, what was your strategy for targeting voters? I mean, you can't just like put ads on TV and stuff like that. This seems like a case where you really do kind of have to go find people one by one. Like, what was the strategy for increasing turnout? Yeah, this was one of the, honestly, one of the most difficult questions for us, our team, our coalition to answer because it is, like you said, so obscure.

9:52Ning Mosberger-Tang: So we did a huge amount of research into all of the eligible voters and essentially did both qualitative and quantitative research to get as much data as we could on these folks. Like, what is their voting history in other elections? So we could really get a sense of, you know, who these folks are and what makes them tick and what motivates them. The other challenge was at what acreage, at what amount of land does your property not just become your home and the place that you live and your single largest asset, but just one, you know, it becomes more of a business and a financial relationship.

10:23Ning Mosberger-Tang: And that very much changes the incentives of how you want to vote for SRP board members. Yes, this is a big question I have. I mean, my gut says the more acreage you have, the more likely you are to vote for conservative candidates. But is that true? Does that hold? So I mean, we can't say for sure, but I did. That was our theory as well, that if you have, you know, 10 or more acres. And frankly, we set our threshold at one acre or less for a number of reasons. But yeah, if you've got more than 10 acres, you are you view your property as an, you know, it's an investment. It is a financial, it's a wealth building tool rather than, you know, a place that you live.

11:03Ning Mosberger-Tang: And so that was our first and there was no, you know, hard science behind it. But we ended up deciding that, you know, if you have an acre or less than an acre, there's a high probability that your home is where you live and that you will be persuaded. Right. And deeply affected by rising utility prices. And so we looked at the districts that were going to be voting, the district board seats that were going to be voting in April, honed in on those ones. I set our acreage sort of cap ceiling at one. And then we talked to folks that we knew were good voters in other elections and likely just were completely unaware that they even had the opportunity to vote in SRP.

11:41Ning Mosberger-Tang: So that's like door knocking. That's like going out to their houses and knocking on their doors. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we ran a totally comprehensive campaign. So we had five direct mail pieces to this universe. It ended up being about 60 ,000 people in our universe. We did five mail pieces. We ran a whole series of digital ads. We did both paid and volunteer canvassing, like you said, door knocking, phone banking, texting. We threw the kitchen sink at this thing to make sure every single one of these folks knew that, hey, you get to vote for these people that set your rates and you can request your ballot in the mail, which is we've made more difficult in Arizona at all other elections.

12:19But for SRPs, to their credit, they do a good job of maintaining a permanent early voter list.

12:25Ning Mosberger-Tang: So really, that was the goal. Make sure folks, people are frustrated with their bills. Do you know that this board is elected and the election's coming up and all you have to do is request this ballot in the mail? And then you have a say in these people who are, you know, setting your monthly bills. So Ning, I have sort of the same question for you. First, maybe just tell us briefly a little bit about what your group is. And then how did this weird, obscure little election come up on your radar? How did you get involved?

12:53Charlie Fisher: David, first, I want to mention that I'm very excited to be on this call because I am a big fan of your podcast. Oh, thank you. Because it covers a lot of topics that we are very interested in. So my background, I actually used to work in the tech industry. And back in 2006, because I was just so concerned about the climate crisis, I left the tech to focus on climate change mitigation work. And I have been doing that ever since. The first 10 years between 2006 and 2016, I focused on conservation work, including doing some global work and focused on energy efficiency campaigns, education for climate change, environmental issues, and a whole bunch of things on the ground.

13:38Charlie Fisher: But 2016 election changed my strategy, basically. I kind of, you know, I think maybe I'm late, but I just realized that, you know, in order to make a real dent, make a really change something in the climate space, I have to get engaged with policies and politics. So I started in Colorado, state politics and state policies in 2018. And then in 2020, move on to the national level, doing more policy and political work at the federal level and also in other states. And in 2022, I started 1.5 degree climate donor collaborative because I realized that there's only so much one person, one group can do that we really have to get more donors on board.

14:25Charlie Fisher: And through our collective effort, we can actually make a difference. So 1.5 climate was started in March 2022. And since then, we have grown our membership from one, which is me, to more than 700. And in the past four years, we have moved more than$36 million through our collective effort to more than 100 organizations, including Charlie's. So we are very excited about ACCE's strategy in a way they engage with the voters and get a return out in these very, it seems to us, like a no-hanging fruit type of campaigns, right? Because you just turn out a small number of voters and they will be able to actually change the majority of that SRP board and make a big difference there in Arizona.

15:14Charlie Fisher: So these are idea kind of applications for us, for 1.5 Climate Network. We are trying to identify no hanging fruit, high impact, but under the radar strategies and get our donors to pay attention to that and move funds to them.

15:31Ning Mosberger-Tang: You were involved in the Georgia PUC elections last year, were you not? Volt's listeners will be very familiar with that. I had one of those candidates on. It was a very exciting election that the good clean energy candidates won. Were you engaged in that?

15:47Charlie Fisher: Yes, we were very involved, actually. We brought in Briante Makoko. She is amazing. She leads the Georgia Conservation Voters. We helped them raise funds to fill their C4 gap. and we also had some conversations with Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson. They were great candidates. So I think I forced to win elections. You have to have the finance. You also have great candidates, right? And I think we have that in that election. I'm very, very excited that they were able to, both of them were able to win. And we're actually going to continue to be engaged this November because they're going to have two more races there.

16:27Charlie Fisher: Peter needs to get reelected. And then Sheila Edwards is running for the open seat. We are hoping that we can help them again through Georgia Conservation Voters. And if they win, they will be able to get the three to two.

16:43Ning Mosberger-Tang: Yeah, they'll have a majority.

16:44Charlie Fisher: Majority, that's right. That's right. They'll be so exciting for a rest state like Georgia.

16:49Ning Mosberger-Tang: I'm curious about the messaging that you used in SRP specifically, in this election specifically. I guess if you're identifying donors who are already sort of inclined toward clean energy, inclined toward Democratic candidates, maybe all you needed to do was just let them know that this was happening and that they could vote in it. Was that the majority of it, or was there a specific set of messages that you focused on in this particular race? I think it was a combination, to be honest, and I will make a quick distinction. So AZCE, Arizona's for a Clean Economy, we did purely educational work.

17:31Ning Mosberger-Tang: And that was, I want to say, 80-ish percent of the total campaign and in coalition with other organizations as well. We did not do this alone. But the vast, vast majority of the work, to your point, Dave, was just letting people know that this is an election that happens, that impacts your monthly bills and you have the opportunity to vote. So that did a huge amount of the lifting for us. But we were also incredibly disciplined in our messaging and that we were just letting folks know SRP just voted to raise your rates again. In February of 2025, they voted to raise prices on residential customers for the fifth time in five years.

18:06Ning Mosberger-Tang: And we wanted to make sure that every single eligible voter, particularly the ones in the districts that were going to have, you know, have races seats up for election, knew that fact. the reality is that SRP has higher favorability than most of the other, all of the other investor owned utilities in Arizona. And historically they've had lower rates. And so we needed to very much make sure that people knew that the SRP board just voted to raise rates again for the fifth time in five years. So rates were the, that was the central. Yes. That's the central message is about RAID. So you're not so much on all the gas incoming, the gas pipeline, all that stuff, not the dirty, not a dirty versus clean energy thing, more just affordability.

18:52Ning Mosberger-Tang: A hundred percent. Yep. And the candidates on the other side, because we were on the independent side, right? So we couldn't talk to, coordinate with candidates. They were talking about clean energy. They were talking about data centers became a big topic towards the sort of closing stage of the campaign. But we were really, really focused on these folks are raising your rates, request your ballot today. And then the huge, huge value that Ning and the 1.5 team brought in is we did, because Dave, so many of the questions that we got were like, well, who, who should we vote for? And so we aren't able to answer those questions as AZCE, but with Ning's support.

19:26Ning Mosberger-Tang: You're a C3, so you can't say, you can't weigh in on that, basically. Exactly. We can say, well, here are the two websites of the different, you know, competing sites of candidates. Check them out. And, you know, we just want to make sure that you vote. But with Ning and her team's support, we were able to raise PAC dollars into Arizona Power PAC, which is our sister PAC organization. And in coalition with Chiespa Arizona PAC, we're able in the closing month or so to actually follow up with all of those same folks and say, hey, these are the good guys. Right. So that's a C4. They're allowed to do electoral work, the PACs.

19:59Ning Mosberger-Tang: So this is an election analysis question. I'm curious what both of you think about it. So I think some of the conventional wisdom after the dust settled was that turning points engagement, heavy engagement, sort of high profile engagement in this kind of ended up backfiring. I think even some GOP consultants kind of felt like it kind of ended up backfiring. It just drew attention to the race, raised the salience of the race, raised the number of people who voted, and it sort of backfired on them. Do you agree with that assessment? I mean, I agree partially. I think there is absolutely no doubt that Turning Point's investment and involvement and the media coverage of their involvement absolutely raised the salience and raised awareness far beyond what we were doing.

20:51Ning Mosberger-Tang: And I do think it backfired. The strategy, like we talked about earlier, whether it was the thank you, Andy Biggs, for saving our utilities t-shirts, the fact that they were supporting the entire status quo slate of candidates that had just voted to raise rates for the fifth time in five years, or the fact that they literally just blanketed the entire county in street signs, right? those really large political signs for an election that, you know, a third, not even, of Maricopa County residents are eligible to vote in and no one knows about, right? So putting up street signs for an election that no one knows about and very few people are eligible and, like, randomly out of nowhere saying, keep the Green New Deal out of Arizona and in really liberal neighborhoods.

21:30Ning Mosberger-Tang: Like, I live in sort of midtown Phoenix, you know, One of the liberal cores here and on the end of my street was an anti-Green New Deal sign. And so I think people were just like, what are they talking about? What is going on? And on the other side, we continued to be incredibly disciplined talking to just those 60 ,000 people, educating them on this opportunity. So it was absolutely a combo.

21:52Charlie Fisher: Yeah, I think that's a really unusual time, right? Like in Wisconsin, as you know, Elon Musk tried to engage in the Supreme Court race there and it really backfired. So, you know, but I think the bottom line is still really the affordability message. Because same thing in Georgia, when the GCV ran a campaign in Georgia, they really, they focused a lot on the utility rates and affordability and how the current commission was raising the rate many times in a row, right? So I think that that's the kind of message that very much resonates with voters.

22:30Ning Mosberger-Tang: Arizona has this Prop 211 that now forces C4s to disclose their donors. This, of course, has been a long time, sort of like a liberal campaign, worries about dark money coming in, et cetera, et cetera. I'm just curious, do you think that kind of disclosure helps or constrains your group, your C4?

22:52Charlie Fisher: I think it does make people more cautious when they want to invest in Arizona, because unaloud donors do not necessarily want to be disclosed. But on the other hand, we are doing what we believe is the right thing, right? The candidates we support or the initiatives we support, we are proud to be one of the supporters. So I think it has an impact, but it's not a huge impact. And for example, like this election with SRP, our donors invested directly in the PAC, right? So we donate to the PAC and it's all disclosed and, you know, yeah.

23:29Ning Mosberger-Tang: Interesting. So let's pivot. Obviously, the big, you know, the main thing I wanted to focus on today, the main thing of interest now is this upcoming election for the Arizona Corporation Commission. This is the Public Utility Commission that regulates all the other utilities in the state in the more normal way. And I think, you know, you're sort of this machine you've built up or this campaign you've built up, this group and network you've built up is kind of trying to roll into this next election and win it too. Obviously, though, like the striking thing, the most immediately striking thing is that this is just a very different kind of election.

24:07Ning Mosberger-Tang: It's not this weird, futile landowner thing. It's a statewide election with a statewide electorate. So, Charlie, I'm curious what parts of the playbook you think transfer here in terms of turnout messaging, etc. You are a thousand percent right that it is a completely different dynamic. And, you know, it's a different thing in November. Similarly, I mean, not as obscure, but it's not like PUC elections are high on people's priority list either. I mean, it's still semi-obscure, but not nearly as obscure. Absolutely. And of course, you know, we have all of our statewides. We have competitive congressional races.

24:50Ning Mosberger-Tang: There will be tens of millions of dollars spent communicating to voters in the lead up to November. Right. That was just not the case. You don't have a quiet room in which to target these messages. You're going to be competing with a lot of other – they're going to be getting a lot of direct mail and messages from all over the place. So how does the strategy sort of translate? Yeah. Well, I think the first piece is being incredibly disciplined and targeting, really trying to identify who are both our sort of base voters who are likely going to vote. Right. Or maybe skip midterm elections, but really are unclear about what the Arizona Corporation Commission is, because we have a situation in Arizona where, you know, almost every cycle, there are over 100 ,000 people who cast ballots who will vote for the Senate race or the presidential or the governor, and we'll just skip over the Corporation Commission.

25:41Ning Mosberger-Tang: And so the first job that we need to do is educate those folks specifically that you cannot skip this election and you have two votes, right? So use both of them and understand this is the only line on your ballot that directly impacts your monthly budget, like directly impacts your monthly budget. So I think the targeting and being really disciplined about who we talk to is one thing that absolutely carries over. The education piece is similarly, like you said, it'll be more expensive and certainly a much larger universe of folks we need to talk to. But we need to just simply educate them that the Arizona Corporation Commission regulates monopoly utilities in Arizona.

26:19Ning Mosberger-Tang: Oftentimes people think that it's just for like business owners, right? They do paperwork and administrative stuff, which they do as well. But the primary function, of course, is utility and regulation. And absolutely, the affordability message to Littending's point has to carry through. And I would guess that both sides are going to be making that claim that we're the affordability team. Yes. Voters of all kinds across the country are going to be hearing that word out of everyone's mouth these coming elections. So that does kind of muddy the waters, right? A little bit. Yes. I just think it is a much more difficult case to make as an incumbent commissioner who has raised rates consistently over the four years of your service that you're the affordability team.

27:05Ning Mosberger-Tang: Yeah. So I think really just educating folks early on those points, on those facts is really critical. And we're really excited. We just actually launched an education campaign called Follow the Power to help people connect those dots and understand how they can get involved at the ACC, how they can scrutinize their decisions, provide testimony. And then, of course, we want folks to register to vote and commit to vote for ACC in November. Ning, to the extent you're willing to tell us, I'm sort of curious, what's the scale of investment required here for a true statewide race versus the much smaller, much more targeted SRP race?

27:43Ning Mosberger-Tang: Is it a lot more money?

27:45Charlie Fisher: Oh, yes, I think so. I think it's going to cost millions of dollars, potentially. But it's going to be a team effort, right? So there are many other races up and down the ticket in Arizona, including the governor's race and also the state legislature and congressional races as well. So I hope the GOTV efforts done by other groups, funded by other donors, will be helpful for this ACC election as well. But I think what Charlie is doing is really important to reduce the down ballot drop-off for this commissioner, votes. So I think all this together, I think potentially we can make a really good year in Arizona and finally get the state trifecta in Arizona.

28:30Charlie Fisher: And that is going to have a pretty big impact down the road for policymaking, not just for clean energy, but for all other things as well.

28:39Ning Mosberger-Tang: One difference here is that the SRP elections were sort of facially nonpartisan. They are not Democrat versus Republican. There's no D or R next to the candidates' names on the ballot. So in some sense, that's kind of, I would think, kind of helpful because then the only distinguishing feature is affordability, right? The message is the main thing. The message is upfront. That's the affordability thing. But Charlie, in this election, the ACC candidates are partisan. They are Republican or Democrat. They're going to have an R or D next to their name. And the basic fact of Arizona is that there are more registered Republicans than there are registered Democrats.

29:23Ning Mosberger-Tang: So I wonder if you think that hurts or helps here. I mean, I wonder whether people are just, especially in a race that they don't necessarily understand, they don't necessarily understand the dynamics or what they're, or who the candidates are if they're just going to revert to partisanship? Is that something that's on your mind? Yeah, absolutely. It definitely makes it a little bit more challenging to, as you said, make the message be sort of the leading point that sticks with folks. So yeah, the race is partisan. There's going to be two Democrats versus two Republicans and potentially some third party candidates as well.

30:03Ning Mosberger-Tang: The messaging shouldn't be though, because these issues aren't. It's why I, AZCE, obviously I have a background in democratic politics. AZCE's mission is to build durable bipartisan support for clean energy leadership in Arizona because clean energy is popular across party issues. And rising utility bills are incredibly unpopular, regardless of you're a super conservative Republican, super liberal Democrat. There's no pro-high bills. Exactly. No pro-high bills constituency out there. Very, very limited constituency for, yeah, let's keep raising bills. So I think continuing to really focus on that message and just name plainly, right, who the folks are that have been raising bills and who are the folks who are committing to changing that status quo.

30:45Ning Mosberger-Tang: But to your point, yeah, the registration advantage is real. I think the reality is that we really need to focus on those folks in the middle, right? The nonpartisan voters in Arizona make up the second largest and it's very close with the Republican Party. So really, those are the critical voters that determine outcomes in generals in Arizona. And it does seem like anti-incumbent. Everybody's pissed off these days about something or other. There's a lot of anti-incumbent energy. Yes. Backlash election after backlash election these days, it seems like. Which is useful to you if you're out of power, but the minute you get in, it works against you.

31:26Ning Mosberger-Tang: It's troublesome. Awesome. I'm sort of curious, Turning Point is back. They're engaged in this election too, and they're actually backing a kind of insurgent MAGA challenger against the Republican incumbents in the primary of this ACC election. And I wonder if you think that is going to sort of split the right or create fissures and conflicts on the right that are going to hurt them in the general election? Or do you think they're all just going to unite around whoever ends up on the ballot? How much of a threat is that MAGA challenger to the right's unity in this election? Yeah. So initially, and Ralph Heap is the gentleman that you're speaking of, he's a a legislator down in Tucson.

32:24Ning Mosberger-Tang: Initially, when he had filed to run for corporation, he was running as a team with another legislator from Northern Arizona named David Marshall. And they were very much the turning point slate and were working hard to sort of out-MAGA the two Republican incumbents who are, in my view, pretty staunch conservatives themselves. But I mean, every single bill that both Heap and Marshall ran during the legislative session was essentially like a clean energy ban. So they did everything they could to do a lot of messaging during the legislative session. But then just about, I want to say it was about a month ago, David Marshall dropped out of the ACC race because he was appointed potentially illegally to be the Navajo County recorder, the top elections official in Navajo County in northeastern Arizona.

33:07Ning Mosberger-Tang: So all that to say, now that there is not a slate, I am curious to see whether TurningPoint really does invest deeply in Ralph Heap's primary campaign, or if it was the opportunity to sort of wholesale swap out the nominees with two more TurningPoint aligned folks was more motivating to them. So we've not seen too much bending from them, but that was definitely the thinking initially with both that slate that I was going to be a sort of a nasty, you know, negative primary and that the candidates on the Democratic side who don't have a competitive primary would be able to really start, you know, start doing that work of talking to the general election, staying positive, sharing their vision while the others were fighting each other.

33:48Ning Mosberger-Tang: So we will see whether whether there's a really significant investment turning point given that new dynamic. You mentioned data centers came into the SRP election. They are obviously kind of out of nowhere, a huge issue for everybody. I wonder, are you messaging around those at all? Are you saying anything around those? Are the Democratic candidates versus, like, do the Democratic candidates versus the Republican candidates have different messages on them? I'm sort of curious what role data centers are playing in all this. Hey there, everybody. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you about a new mattress or push a credit card on you.

34:30Ning Mosberger-Tang: This isn't an ad. There are no ads on Volts. It is supported entirely by listeners like you. If you'll indulge me for a second, I'd like to ask for your support. I started Volts because we're all surrounded by depressing news about climate change and misinformation about clean energy. and it's never been more important to share the stories of the real people on the ground doing the real work of transition and all the ingenuity and courage and public spirit they are bringing to it. People are hungry to hear these stories, to learn from and find inspiration in them. I've heard from people who change majors or careers after hearing episodes of alts, people using it in classrooms and community groups, even state legislators who have passed bills inspired by specific episodes.

35:17Ning Mosberger-Tang: Sharing these stories matters. It makes a difference. If you have found value in it and want to help me continue doing it, I hope you will join the community of paid subscribers at volts.wtf. It's about the cost of a cup of coffee a month. If you don't like subscriptions, you can make a one-time contribution, leave a review on Apple or Spotify, or just tell a friend about Volts. I am grateful for any and all support. If you're already a paid subscriber, thank you. And now back to the show. Do the Democratic candidates versus the Republican candidates have different messages on them? I'm sort of curious what role data centers are playing in all this.

35:56Ning Mosberger-Tang: Certainly a big issue with a huge amount of grassroots opposition, as you've seen, I'm sure, you know, across Arizona, across the country. So it hasn't been a top issue that I've seen from any of the candidates yet, but we just, the legislature just finally wrapped up last week, a week before. And one of the big sort of takeaways was that they removed the tax break, tax credit that has been available to data centers in Arizona for many years. And you very quickly saw both sides take victory laps on that win. And so I anticipate that trying to talk tough and be seen as, you know, as tough on data centers is going to be similarly to affordability, an issue that both sides try to claim sort of high ground on.

36:42Ning Mosberger-Tang: But it's going to be really difficult for the Republicans, given the fact that one of the incumbents, Kevin Thompson, literally is a lobbyist for data centers. He works for EdgeCorp. And he just announced that publicly at some conference or a panel that he was speaking on a couple weeks ago. So it's going to be real difficult to be the anti-data center guy, given that's how you pay your bills outside of your commission work. Yeah, it's so funny that like, the same messages, you know, sort of the same push, the same messages, everybody wants to grab them, there are not really like, there are not high profile issues on which the R &D are sort of disagreeing.

37:20Ning Mosberger-Tang: It's like everybody's trying to claim the same ground. It's odd dynamic.

37:24Charlie Fisher: Data center will be an important issue this year in the election, I believe, because it's so connected with the affordability, right? Because if you look at a polling, affordability of the energy is one of the top priority issues for voters in many, many states. So for example, you know, like states like Michigan, this is actually one of the top, top issues that voters are concerned about this year. So because of that, our group 1.5 Climate, we actually have been, we have been very interested in state level policies for data centers. So we actually, our donor network hosted an educational call for our members about data center policies just a couple of months ago.

38:09Charlie Fisher: And then we followed that up with the actual data center policies that were going through the state legislature in three states, in Illinois, in Colorado, and Virginia. And our members were very interested in getting engaged, trying to make sure that data center policies, Basically, we want to make sure that data centers will be clean, bring their own energy, and make sure that also the data center, the customers, meaning the hyperscalers, will be covering the cost for transmission, for basically adding the load for consumers.

38:45Ning Mosberger-Tang: Yeah, it must be tricky because I think all the populist energy here is all just like no data centers. Data centers are bad. And I'm sure you would prefer, I guess, more nuanced policy than that.

38:59Charlie Fisher: Yeah, I think we have a different view. I don't think I can represent our entire network of donors because we have 700 members and everybody have a different experience and opinion on that. But I think mostly our group, we take the view that data center built out, maybe it's not preventable, right? And AI, there are a lot of questions about AI, whether it's going to be good or bad for humanity and whether it's going to be like, what can we do about it? But it's probably going to happen. And if that's going to happen anyway, let's make sure that we are directing the development, make sure that it's going to be going the right direction for consumers, for all of us, and not just for the hyperscalers or for the utilities.

39:43Charlie Fisher: So that's kind of our take on that. So we do support efforts in state legislatures where they would like to regulate the data center build out to make sure that it will be beneficial for climate and also for consumers. We look at it as a potential opportunity, actually, to increase the availability of clean energy. and if the data center got overbuilt, which is possible, right? Because I think there are a lot more requests for data centers built out than what they actually can use right now. So I think that potentially it could create an energy source for the future, which will be helpful for electrification of everything.

40:28Charlie Fisher: So yeah, we look at it as opportunity, but that needs to be guided and supported in a way that would be beneficial for us.

40:36Ning Mosberger-Tang: So, Charlie, I'll just ask sort of point blank. Affordability has been a worry for a while. Democrats went after the ACC in 2022 when they had a really good year when they won governor and secretary of state and attorney general. They won a bunch of other really competitive races, and they lost all the ACC races in 2022. And then they went after them again in 2024 and lost them all again. There does seem something slightly cursed about this. Like, I just sort of wonder, like, why do you think this time will be different? More money, more organization, more concern about affordability. Why do you think this is going to be different than the past two races, which people had a lot of, you know, high hopes about as well?

41:29Yeah, no, absolutely.

41:30Ning Mosberger-Tang: And it's honestly, the answer is all of the above. We are absolutely more organized and have a much larger coalition of nonprofits, you know, C3s, C4s, an IE coalition that is very large and robust. And we're working in complete lockstep. Historically, what happens is, you know, groups will try to coordinate on when they're working on the same race and at least try to share messaging and sort of talk about who they're, you know, who they're targeting and whatnot. We are building our entire plan as one coalition. We got in a room in May and wrote one plan. We are using one shared universe. For all these state races, you mean all these governor, et cetera, et cetera.

42:11Ning Mosberger-Tang: Just for corporation commission. Oh. This is a coalition that only is focused on, I mean, these different organizations that are a part of it will obviously work on governor, AG, SOS, Ledge, all the different races. But all these groups have come together and said, we are committing for all of our resources for ACC. we are working in this shared coalition, using this shared universe, sharing all the data, shared research and polling to make sure that it is really a comprehensive campaign, and not just sort of folks talking to different groups, potentially, you know, stepping on each other's toes.

42:44Ning Mosberger-Tang: And so it will be really, really coordinated from beginning to end. And that's a coalition that we, you know, we hope is going to stay together for the long haul here so that we can continue to learn lessons and grow and do that early education work, which was so critical to SRP, that has to be done for ACC too. And so, you know, our plan is to start ASAP with that education effort and be able to really follow it up with the candidate-specific work later.

43:10Charlie Fisher: I also believe that this year's election environment will be different from 2022 or 2024. 2022, right? We did not get the red wave that was predicted. And 24 clearly was not, we did not have a very good election environment. So I'm hoping that this year will be different. And as you mentioned, the ACC election is partisan. So that is really important that we have the right kind of election environment overall for Arizona this year. And then on top of that, you know, with coalitions that Charlie and others have built and with the collective effort, the investments from networks like ours, I hope we can finally get that over the finish line and at least can win two seats there.

43:53Ning Mosberger-Tang: Well, yeah, I mean, one notable difference is in 2024, all the ACC candidates did this sort of pledge where they refused to take PAC money. They only took public money, which was all, you know, very noble and everything, but kind of resulted in them getting outspent a gazillion to one. So now, like, it's more of a gloves off, you know, there's PACs, there's money getting involved. And I think at least it's going to be a lot better funded this year, possibly a fairer fight money wise. I think that's the absolute importance of the work that we and CHISPA and EDF and others are doing in this coalition, because the same situation in 2026 is extremely difficult for corporation commission candidates to raise private dollars.

44:38Ning Mosberger-Tang: And so both the Democratic candidates and I believe all three of the Republican candidates are running with our public funding system, clean election system this year, too. So the bulk of the messaging, of the organizing, of the education really does need to come from outside groups. I see. So they're privately still committing to that. They're not personally taking the money. So it's outside groups where the money is being spent. That's right. They can raise like 29, I want to say$29 ,000 in$200 increments as like seed funding to like their campaign started. But after that, it is about$100 ,000 for the primary and like$240 ,000 for the general.

45:15Ning Mosberger-Tang: And that's all they can spend. Interesting. Yeah, I'm sure a lot more money than that will be involved ultimately outside. One question here, obviously, is it's a five-seat commission on the ACC, but currently all Republicans. In this election cycle, two of the seats are up. So even if clean energy candidates win both those seats, they'll still be in the minority. So what is the prize here? What does this all get you? Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say even one pro-clean, pro-climate commissioner has an enormous impact. And we saw that, you know, in 2020, every commissioner has individual subpoena power.

45:59Ning Mosberger-Tang: And so the ability to, you know, to open up the books, to really get access to data from the utilities, right, that they're not always eager to share is a huge, huge benefit. And I think the reality is, is that I don't believe that all of the Republican commissioners are dyed in the wool anti-clean energy folks. Some of them are, but I think there are very much our coalitions to be made, especially if there are two Democratic commissioners and three Republicans, they're going to have to work together. And so I think there is there's policy priorities that they could come together and really make some make some positive, some positive movement, even when pro clean folks are not in the majority.

46:36Ning Mosberger-Tang: But the reality is, you're exactly right. The importance of electing to this November is to have have a real opportunity going into to 2028 with all of this infrastructure built, with all of this knowledge and this list building and these supporters carry all that education work into 2027, right? So don't stop in November, continue to educate, continue to engage and organize rolling into 2028 where we have an opportunity to elect a pro-CLEA majority for the first time in decades. Right. So I think conventionally presidential years are more difficult for you because there's going to be enormous, enormous turnout on both sides.

47:15Ning Mosberger-Tang: But if you have two commissioners in place and there are three races up, you only have to win one more to get a majority. That's right.

47:24Charlie Fisher: I think it's similar to the Georgia Public Service Commissioner race, right? Last November, we got two and then this November, basically hold one and then win one more and then we get three to two majority. So it's a two election process.

47:40Ning Mosberger-Tang: I don't want to be Pollyannish here, but I think there's a real chance that 2028, you know, generates with two genuinely new presidential nominees from both parties. Fingers crossed that's what happens, that there could really be a pretty significant political realignment, and we could potentially move beyond this constant backlash after backlash election roller coaster that we seem to be in. So I'm hopeful, cautiously hopeful that we can get there. Jeez, I mean, who knows? Who knows? Gotta stay positive sometimes, you know?

48:14Charlie Fisher: I think we've got to take advantage of the environment this year and get us to win as many state-level trifectas as we can. So actually, that's one of our focus for 1.5 Climate this year is to help win trifectas in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, because I think we have this opportunity, right? It could be a historic opportunity to win a trifecta. And if you have a state trifecta, it would really be helpful in terms of redistricting, in terms of governing, in terms of protecting free and fair elections. Because a lot of these states are battleground states for 28.

48:53Ning Mosberger-Tang: Looking beyond Arizona, I mean, this is a big fight. And I think it's representative of a lot. It's representative of a lot of other fights in that affordability is huge. The race was previously kind of obscure, but all of a sudden is very important. And there are big climate and energy stakes involved. And affordability is at the center of all this. I think that is going to be true a lot of other places too. So Ning, I think sort of by way of wrapping up, I'm just sort of curious, what other races you have your eye on? Are there any other sort of, as you say, these sort of like under the radar, high impact, climate related elections?

49:34Ning Mosberger-Tang: Are there others that are on your radar that you'd like to share with us, either this cycle or in 2028?

49:42Charlie Fisher: So you're probably familiar with the rural co-op board elections, right? Because those are the elections also very much under the radar. And the turnout rate is like 5%, you know, below 10 % for sure.

49:55Ning Mosberger-Tang: And rural co-ops are notoriously dirty, like dirty energy, typically pretty conservative.

50:02Charlie Fisher: Correct, correct. So we actually just hosted a call with CVIQ to support their rural co-op operations. They are doing some test pilots in Midwestern states to use the digital ads, communicate with those voters that they want to educate about the importance of these rural co-op elections. So I think that is one of the many under the radar opportunities that we have supported in the past and continue to support. And the other thing would be, like I said, state trifecta is really, really important this year. They're not necessarily under the radar, but usually state-led elections are getting a lot less attention than congressional races, for example.

50:50Charlie Fisher: So that is one of the things we pay a lot of attention to. And I know you also work with groups like Climate Cabinet because they really pay a lot of attention to stay and local races. And also Jane Fonda, the Jane Climate Pack. And those are the groups that we work closely with as well and support in the past.

51:11Ning Mosberger-Tang: I mean, you know, a lot of these under the radar races have always had climate implications. But they've kind of, at least in my judgment, been kind of underfunded and slightly scattered and not super organized. So just from your perspective, inside this kind of donor network and doing this kind of work, do you think there's something like a sort of coordinated and powerful, clean energy, money and electoral machine getting built here? Like, how optimistic should we be about that?

51:43Charlie Fisher: So that's one of the things we try to do, right? I see the whole purpose that we started this network is we recognize that there are so many opportunities out there, but the donors only have so much time to figure out where to invest to make the difference there. So we are trying to make it easy for them. And we do the vetting and we talk to organizations like Charlie's and talk about the strategy and making sure that it's something that we should share with our network and get them supported. So I'm actually more optimistic this year than, say, in 2024, because I think the event that we have a lot of issues with the federal government and overreach, but I think because of that, it creates a backlash, right?

52:28Charlie Fisher: So I think people are motivated, mobilized. And the other thing is that for people who care about climate, we all know that clean energy is not the cheap energy. And then we also know that voters are very concerned about the affordability of electricity, of energy. So I think it's almost like things are coming together in a way that will be hopefully beneficial for us to win back the pro-clean energy power this November. So I'm actually feeling pretty hopeful, but hope alone is not enough. We have to actually fund this work. So that's why, I mean, we, in 1.5 Climate, we are trying to expand our network because I think even though with 700 donors, we cannot fund all the projects we have identified, which are catalytic, impactful and under -resourced like Charlie.

53:20Charlie Fisher: So I think if people are interested, you know, check us out or join us. They can go to our website, 1.5 Climate.org, SNES, join. We will be happy to get some collaboration going and help us win back power and protect the climate.

53:36Ning Mosberger-Tang: Well, this will be such an interesting test case of so many things. I'm sure you all agree, I've never been in a more uncertain, I guess is the word, chaotic, odd, unprecedented set of circumstances electorally. And in terms of not just like all the chaos at the national level, but just ferment around clean energy and data centers and just a lot of unknown and a lot of crazy things going on. So it will be really interesting to see how this plays out, I will say. So like I think the ACC race will be kind of a bellwether of a lot of other things. So thank you both for coming on and walking us through sort of the thinking here.

54:23Ning Mosberger-Tang: I appreciate it.

54:24Charlie Fisher: Thank you so much, David.

54:25Ning Mosberger-Tang: Thank you so much for the opportunity, Dave.

54:55Ning Mosberger-Tang: or telling a friend about volts, or all three. Thanks so much, and I'll see you next time.