Underscoring recent reports that Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund is planning to spend tens of millions of dollars to sway the 2020 elections, a Phoenix, Arizona news agency is reporting that the “gun control advocacy group” will target the Grand Canyon State this year with $5 million.
According to KSAZ, a Fox affiliate, “Everytown for Gun Safety said the money will support Joe Biden’s presidential campaign Mark Kelly’s Senate bid and candidates running in five legislative districts.”
This report comes on the heels of the disclosure that Everytown is targeting Texas with an $8 million political budget, which drew a bristling reaction from the grassroots Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, that “Texas is not for sale.”
Recently, AmmoLand news noted that even with the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in full swing, anti-gun activism hasn’t slowed. It was a wake-up call to Second Amendment grassroots activists to not become lethargic.
Kelly is vying to unseat Sen. Martha McSally in an effort to flip the U.S. Senate to Democrat control. The KSAZ report noted, “Everytown officials say they’ll focus on advertising and grassroots organizing, especially in Maricopa County, where the group sees a receptive audience in the fast-growing suburbs of Phoenix. They’ll try to appeal to women, young people, and Spanish-speaking voters, among others.”
“Everytown is investing heavily in Arizona because the political calculus in the state has dramatically shifted,” said John Feinblatt, Everytown’s president, the report said.
According to TheGunMag.com, Arizona residents are still obtaining concealed carry permits. The most recent data shows 356,407 active permits in the state, which allows open or concealed carry without a permit under a “constitutional carry” law passed a few years ago. That’s up from April 12, when there were 355,963 active permits. Back on Feb. 2, the agency reported 351,390 active permits, so over the course of the past three months, Arizona has added more than 4,000 permits.
Arizona is one of 13 states identified earlier this year by Everytown as their primary targets for election spending. The others are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin, according to a CNN report.
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign does not appear too alarmed, however. KSAZ quoted Sam Zager with the Trump campaign asserting the big money dump suggests Democrats need help in the state.
“They know they’re so far behind Republicans in Arizona, they’ll take whatever out-of-state help they can get,” Zager said.
