Blake Lister (he, him, his)
While I care greatly about a number of progressive causes, the one I most care about is economic equality. This passion stems from the story of my life and my childhood. When I was ten years old, my father passed away from a stress-related heart attack due to fear of losing his job as a result of The Great Recession. It was then that I realized not just how fragile life is, but how important politics is as well, and that one should do their best to have a positive impact on their community while they are alive. I want to fight for middle class families that are struggling more and more. I believe this most comes from talking about jobs and taxes, but also hits virtually every political issue in one way or another. So far throughout my career, I’ve have been humbled to have gained experience by working for great, progressive causes. In 2016, I served as a Field Organizer for the Arizona Democratic Party, where I first began to learn how to organize by managing 5 precincts in Legislative District 20. I then worked as the Campaign Manager for Chris Gilfillan for State House in 2018, where I gathered more organizing and campaign experience, as well as help narrow the voter gap between Democrats and Republicans in Legislative District 20 down to less than 2 points. This was followed up by my completing an 8-week Organizing Corps 2020 program where the DNC helped train and prepare me to work for the 2020 Election. In that election, I worked as a Field Manager for the DCCC on behalf of Dr. Hiral Tiperneni in AZ-CD6, where we nearly flipped a historically red district and moved the needle towards the Democrats by six points. I hold a Bachelor’s Degree from ASU in political science and currently work as the Regional Organizing Lead for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Arizona.