PHOENIX — Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden’s cam­paign cred­its its suc­cess in Ari­zona to the immi­grant-rights and grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions that have been mobi­liz­ing Lati­nos for near­ly two decades. The fruits of their labor — in triple-dig­it heat, no less — paid off in this tra­di­tion­al­ly con­ser­v­a­tive state, where chang­ing demo­graph­ics and sub­ur­ban vot­ers turn­ing out to oppose Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump also worked in Biden’s favor.

But what that means for the future of Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates and how the par­ty can cap­i­tal­ize on these gains will be test­ed in 2022 and 2024 — espe­cial­ly because there wasn’t a blue shift in statewide races or in some oth­er parts of the coun­try with large Lati­no populations.

“It was extreme­ly impor­tant and extreme­ly help­ful to the cam­paign to be able to tap into that enthu­si­asm, to be able to tap into that incred­i­ble net­work. I think it made all the dif­fer­ence into turn­ing Ari­zona blue,” said Jes­si­ca Mejia, Ari­zona direc­tor for Biden’s campaign.

A coali­tion of long­stand­ing grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions known as Mi AZ start­ed knock­ing on doors in July, even­tu­al­ly hit­ting 1.1 mil­lion homes, even in the hottest sum­mer on record in Phoenix. They made near­ly 8 mil­lion phone calls and man­aged dig­i­tal and broad­cast campaigns.

Their work is noth­ing new. In 2016, groups involved with Mi AZ helped get a min­i­mum wage increase passed and then-Sher­iff Joe Arpaio, who had long tar­get­ed immi­grants, vot­ed out of office.

Dri­ven by years of anti-immi­grant propo­si­tions and leg­is­la­tion — from ban­ning bilin­gual edu­ca­tion 20 years ago, forc­ing col­lege stu­dents with­out legal sta­tus to pay out-of-state tuition in 2006 to SB 1070, the infa­mous “show me your papers” law from 2010 — these groups have built a net­work of activists and vot­ers who turned out in huge numbers.

Lati­nos also now account for 24% of eli­gi­ble vot­ers in Ari­zona, com­pared with 19% in 2012, accord­ing to Pew Research Center.

Biden’s vic­to­ry and that of Mark Kel­ly, who unseat­ed Repub­li­can Sen. Martha McSal­ly, are notable gains for Democ­rats. Biden is only the sec­ond Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date to win Ari­zona since 1948. Kelly’s win gives the state two Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors for the first time in near­ly 70 years.

But a slew of Democ­rats who ran for the state Leg­is­la­ture and statewide races failed to gain enough trac­tion. Biden also owes his vic­to­ry to chang­ing sub­ur­ban demo­graph­ics, with Repub­li­can areas shift­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic, and to Native Americans.

In parts of the coun­try where Democ­rats have long reigned, more Lati­nos vot­ed for Trump this year than expect­ed, includ­ing areas of Flori­da and Texas. Although Lati­nos like­ly helped pro­pel Biden to the pres­i­den­cy, it was a les­son in the lim­its of the party’s grip on an increas­ing­ly diverse seg­ment of voters.

And how or whether Democ­rats can keep that enthu­si­asm in the 2022 midterm elec­tions will require a lot of work.

Chuck Rocha, a senior Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gist, said the work by grass­roots groups in Ari­zona helped Biden win. But it’s also incum­bent on cam­paigns to pri­or­i­tize Lati­no vot­ers by spend­ing time and mon­ey in their com­mu­ni­ties con­sis­tent­ly, not just right before an election.

Super PACs that tar­get Lati­no vot­ers are also cru­cial, Rocha said, adding that his, Nue­stro PAC, spent $4 mil­lion in ads in Ari­zona start­ing the last week of June, but that such spend­ing is rare.

“I think Ari­zona is an exam­ple of the way to do things right, and it’s more than just the grass­roots groups,” Rocha said.

He said Democ­rats will have to deploy sim­i­lar tac­tics in oth­er His­pan­ic-heavy areas of the coun­try if they want to suc­ceed in 2022, espe­cial­ly after los­ing sev­er­al con­gres­sion­al seats in areas with a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of vot­ers of color.

“If you’re rely­ing on a bunch of white con­sul­tants to Google-Trans­late you an ad and put it on Uni­vi­sion, that’s not a win­ning strat­e­gy,” Rocha said.

Anto­nio Arel­lano, inter­im exec­u­tive direc­tor for Jolt, a Texas advo­ca­cy group that aims to grow Lati­nos’ polit­i­cal pow­er and mobi­lize young vot­ers, said both par­ties need to invest more in their out­reach efforts if they’re going to win an increas­ing­ly large and diverse constituency.

They have to hire peo­ple who come from and reflect their com­mu­ni­ties and stop treat­ing them as a safe bet, Arel­lano said.

“The par­ties know what they need to do, they’re just not doing it. They have out­dat­ed strate­gies,” he said. “The Lati­no elec­torate is incred­i­bly young. In order to con­nect with them, they need to mod­ern­ize civic engage­ment, and that requires an invest­ment… What we’ve seen is that Lati­nos are an afterthought.”

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion will keep sup­port­ers by focus­ing not just on immi­gra­tion reform and rein­stat­ing the Oba­ma-era pro­gram that shields from depor­ta­tion immi­grants who were brought to the U.S. as chil­dren, but by tack­ling the coro­n­avirus cri­sis and its eco­nom­ic fall­out, said Julie Rodríguez, Biden’s deputy cam­paign man­ag­er who was recent­ly named direc­tor of the White House Office of Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Affairs.

“I think folks are gonna see a mate­r­i­al dif­fer­ence between how we’re pri­or­i­tiz­ing com­mu­ni­ties and small busi­ness­es and address­ing the day-to-day issues, whether it’s extend­ing ben­e­fits or con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide rent sup­port,” Rodríguez said. “And that’s some­thing this admin­is­tra­tion hasn’t done.”

To sway Lati­no vot­ers, she said Democ­rats need to take the tac­tics used in Ari­zona to oth­er states.

But the par­ty will face stiff com­pe­ti­tion. Repub­li­cans attract­ed Lati­nos in parts of south Texas, and they will try to repli­cate that suc­cess elsewhere.

T.J. Shope, a long­time Repub­li­can state law­mak­er new­ly elect­ed to the Ari­zona Sen­ate, said his par­ty will look to its suc­cess in Texas for the midterm elec­tions. Shope, who is His­pan­ic, says the Trump cam­paign had a sig­nif­i­cant Lati­no vot­er out­reach effort, mak­ing inroads for the par­ty in the future.

Shope, 35, says Repub­li­cans need to recruit more can­di­dates who reflect their com­mu­ni­ties. He says it’s con­tin­gent on his par­ty to ensure Ari­zona doesn’t turn into a reli­ably blue state.

“This is seri­ous. We want to be com­pet­i­tive, we don’t want to be Col­orado,” Shope said.

In Ari­zona, Democ­rats pre­sent­ed Trump as the boogey­man, get­ting vot­ers to show up, while in south Flori­da, Repub­li­cans used social­ism to dri­ve vot­ers to Trump, Shope said.

Trump won’t be on the bal­lot in 2022, when the reign­ing par­ty usu­al­ly los­es seats.

“I guess the ques­tion I’m ask­ing myself is, who does the boogey­man become for both par­ties?” Shope said.