He may not have been on the ballot, but Gov. Doug Ducey had a greater impact on Arizona’s 2016 elections than most of the people who were.

Including the campaign for Proposition 123, his independent expenditure, his political action committee and the battle against recreational marijuana, Ducey raised about $12 million, according to political adviser J.P. Twist.

That massive fundraising haul paid lucrative dividends for the candidates and causes Ducey favored. In five of the six campaigns Ducey engaged in, the side he backed prevailed, the only exception being the hotly contested Senate race in Legislative District 18. Ducey achieved his goal of keeping the Senate in Republican hands and keeping recreational marijuana illegal in Arizona.

With the bully pulpit of the Ninth Floor and the fundraising prowess he demonstrated in his 2014 gubernatorial campaign, Ducey was able to achieve nearly every electoral goal he set over the past year. He pushed Prop. 123, an education funding measure intended to end a seven-year lawsuit, across the finish line in a special election in May. He kept the Senate in Republican hands, dashing the Democrats’ hopes of a split chamber. And he made Arizona the only state in the country to reject recreational marijuana in November.

Arizona governors have used their clout in elections before. But Ducey is engaging in electoral politics to a greater degree than most of his predecessors.

“I would say that Doug Ducey is kind of replicating under today’s rules kind of the advocacy nature of the Republican governor in support of his programs,” said lobbyist Barry Aarons.

Prodigious fundraiser

Lobbyist Kevin DeMenna, another longtime observer of Arizona’s political scene, said Ducey isn’t really involving himself in campaigns more than his predecessors did. But he’s certainly raising more money for candidates and causes than past governors.

“Governor Ducey has shown a prodigious ability to raise money for the causes he cares about. I think that’s commendable, at the least. A message in policy or politics is only as good as your ability to communicate and amplify your message. The governor gets that,” DeMenna said.

The bulk of Ducey’s fundraising efforts were on behalf of two ballot measure campaigns. The pro-Prop. 123 and anti-Prop. 205 campaigns each raised more than $5 million, most of which can be credited to Ducey. He also raised about $500,000 for Arizonans for Strong Leadership, his independent expenditure committee, and more than $300,000 for the Arizona Leadership Fund, his political action committee. And amid all that, he raised nearly a quarter million for his 2018 re-election.

“I think it speaks volumes to his political operation and how important he is in the political arena when it comes to state elections,” Twist said.

It should come as no surprise that Ducey can raise that kind of money. He raised more than $4.4 million for his 2014 campaign, not counting the millions of his money he put into the race, and showed a willingness to take the lead on ballot-measure campaigns in 2012 when he helped defeat a proposed extension of a temporary sales tax increase that was set to expire, a campaign that helped set the stage for his campaign for governor two years later.

Ducey’s commitment to Prop. 123 was a no-brainer. His office brokered the deal between legislative leadership and the education groups that had sued the state over K-12 funding cuts, and shepherded the proposal through the Legislature in a special session last year. Ducey’s fundraising and electioneering on behalf of Prop. 123 evoked comparisons to predecessors Jan Brewer and Jane Hull, who raised money and campaigned heavily for measures that they’d pushed onto the ballot.

Bucking the marijuana trend

It’s difficult to overstate Ducey’s impact on the fight over Prop. 205. Both sides insist that without Ducey’s efforts, recreational marijuana would now be the law of the land in Arizona.

Adam Deguire, a political consultant who led the anti-Prop. 205 effort, said Ducey was responsible for most of the more than $6 million that the campaign raised, and traveled the state to speak at town halls and campaign events as well.

“Unequivocally, if Governor Ducey was not involved in the 205 campaign, we likely would not have been successful,” he said.

Nine states this year had measures on the ballot to legalize either medical or recreational marijuana – Arizona voters legalized medical marijuana in 2010 – and Arizona was the only one to vote a pot measure down. J.P. Holyoak, who chaired the campaign for Prop. 205, credited Ducey with making Arizona the only state to buck the trend.

The money that Ducey raised allowed the anti-Prop. 205 campaign to flood the airwaves with ads, many of which claimed disastrous effects from Colorado voters’ 2012 decision to legalize marijuana.

“He raised the money and then the campaign was able to deploy that money to create false advertising that they were able to put on the airwaves in massive amounts,” Holyoak said.

Incoming Senate President Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, said it’s hard to say what the makeup of his chamber would be without the aid that Arizonans for Strong Leadership provided in the four contested Senate races, or whether Ducey prevented Democratic victories over Sen. Sylvia Allen, Rep. Kate Brophy McGee or Rep. Frank Pratt. But there’s no question that Ducey played a significant role.

Keeping the Senate in GOP hands

“I can’t remember in my recollection a governor being that helpful to trying to preserve the majority for his party in the Legislature,” Yarbrough said.

There were contested races for the House of Representatives as well. But Ducey’s stated goal when he formed Arizonans for Strong Leadership was to keep the Senate in GOP hands, and he focused exclusively on the four contested races that Democrats had targeted.

In three of those races, the Republican candidates prevailed, including Legislative District 8, where Pratt wrested the seat from incumbent Democrat Barbara McGuire. The gain offset the GOP’s loss in LD18, where Sean Bowie defeated Republican Frank Schmuck. All three of the Senate races that Republicans won were decided by only a few percentage points.

With the victories of Allen in Legislative District 6, where Ducey’s IE spent about $22,000, and Brophy McGee in Legislative District 28, where it spent $85,000, the GOP holds a 17-13 edge in the Senate, a net loss of just one seat.

Aarons said the last time he could recall a governor getting that involved in legislative races was in 1992, when Fife Symington, like Ducey is now, was in his first midterm election as governor. Democrats controlled the state Senate at the time, and Symington, whose administration Aarons served in, assembled a coalition of business figures to raise money for the Republican Senate candidates who took the chamber back.

Brewer waded into the 2014 legislative races, though her focus was mostly on the GOP primary rather than the general election. Arizona’s Legacy spent money to help Republican lawmakers who faced primary challenges for their support of Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan, and backed challengers against incumbents who opposed it.

In addition to his independent expenditure, Ducey also had his PAC, the Arizona Leadership Fund. Ducey used the PAC to dole out campaign contributions to every incumbent Republican or GOP nominee in legislative races, as well as candidates for county and municipal offices.