Arizona was finally declared for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the early hours of Wednesday morning, despite furious outcry from senior Trump campaign officials earlier in the night after Fox News called an early win for Biden.
Biden secured 11 electoral votes in a typically red state that Republicans have sought to hold amid a changing political landscape. The Trump campaign spent recent weeks on the ground trying to secure a win.
The Associated Press called the state shortly before 3 a.m. EST, with 80% reporting. Biden held a 5 percentage-point lead over Trump, 52% to 47%. In the Senate race, Mark Kelly beat incumbent Sen. Martha McSally, 53% to 47%.
An electoral map showed Biden leading Trump in the Democratic Party strongholds of Phoenix and Tuscon. Arizona took on increasing importance as Trump secured an early lead in Florida.
Fox News called the state at 11:24 p.m. EST, with 73% of votes counted.
“WAY too soon to be calling Arizona…way too soon. We believe over 2/3 of those outstanding Election Day voters are going to be for Trump,” Trump 2020 senior adviser Jason Miller said. “Can’t believe Fox was so anxious to pull the trigger here after taking so long to call Florida. Wow.”
Shortly after midnight, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey said Arizona’s race was “far too early to call.”
It’s far too early to call the election in Arizona. Election Day votes are not fully reported, and we haven’t even started to count early ballots dropped off at the polls. In AZ, we protected Election Day. Let’s count the votes — all the votes — before making declarations.
— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) November 4, 2020
Republican strategist Stan Barnes said he was “surprised” by the projection. Arizona was over for Trump “yet,” he said.
Trump was winning 61% of 54,000 Election Day votes reported early Wednesday morning in Arizona. “If there are as many outstanding as I think there are, that’s the level he needs to have a shot,” tweeted Washington Post Opinion columnist Henry Olsen.
“The election day vote, trickling in tonight, will be very Trump,” tweeted New York Times Upshot analyst Nate Cohn. “After that, the late mail ballots: typically Dem, but this year the outstanding absentees were R by reg.”
Olsen added: “Biden has the edge, but it’s not clearly over.”
Fox News decision desk director Arnon Mishkin said that the network is standing by their projection, rejecting a claim by the White House that Trump could secure enough outstanding votes to move ahead of Biden.
“I’m sorry, the president is not going to be able to take over and eliminate that 5 point lead,” Mishkin said.
“This is election interference,” Trump ally Benny Johnson said of the Fox News projection, and called on the network to fire politics editor Chris Stirewalt. “The Trump campaign should sue Fox News. Not even CNN or MSNBC called Arizona for Trump.”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson said some were concerned by the move.
“I’m not privy to the math, I’m not certain how, even after the explanation from Chris Stirewalt, how that decision was made,” Carlson said. “I think our viewers trust us, but people are concerned.”
In 2016, Trump won the state against Hillary Clinton by 3.5 percentage points, 49% to 45.5%, a margin significantly smaller than the 9-point advantage Mitt Romney secured against President Barack Obama in 2012 and John McCain’s 8.5 percentage-point margin over Obama in 2008.
And though Trump won the state’s most populous county, Maricopa, in 2016, he did so by a narrow margin. Once reliably red, it accounts for roughly 60% of the statewide vote, with vast suburban and urban districts, including the cities of Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler, Tempe, and Scottsdale.
Democrats hoped this was the start of a new foothold in a state marked by changing voter demographics and a more centrist conservatism that saw Arizonans elect Republicans such as John McCain and Jeff Flake in past years to the chamber.
A RealClearPolitics average of polls one day before the election found Biden with a 1 percentage-point lead over Trump, 48% to 47%.
The final New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters in the state, published on Sunday and conducted between Oct. 26 and 30, found Biden ahead by 6 percentage points. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.
Arizona voters cast early ballots in record numbers this year. The state surpassed the total number of early ballots cast in the 2016 election more than five days before Election Day.
Turnout this year is “the most people who have ever voted early in Arizona history,” Paul Bentz, of polling and strategy firm HighGround, told the Phoenix Business Journal.
Though Democrats kicked off early voting by leading Republicans in the number of ballots cast, their advantage narrowed in the approach to Nov. 3.
One day before Election Day, Saguaro Strategies reported that 902,454 ballots from Democrats had been returned compared to 880,783 Republican ballots, or 65.6% Democratic Party turnout to 58.5% Republican.
Arizona counties began tallying early ballots on Oct. 20.
Less than one week before Election Day, Trump descended on the state with events in Mohave’s Bullhead City in a reliably red county where the president secured 73% of the vote in the last election.
In Tucson, a Democratic Party stronghold, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris met Latina business owners before helming a drive-through rally.
Both candidates landed in vast, populous Maricopa County later in the day for dueling rallies.
Biden poured resources into the Phoenix media market in the weeks leading up to the election, spending more there than in any other advertising market and vastly outspending Trump in the state.
