Final votes, final call: Arizona goes for Biden
Biden wins Maricopa County by 45,000 votes in final tally, is second Dem to win state in presidential race since 1948
Seemingly every national news organization that hadn’t already called Arizona for President-elect Joe Biden — NBC, CNN, CBS, The New York Times and The Washington Post — called the state shortly after a round of results from Maricopa County left it mathematically impossible for Trump to prevail.
Fox News and The Associated Press had already called Arizona for Biden last week, but at that point President Donald Trump had a chance, albeit slim, to pull ahead of his Democratic challenger.
Then the Thursday evening results from about 4,000 Maricopa County ballots went 53% for Biden and 43% for Trump. That news left Trump with no path to victory in a state that’s long been a Republican stronghold.
By Friday morning, Biden led Trump by about 11,000 votes in the statewide tally — a margin greater than the estimated number of ballots remaining to be counted in Arizona. Counting essentially wrapped up later in the day.
Election officials in Pima County finished counting all of their remaining ballots on Friday. Maricopa County officials released their final tally that evening, showing Biden leading in the county with 1,040,774 votes to Trump’s 995,665 votes.
Even before Arizona’s tally was finished, Biden had secured enough electoral votes in other states to win the presidency. While The Associated Press and others called North Carolina for Trump, other developments on Friday helped further seal the results in Biden’s favor:
● While votes were still being counted in a statewide hand recount, Biden was projected as the winner in Georgia, where he leads by about 14,000 votes.
● In Pennsylvania, Biden continued to lead Friday, and the Pennsylvania Department of State announced no recount would be ordered because no defeat there met the 0.5% standard for a recount.
● The final tallies gave Biden states with a total of 306 electoral votes and Trump with 232 electoral votes — the same totals as four years ago when Trump topped Hillary Clinton.
This election marks only the second time the Grand Canyon State has supported a Democrat for president since 1948. The last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state was thenPresident Bill Clinton in 1996.
Though Biden did not need Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes to win the presidential race, the globe has watched with anticipation to see how Arizona voters would decide the race here.
Arizona counties are not required to regularly report the number of remaining ballots, so while the nation was focused on the tally here, getting an accurate tally of what was left to count had
been a challenge.
The state’s website on Friday night indicated Apache County had about 1,700 remaining ballots.
Starting in the early morning following Election Day, Trump opined that the remaining Arizona ballots could swing the state in his favor, assuring his supporters that these ballots were coming from “Trump Territory.”
As late-early ballot results were tallied, Biden’s lead narrowed. But not at the pace Trump needed to pull ahead.
On Nov. 7, Trump’s campaign sued Arizona election officials, contending Maricopa County poll workers disregarded procedures designed to give voters a chance to correct ballot mistakes.
Claims narrowed over the following days, until Friday, when Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Ki
ley dismissed claims as moot, meaning further legal proceedings would be pointless.
But the Arizona Republican Party has filed another suit, in an attempt to force an additional hand count of ballots by precinct versus by vote center. A preliminary hearing in that case is scheduled for next week.
On Thursday morning, Trump had still insisted Arizona was in his reach.
“From 200,000 votes to less than 10,000 votes. If we can audit the total votes cast, we will easily win Arizona also!” he tweeted.
It’s unclear where Trump got the 10,000 figure as Biden has maintained a larger lead than that with each release of election results.
Maricopa County found no discrepancies in a hand-audit, which involves
Republican, Democratic and Libertarian representatives. Coconino, Greenlee, Navajo and Yavapai counties also found no discrepancies, the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office shows.
Cochise, Pima and Pinal counties found minor discrepancies within the legal margin.
Arizona law requires the audits, which involve checking a sample of ballots to ensure tabulation equipment is accurate.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, has rejected Trump’s claims of election irregularities here, saying “if indeed there was some great conspiracy, it apparently didn’t work.”