On November 12, most media organizations, including CNN, NBC News, ABC News, The New York Times, and CBS News called Arizona for Joe Biden. The call comes days after the Associated Press and Fox News called the state, and well over nine days after Election Day. This marks the first time since 1996 a Democratic presidential candidate carried the traditional Republican stronghold, and only the second time since Harry S. Truman won the state in 1948. This leftward shift is evident of demographic change in the state and ushers in a new era of politics for Arizona.
As of writing, with over 98 percent of precincts reporting, President-Elect Joe Biden has won the state by 11,434 votes, or 0.34 percent. Because the state released mail ballots first and in-person votes later, a red shift was expected in the state, and though that is exactly what had happened in Arizona, it was not enough to put President Donald Trump over the top. With particularly stringent recount laws, including a very narrow margin required for recounts and banning candidates from requesting recounts, there probably won’t be a recount in Arizona, and the state’s 11 electoral votes will go to Joe Biden.
For the longest of times, Arizona has remained a very conservative GOP-stronghold. The state didn’t even vote for Lyndon B. Johnson in his landslide victory of 1964, and in 2008, a great year for the Democrats, the state backed Republican John McCain, a U.S. Senator from Arizona, by well over eight points. And it has consistently sent Republicans to Washington for decades.
In fact, the state was so Republican for the past decades that a study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) named Mesa, a suburb of the Phoenix, the state’s largest city, the most conservative city in America.
In the 2018 midterms, Arizona completely shocked the nation when it voted in Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate Democrat, over Republican Martha McSally. Democrats also won a majority of the state’s delegations to the U.S. House. The 2018 election proved that Democrats could, in fact, win the conservative stronghold of Arizona. This was a major swing in that Arizona was now up for grabs for the Democrats.
In the last decade, growth in the Phoenix suburbs has been astronomical, and Phoenix is one of the fastest-growing cities in America. It also has a very diverse populace, with a large minority vote-share. Population growth, as well as Democratic-voting minorities, helped propel the Democrats to victory in this state.
This year, President-Elect Joe Biden won the state’s 11 electoral votes, and Mark Kelly, a Democrat, won the U.S. Senate special election over Republican Martha McSally. McSally’s name is on the ballot again because she was appointed to this Senate seat after the much-beloved John McCain passed away in 2018, which is possibly one of the worse moves the governor could’ve done (seriously—who appoints a person who just lost a statewide election for the Senate to the Senate?). Having been rejected once already by voters, Kelly soared to victory, carrying the state by over three points.
Arizona’s lurch to the left can be attributed to the shift in Maricopa County, which contains much of Phoenix and its suburbs, and 62 percent of the state’s population. The following graphic from The New York Times emphasizes just how much Maricopa has shifted to the left compared to 2016 (Donald Trump carried the state by three points then).
This makes Joe Biden the first Democrat to carry the county since 1948. Within Maricopa, Biden carried most Hispanic-majority precincts and precincts with lots of millenials.
In addition to Maricopa’s leftward shift, President Trump’s constant lambasting of longtime state hero John McCain probably hurt him quite a bit, too. John McCain was a Vietnam veteran who was also held as a prisoner of war between 1967 and 1973, and he served as the United States Senator, replacing Barry Goldwater’s seat from Arizona from 1987 until his death on August 25, 2018. McCain’s stances on most social issues made him considerably more liberal than most Republicans. He was also the deciding vote against an act that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act in 2017. Yet, Trump called him a “loser” for being a prisoner of war, among many other nasty things. These comments probably ended up biting him back, as Trump would probably have been able to etch out a victory here had it not been for the fact that he angered many Arizonans with his comments about McCain.
Also, American Indian turnout was in full force this year, with over 67,000 Native Americans in the Navajo Nation reservation casting their votes—and a considerable majority, anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of these voters cast their ballots for Biden. Had Native Americans chose not to vote, Trump might have won Arizona.
In conclusion, a number of factors definitely did work in President-Elect Biden’s favor, allowing him to become only the second Democrat to carry the once deep-red state of Arizona in almost 80 years.