The Races In Arizona Are Moving In Democrats’ Favor

Arizona, once a ruby-red state that has voted the Republican nominee for president since 1996 (and before that, 1948!) is no longer. It isn’t even just a swing state, like Texas or North Carolina. Rather, it is now a state that is favored for the Democrats to win. Let’s take a look at some of the data coming out from Arizona.

Let’s take a look at Arizona’s voting history first. Up until 2018, the state had two Republican senators and the Republicans held a majority in the state’s U.S. House delegations. It voted for George W. Bush by margins of seven and 10 percent in 2000 and 2004, voted for John McCain by a margin of eight percent in 2008, Mitt Romney by nine percent in 2012, and Donald Trump by a margin of four percent in 2016. Quite evidently, based on historical data, the Grand Canyon State is reliably Republican.

But all that changed starting in 2018. Arizona is now the home to one of America’s fastest-growing cities: Phoenix and its suburbs. The growth is thanks largely to an increase in young, liberal voters and is also home to a large amount of Hispanics and Latinos. In 2018, not only did Arizona voters flip the U.S. Senate seat blue by voting for Kyrsten Sinema by three percent, but voters also flipped two Arizona’s U.S. House seats, giving the Democrats a 5-4 majority in the state’s House delegation (useful if there is a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College).

Martha McSally, the 2018 Republican U.S. Senate nominee for Arizona, lost her reelection by three percent. However, after the state’s other Republican senator Jon Kyl resigned from his seat, the governor appointed McSally as Kyl’s replacement. As a result, she is running as an incumbent in this year’s Senate election in Arizona.

This is a key point as to where Republicans failed. Since the governor was Republican, it made sense to nominate a Republican to fill in the empty Senate seat. However, it was a mistake to nominate the loser of the election that was just held not long ago to fill the seat. If voters rejected McSally in 2018, do you really think that she will be able to hold her seat this year, in a Democratic wave year in a state that is getting bluer?

Democrats have made a large play for the Senate seat. The Democrats nominated Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and veteran, to run for the seat. He is quite famous in the state, and since he is such a strong candidate, is dominating in the polls. He has led since the beginning of the year and retained the lead. Check out the Senate forecast, too.

FiveThirtyEight is also giving a 78 percent chance of Kelly winning in their newly released Senate forecast. (A detailed post about the forecast will come soon.)

Clearly, Kelly is the favorite to win in the state. Forecasters, including Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, Politico, Niskanen, and 270towin are all showing Kelly as being favored to win.

Because Mark Kelly is expected to win here, he is helping Joe Biden in the state too. As most voters don’t split their ballots, many people who vote for Kelly will vote for Biden, too. This can be seen reflected in the polls, where Biden is up by 4.8 percent in the state (this was five percent at one point). In fact, a new Siena College/New York Times Upshot poll (an A+ rated pollster) is showing Biden ahead by nine percent in the state.

On the presidential level (forecast), this is a key state for both campaigns. Just about every scenario with Trump winning involves Arizona. If Arizona flips, it will be another blow to the Trump campaign. This is because if Biden wins Arizona, he can afford to lose North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and even Pennsylvania and still win the election.

The Cook Political Report, traditionally quite conservative with their estimates, has just classified Arizona as lean Democratic, which is major news for the Biden campaign. Their presidential forecast now looks as follows:

Joe Biden is clearly the favorite to win in this map. Arizona is now classified just as safe for Joe Biden as Nevada, New Hampshire, and Minnesota, three states that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016!

The Democrats are also expected to retain the U.S. House delegation from Arizona this year. There should be virtually no question as to whether or not the Democrats can retain a U.S. House majority.

In summary, the elections are looking up for the Democrats in Arizona, a traditionally conservative-leaning state, on the presidential, House, and Senate levels. Though no one should get complacent just yet, it seems highly likely that the Democrats will win in Arizona, flipping both of its Senate seats blue in just four short years. Arizona will likely join the likes of Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia as the state gets more and more liberal—no longer competitive for the GOP.

_{Polling data is correct as of writing. Polling data may have changed slightly since writing.}