Associated Press
Democrat Joe Biden has won Arizona and its 11 electoral votes, flipping a critical battleground state that Donald Trump won four years ago and that could help determine which candidate wins the presidency.
The victory by Biden was a huge blow to Trump’s chances for reelection. Arizona has backed a Democratic presidential candidate only once in the last 72 years.
Biden’s campaign had focused on Arizona as part of its expanded battleground map through the Sun Belt, citing demographic changes, new residents and realignment away from Republicans among key suburban voters.
Arizona is among the more than half a dozen states that will help determine which candidate gets the 270 electoral votes to capture the White House.
Biden’s massive advantage in campaign cash allowed him to put Trump on defense across the country and work to build an unstoppable lead in the Electoral College.
Biden has won at least three of Maine’s four electoral votes.
Biden won the statewide tally and the 1st Congressional District, good for three electoral votes. Trump, meanwhile, hoped to claim one electoral vote in a win in the 2nd Congressional District. The 2nd Congressional District hasn’t yet been called.
Maine split its electoral votes four years ago, awarding three to Democrat Hillary Clinton and one to Trump, who won the more rural and conservative of Maine’s congressional districts.
It marked the first time in state history that Maine divided its electoral votes.
Maine is one of only two states that divides its electoral votes. The other is Nebraska.
In the race to the 270 electoral votes needed to win, Biden has 238 while Trump has 213.
The AP called the race at 2:50 a.m. Wednesday, after an analysis of ballots cast statewide concluded there were not enough outstanding to allow Trump to catch up.
With 80% of the expected vote counted, Biden was ahead by 5 percentage points, with a roughly 130,000-vote lead over Trump with about 2.6 million ballots counted. The remaining ballots left to be counted, including mail-in votes in Maricopa County, where Biden performed strongly, were not enough for Trump to catch up to the former vice president.
Arizona has a long political history of voting Republican. It’s the home state of Barry Goldwater, a five-term, conservative senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1964. John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, represented the state in Congress from 1983 until his 2018 death.
But changing demographics, including a fast-growing Latino population and a boom of new residents — some fleeing the skyrocketing cost of living in neighboring California — have made the state friendlier to Democrats.
Many of the gains have been driven by the shifting politics of Maricopa County, which is home to Phoenix and its suburbs. That’s where Biden sealed his victory. Maricopa County accounts for 60% of the state’s vote, and Biden ran up huge margins there.
In 2016, Trump carried the county by 4 percentage points, which helped propel him to a win. But two years later, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema flipped the seat from Republican control by winning the county by 5 points.
When the AP called the race for Biden, he was leading there by 9 percentage points.
Biden flipping Arizona is a sign of Democrats’ ascendant influence in the state.
In 2018, Sinema became the first Democrat in three decades to win a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona. Democrats also won three statewide offices and five of nine congressional seats and made gains in the state legislature that year.
In 2016, voters ousted Republican Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County’s hardline sheriff, who built a national profile on his harsh treatment of immigrants.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
