President-elect Donald Trump gained Arizona and its 11 electoral votes, the Associated Press mentioned, flipping one more battleground state and including to his Electoral College tally.
Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris is a return to Arizona’s historically conservative standing: It has voted for a Democrat solely twice for the reason that Nineteen Forties, together with in 2020, when Joe Biden eked out a victory over Trump by simply over 10,000 votes .
But this 12 months, Democrats seemed to be preventing an uphill battle from the beginning in Arizona, a border state the place voters have expressed anger over the migrant disaster and deep financial issues over the price of housing and excessive costs of family items. day by day, comparable to groceries and petrol. .
Republicans outnumber Democrats within the state, so Harris wanted to influence a major variety of Arizona’s independents and average Republicans to vote for her. And there have been indicators he may pull it off: Independents, significantly white ladies within the Phoenix suburbs, had moved left, and Democrats hoped they might be motivated by defending reproductive rights and denying Trump one other mandate.
Instead, it was Trump who put collectively a profitable coalition, conserving sufficient of the state’s Republicans in line whereas securing the votes of sufficient independents. Polls had lengthy prompt it was impacting the Latino vote, an important and fast-growing voting bloc in Arizona that Democrats relied on as a part of their coalition.
Harris appeared to have the higher taking part in area in Arizona, along with her marketing campaign and allied teams, comparable to unions, working effectively to knock on doorways and get voters out. Trump’s operation, in the meantime, has relied closely on exterior committees to do that work, an untested technique for Republicans.
However, conservative teams like Turning Point appeared effectively ready, knocking on doorways all through the summer time and fall and urging much less probably conservative voters to return their ballots early — a change from 2020, when Trump was extra adamant in defame early voting. Republicans had been inspired by early voting numbers in Arizona this 12 months, hoping they might be sufficient to stop a late surge by Democrats.
Originally revealed: