Biden win in Arizona ‘confirmed’ as analyst says there is now no way back for Trump

Joe Biden has managed to turn Arizona blue after 24 years

President-elect Joe Biden has finally been announced as the winner in Arizona by one of the last remaining analysts to call the state, days after the Associated Press, Fox News and several other networks projected his victory.

Mr Biden no longer needed to win Arizona’s 11 electoral votes, which take him to a total of 290, after he was declared the winner in the crucial swing state ofPennsylvania on Saturday.

But the result in Arizona was still being closely watched, after some analysts suggested the projection of a result in the state on election night itself was a little premature.

The victory in Arizona is a historic one for the Democrats, who last took the seat in 1996 during Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign. Before Mr Clinton, the last Democrat to win in Arizona was Harry Truman in 1948.

The election results reporting website Decision Desk HQ becomes the latest to call Arizona, projecting it in Mr Biden’s favour late on Wednesday with an estimated 24,000 ballots still to be counted. Though the gap in the state had been narrowing, analysts said they now believe there’s no way back for Donald Trump, who trails by around 11,600 votes. 

The final ballots could still be significant, however, with the state’s rules saying that a recount will only be triggered if the candidates are within 0.1 per cent of each other. Currently, Mr Biden leads by 0.3 percentage points. 

This year’s election was also historic for Arizona because voters in the state returned more than three million ballots for the first time. According to the AZ Capitol Times, the state is projected to hit 80 per cent in voter turnout. The only other time Arizona hit the 80 per cent turnout mark was in 1980.

=Arizona also stood out during the count because while in most states across the country, the counting of mail-in ballots leaned heavily in favour of Mr Biden, in Arizona they actually favoured Mr Trump. Ultimately, however, it was not enough to claw back Mr Biden’s early lead.