The 2020 United States presidential election in Arizona was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election, in which all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated. Arizona voters chose 11 electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Republican President Donald Trump of Florida and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence of Indiana, against Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware and his running mate, United States Senator Kamala Harris of California. The Libertarian nominees were also on the ballot. This is the closest presidential election in Arizona history, surpassing the previous closest of 1964, in which Barry Goldwater won the state by just under a single percentage point.
Trump carried Arizona in 2016 by 3.5%, and it was considered a vital battleground in this election. The state's bitterly competitive nature was attributed to the rapid growth of Maricopa County, a traditionally Republican stronghold that holds 61.6% of the state's population. Biden became the first Democrat to win Arizona since Bill Clinton in 1996, and only the second since Harry S. Truman in 1948. He is also the first Democrat to win Maricopa County since Truman, with a margin of 2.2%, or 45,109 votes. High turnout among Hispanic/Latino and Native American voters was also seen as vital. Polls of the state throughout the campaign generally showed a Biden lead, albeit by a slender margin. Prior to election day, 11 of the 16 news organizations considered that Arizona was leaning towards Biden; the other five considered it a toss-up. Arizona was the second-closest state in 2020, the only closer state being Georgia, marking the first time since 1948 that the Democratic nominee won both Sun Belt states in the same presidential election (Clinton won each state in separate elections). This was also the first time since 1932 that a non-incumbent Democrat carried Arizona in a presidential election, or that an incumbent Republican lost the state. Arizona weighed in as 4.15 percentage points more Republican than the nation in 2020. Arizona is also one of only two states that backed Biden that didn't back Barack Obama in either of his runs for president in 2008 and 2012, the other being Georgia.
After the election, the Republican-majority Arizona Senate launched a Maricopa County-based publicly-funded investigation into the election fraud alleged by Trump and his supporters. The controversial audit, completed in September 2021, found no evidence to support claims of significant election irregularities. Additionally, the audit found a 360 vote larger margin for Biden than what the earlier, certified results had given.
On April 24, 2024, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that a grand jury has indicted eleven fake electors and seven Trump allies, including Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, for their roles in attempting to overturn the results for Trump.
Primary elections
Canceled Republican primary
On September 9, 2019, the Arizona Republican Party became one of several state Republican parties to officially cancel their respective primaries and caucuses. Donald Trump's re-election campaign and GOP officials have cited the fact that Republicans canceled several state primaries when George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush sought a second term in 1992 and 2004, respectively; and Democrats scrapped some of their primaries when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were seeking reelection in 1996 and 2012, respectively.
Of the 57 total delegates, 3 were allocated to each of the state's 9 congressional districts, 10 to at-large delegates, and another 3 to pledged party leaders and elected officials (PLEO delegates). 17 bonus delegates were also allocated.
The state party still formally conducted the higher meetings in their walking subcaucus-type delegate selection system. The legislative district and county conventions were held from February 8 to April 11 to select delegates to the Arizona State Republican Convention. At the Arizona State Republican Convention, which took place on May 9, the state party formally bound all 57 of its national pledged delegates to Trump. A May 15 email from the Arizona GOP stated that "every one of our ... delegates ... elected pledged to support Donald Trump and Mike Pence as the Republican Party's 2020 nominees for President and Vice President!"
The 54 pledged delegates Arizona sent to the national convention were joined by 3 pledged PLEO delegates, consisting of the National Committeeman, National Committeewoman, and chairman of the Arizona Republican Party.
Democratic primary
The Arizona Democratic primary took place on March 17, 2020, on the same date as the Democratic primaries in Florida and Illinois. Former Vice President Joe Biden won the primary with 43.7% of the vote and 38 delegates, running ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, who received 32.7% of the vote and 29 delegates. No other candidates received any delegates and the only other candidates to receive more than 1% of the vote were Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, with 5.8%, and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, with 4.1%. Both Warren and Buttigieg withdrew prior to the contest. The other candidates on the ballot comprised a collective 1.2% of the vote.
Biden won 13 of 15 counties in the state of Arizona, with Sanders winning Coconino (home to Flagstaff) and Yuma (home to its eponymous city) counties.
The official vote totals reported by the Arizona Secretary of State added up to 86.7%, as the remaining 13.3% of the vote was composed of candidates whose individual vote totals were not reported.
†Candidate withdrew after early voting started.
General election
Campaign
Arizona was a heavily contested state throughout the election. Once a reliably Republican state, it has trended more Democratic in recent years, with Trump winning it by just 3.5% in 2016. Compared to past Republicans, Trump's performance was historically weak: Mitt Romney won it with a 9.0% margin in 2012 over Barack Obama, John McCain by 8.5% in 2008 also against Obama, and George W. Bush by 10.5% in 2004 against John Kerry. Arizona was one of just ten states to swing more Democratic in 2016, and its 5.5 percentage point swing was the fourth largest in the country. The swing mirrored a nationwide pattern where suburban voters, formerly the principal Republican voting base, swung deep into the Democratic column. Arizona's leftward swing was also credited to a rapidly growing Hispanic population.
Both candidates spent massive amounts of money on advertising, though Biden outspent Trump 2–1.
Trump visited Arizona significantly more than his opponent, holding 4 rallies in just one week, compared to Biden, who only visited the state once. Trump favored large rallies with thousands of people in attendance, oftentimes without masks and contrary to the advice of health officials.
At his rallies, Trump campaigned with the Republican Governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, as well as Republican Senator Martha McSally, in a bid to help her win against Democrat Mark Kelly in the 2020 United States Senate special election.
Polling
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Aggregate polls
2020 polls
2019 polls
Fundraising
According to the Federal Election Commission, in 2019 and 2020, Joe Biden and his interest groups raised $9,284,978.20, Donald Trump and his interest groups raised $15,506,263.10, and Jo Jorgensen raised $29,078.65 from Arizona-based contributors.
Candidate ballot access
- Joe Biden / Kamala Harris, Democratic
- Donald Trump / Mike Pence, Republican
- Jo Jorgensen / Jeremy "Spike" Cohen, Libertarian
Independent candidates who wished to run were required to submit a nomination petition and financial disclosure form between 120 and 90 days before the primary election. A valid nomination petition required signatures from 3% of unaffiliated registered voters in Arizona as of March 1, 2020. However, the signatories may be of any political party or unaffiliated as long as they have not already signed a petition for a candidate registered in a political party who intends to run in the same election. Petitions may be physical or electronic; in 2012, Arizona introduced E-Qual, an online nominating petition platform.
In-addition, write-in candidates were required to file a nomination paper (including the candidate's name and signature; residence and post office address; age and date of birth; and the length of time the candidate has lived in Arizona) and financial disclosure form by 5:00 p.m. on the 40th day before the election in which the candidate is running – in this case, September 24 – for their votes to be counted. Sore-loser laws prevent candidates who lost a primary election from running in the general election as a write-in candidate. Write-in candidates also may not run if they didn't receive enough signatures to attain ballot access while filing for the primary election or if the candidate did not receive enough signatures to gain ballot access in the general election. The following candidates were given write-in access:
- Howie Hawkins / Angela Nicole Walker, Green
- Jade Simmons / Claudeliah Roze, Independent
- Gloria La Riva / Sunil Freeman, Socialism and Liberation
- Daniel Clyde Cummings / Ryan Huber, Constitution
- President R. Boddie / Eric Stoneham, Independent
Electoral slates
Technically the voters of Arizona cast their ballots for electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, rather than directly for president and vice president. Arizona is allocated 11 electors because it has 9 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 11 electors who pledge to vote for their candidate and their running mate. Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 11 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than their candidate is known as a faithless elector. In the state of Arizona, a faithless elector's vote is voided and replaced, but the faithless elector is not penalized.
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 15, 2020, to cast their votes for president and vice president. All 11 pledged electors cast their votes for President-elect former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris from California. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead, the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols. The electoral vote was tabulated and certified by Congress in a joint session on January 6, 2021 per the Electoral Count Act.
These individuals were nominated by each party to serve as the state's members of the 2020 Electoral College should their party's ticket win the state:
Results
By county
County that flipped from Republican to Democratic
- Maricopa (largest municipality: Phoenix)
By congressional district
Biden won five out of nine congressional districts in Arizona.
Analysis
In winning Arizona, Biden won Maricopa County, by far the most populous county in Arizona, making it the first time a Democrat had done so since 1948. Biden's statewide winning margin of 0.3% remained out of range for a recount, since Arizona Revised Statutes does not have provisions for candidate- or voter-requested recounts. Furthermore, an automatic recount will only be performed if the margin is lower than 0.1%. This was the first time since 2000 that any county in the state flipped parties. Democrats carried a majority of congressional districts in the state for the first time since 1964. Arizona was seen as a potential Democratic flip throughout the year, as the state's increasing Hispanic population as well as an influx of retirees and younger college-educated voters were becoming increasingly friendly to the Democratic Party.
Analysts attributed Biden's win in Arizona to several factors, including shifts towards Democrats in the suburbs of Phoenix and an increase in Native American turnout. Trump's attacks on moderate Republicans, including former Arizona senator John McCain, were also cited as factors that helped Biden, along with Biden's endorsement from Cindy McCain, the widow of John McCain, and former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. The Biden campaign had released an ad featuring Cindy McCain discussing Biden's relationship with John McCain. Analysts also cited Latino organizing after Arizona Republicans passed controversial immigration laws such as SB 1070.
Hispanic and Latino voters
Biden carried the Hispanic/Latino vote by a 59–40 margin, which was eleven points weaker than Hillary Clinton's 61–31 win in 2016 among Latinos, in spite of her loss statewide. Santa Cruz County, where 83.5% of the population is Hispanic or Latino, swung 12 points more Republican than in 2016, while Yuma County (63.8% Hispanic or Latino) swung 5.1 points more Republican.
Native American voters
Biden easily won Apache County, dominated by the Navajo and Fort Apache reservations; and Coconino County, encompassing the Havasupai Nation and parts of the Navajo, Hopi, and Hualapai nations. Anywhere from 60 to 90% of the Navajo Nation's 67,000 registered voters voted for Biden. In Pima County, Biden won the precincts encompassing the Tohono O'odham, San Xavier, and Pascua Yaqui reservations, often with over 90% of the vote.
Concurrent elections
The presidential election was held concurrently with elections to the House of Representatives and Senate. In the 2020 United States Senate special election, incumbent Republican Martha McSally, who lost the 2018 Senate election but was appointed to the Senate to replace Jon Kyl (who in turn replaced John McCain following his death), ran for re-election, but was defeated by Democrat and former astronaut Mark Kelly. Kelly was widely expected in polling and forecasts to outperform Biden due to McSally's unpopularity, and ended up doing so by 2.4 percentage points. It also corresponded with 2020 Arizona Proposition 207, a referendum to approve the legalization and taxation of recreational marijuana, which was approved by over 60% of voters. House Republicans won more votes than Democrats: Republicans won 50.1% of votes on the general ballot to the Democrats' 49.9%.
Exit polls
Edison
The following are estimates from exit polls conducted by the Edison Research for the National Election Pool (encompassing ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News) interviewing 1,639 Arizona voters, adjusted to match the actual vote count.