(NEXSTAR) – Donald Trump is projected to win the swing state of Arizona, giving him an additional 11 electoral votes, according to Decision Desk HQ on The Hill. The Wednesday night call puts every battleground state in his column.
Arizona was the last state called by DDHQ. Trump had already secured the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the election, but the final victory gave him 312 votes to Harris’ 226.
Both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as their surrogates, spent considerable time in Arizona in the final days of the campaign as they hoped to win over one of the crucial “Sun Belt” swing states.
Thom Reilly, co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University, said both Harris’ and Trump’s campaigns — and their allies — have put a remarkable amount of effort into micro-targeting in the Grand Canyon State.
“They are pulling out every stop just to see if they could wrangle a few more votes here and there,” Reilly said.
However, their campaign events took different approaches to the issues important to Arizona voters. Trump hammered home the message that Harris’ record on immigration “disqualifies her from the presidency.” Meanwhile, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz said during a Phoenix rally that another Trump term posed a threat to democracy and freedom.
Four years ago, during the 2020 presidential election, the margins in Arizona were tighter than anywhere else in the country, the Arizona Republic reports. President Joe Biden beat Trump 49.36% to 49.06%, or fewer than 11,000 votes.
A week before the election, polls were showing a close race – but not quite that close. The Hill reported Trump had a bigger advantage in Arizona than most of the other swing states.
Biden’s 2020 victory was the first time Arizona went blue since 1996.
In the lead-up to the election, there was wide speculation we’d be waiting on Arizona’s election results for a while. Arizona’s election results take a relatively long time to be reported due to the way ballots are counted. Mail-in ballots cast and pre-processed before Election Day are able to be reported right after polls close, but those dropped off on Election Day take much longer. Election workers aren’t allowed to even start processing those ballots until after polls close.
Mail-in ballots dropped off on Election Day represented a significant portion of key votes last election. In Maricopa County, which has the state’s largest population, about 20% of the nearly 1.6 million votes cast in 2022 were mail ballots dropped off on Election Day.
Maricopa County was expected to be crucial not just in the presidential election but also in a Senate race, between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Ruben Gallego, which could ultimately determine party control of the Congressional body. That race remained too close to call Wednesday night, but Gallego was leading Lake.
In Arizona, recounts are automatic if the vote margin is 0.5% of the total vote or less.
Trump was projected to win Arizona after victories in the six other key swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The Associated Press and The Hill contributed to this report.
