Presidential Election Deep-dive: Arizona

And with less than two weeks until the presidential election, we take you on a deep dive into Arizona. What are voters there most concerned about? And how has the state changed over the last few election cycles? We're now going to NTD's election reporter, Kevin Hogan, at the Data Hub. Yes, Arizona has been a Republican stronghold for many years, since the mid-50s, outside of a win with former President Bill Clinton. However, this state had very close margins in 2016, when former President Trump won it. And then now, of course, in 2020, you saw Biden flipped it to blue. Now, this state is definitely extremely important in this presidential race. I want to show you a couple scenarios in which Arizona could actually make the difference. Now, let's take, for example, if Harris were to pick up Nevada, Democrats have done that twice. And then also, if she gets the big prize of Pennsylvania, however, if Trump is able to pick up Wisconsin, big if, of course, but he's done it before now. And then you see him pick up eastern Sunbelt, city of Georgia. You can see that it's 266 for Harris to 261 for Trump. Very close. Again, the state of Arizona, 11 electoral votes, if you give that to Trump, pushes him over the 270 threshold. And if you give that to Harris, again, same thing happens. Now, there's another scenario, I want to reset this map for you, to show you exactly how Arizona could be so crucial. And this is, again, one of many scenarios in which the actual race could come down to Arizona. You give Wisconsin, pardon me, you give Wisconsin to Harris, and then you have Trump picking up the big prize, that's 19 votes for Pennsylvania, and then you have him taking Nevada, whereas Harris gets Georgia. Again, all these races are super toss-ups, so this could happen. You have, again, 267 for Harris, 260 for Trump. Arizona's 11 electoral votes, you give that to either candidate, you can see it crosses the 270 threshold. It could be very, very crucial. Now, let's dive into historic data, so we can find out exactly what is happening with this race right now, and give us an idea. So, we're going to zoom in on Arizona right now. 2020, you have President Biden, and it looks like we are going to try to find out a way to get our data to give us county-level results. It doesn't look like we have that at the moment, but if, for example, you take, so it's a blue state, look at this, 10,000 votes. That's how close this state was decided in 2020. In 2016, it was much more dramatic, Trump had a bigger lead. However, we can see that the race is extremely close. What do you have in Arizona? Well, let's just take a look. For example, you have Maricopa County, that's right here. This is the biggest county in the state in terms of population, so it's going to be very decisive. Trump was out there campaigning in Phoenix and other areas, and then also in Glendale, Arizona, all in Maricopa County. That's where RFK Jr. endorsed Trump and spoke on stage with him. Harris has spoken to the voters in Arizona, and they're mostly concerned, a lot of them are concerned with the preservation of democracy. Those are in Harris's camp, whereas economy and immigration are really big, the top issues for Arizona voters, and those are in Trump's column for the most part. They feel like he has a better chance of doing well in those areas. But now look, you have Arizona. What is it? It's primarily white, with a sizable Hispanic population in the double digits, and then a small African-American population, and then just a few other groups in there in smaller numbers, of course. But look at this. What else do you have in Arizona? You have the Apache and the Navajo tribes. The Native American population is very predominant. If you were to see here, these are a couple big areas right here. This is Native American country. Former President Trump himself hasn't visited these areas per se, but you can see that his campaign tells us that he is definitely having a lot of offices out there, many staff members constantly reaching out to these voters, trying to get them into his column. Now, Vice President Harris has visited the Gila River Indian community, and that's in Maricopa County right there. And now, this is something that she touted, she was trying to say like, oh yeah, she was the only first, the first vice president who actually was visiting this tribe before, and so that's just one of her ways of trying to reach out to this community. And in a race this close, again, 10,000 votes it was decided last time, Native Americans could be the ones who determine who the next leader of America is.