PHOENIX – Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, former governor Jan Brewer, the Trump 2020 campaign and multiple Arizona pollsters expressed surprise and some outrage when FOX News declared Joe Biden the winner in Arizona.
Not so fast. The race has narrowed in #AZ considerably. 130,000 votes separate the candidates, with hundreds of thousands of votes yet to be counted, from all over the state. I’ll say it again: Let’s count the votes, and let the people decide rather than making declarations. https://t.co/1WYhjChrtm
— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) November 4, 2020
At the time FOX News called the race based on early ballot results, hours before in-person or late-early ballots were counted. According to various reports, there were still residents waiting in line for in-person voting at the time of the FOX News call.
AZSOS & Maricopa County reporting the exact same numbers, which is nice. But Maricopa County claims those numbers represent 75 of 175 voting centers. AZSOS calls them 98.12% of Precincts Reported. That AZSOS number might be misleading people if they’re using it for projections. pic.twitter.com/fX7YsHQuMC
— Constantin Querard (@CQuerard) November 4, 2020
Currently, it is believed that there are approximately 700,000 ballots uncounted. That number is considered a conservative estimate.
According to Arizona’s GOP strategists, Trump is winning over 60 percent of the votes tallied after FOX News called the race. And in one ballot counting batch alone, Trump picked up 86 percent of the votes.
It’s way too early to declare a winner in Arizona!
As a former Secretary of State, I know that hundreds of thousands of ballots still need to be counted – especially early ballots dropped off today at the polls.
We must count every vote!!@realDonaldTrump @POTUS @TrumpWarRoom
— Jan Brewer (@GovBrewer) November 4, 2020
Speaking on KFYI’s election night coverage, Arizona campaign consultant Constantin “CQ” Querard said, “It is possible that the projection will be correct, but I have no idea why FOX News rushed the call on Arizona considering how slowly other states have been called. We have a ton of votes outstanding and they are expected to break towards Republicans.”
As of 12:49 a.m. on Wednesday, November 4, Arizona’s largest conservative stronghold, Maricopa County, was reporting results for only 75 of the 175 voting centers.
Back from @KFYI and ready to tweet a bunch, since I assume everyone is still awake? Not sure what was up with that very early AZ call by @FoxNews but Trump is winning these updates with >60% of the vote in each… That’s going to eat up a 200k lead in a hurry… Now 131k…
— Constantin Querard (@CQuerard) November 4, 2020
There were numerous complaints by Maricopa County voters about in-person voting issues as well. Voters in Maricopa County were forced by poll workers to use a Sharpie-type marker to mark their ballot. The ink in some cases leaked through forcing the ballots to be set aside to be counted by hand rather than by machine.
Hearing from many of my constituents who are in the most conservative district in the state their ballots where canceled because the poll workers gave them sharpies. @GeneralBrnovich please investigate! More Fontes shenanigans! pic.twitter.com/Bnj8ScL9rF
— Warren Petersen (@votewarren) November 4, 2020
?Arizona is very much in play. Extrapolate this out, especially with good counties left to count, and @realDonaldTrump wins Arizona.? https://t.co/C4TvsuV6Dr
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) November 4, 2020
Keep counting… https://t.co/BYsTXODrzL
— Dr. Kelli Ward ?? (@kelliwardaz) November 4, 2020
It’s far too early to call the election in Arizona. Election Day votes are not fully reported, and we haven’t even started to count early ballots dropped off at the polls. In AZ, we protected Election Day. Let’s count the votes — all the votes — before making declarations.
— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) November 4, 2020
Just spoke to AZ Governor Doug Ducey’s office. There are at least 900,000 votes outstanding that haven’t been counted. About half are Maricopa. W/ every update, they say it’s breaking significantly toward Trump 2-1.
Doesn’t mean a Trump win, but that’s still a lot of uncounted
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) November 4, 2020
Since @FoxNews made their very premature call giving AZ to Biden, the actual votes – yeah we still count them – have narrowed the gap by ~50,000 and there are still around 800,000 left to count. Arizona is not over yet.
— Chris Buskirk (@thechrisbuskirk) November 4, 2020
This article was updated at 7:39 a.m., November 4.