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President-elect Donald Trump won Arizona, completing his sweep of all seven swing states this election cycle.
The battleground state was declared just before 9.30pm on Saturday, making it the last state to be called in the 2024 election.
The expected victory is a feather in Trump’s cap because it means he wins all seven swing states over Vice President Kamala Harris and flips the state to red after narrowly losing Arizona to Biden in 2020.
Trump’s victory in Arizona comes hours after he insisted on winning Nevada, which earned him six electoral votes.
Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes moved Trump’s column well beyond the 270 threshold, putting the final tally at 312 electoral votes for Trump compared to 226 for Harris.
Four years ago, Biden won the historically red state by just 10,000 votes. The Democrats’ 2020 victory marked the second time the state has voted blue since 1948.
The incredibly narrow margin in 2020 pushed Arizona to become a bastion of Trump’s election fraud claims that culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and ultimately a federal criminal case against the former president over his attempts to overturn the election results.
Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal case, is said to be evaluating how to close that case as well as a case related to Trump’s handling of classified documents before his inauguration.
He will inform the court of his plans regarding the 2020 election case by early December after assessing “this unprecedented circumstance and determining the appropriate path forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,” Smith wrote in a Nov. 8 filing. At the same time, Trump pledged to mass pardon those convicted of crimes related to the events of January 6.
During the campaign, Trump linked the Biden-Harris administration to inflation and the border crisis in what turned out to be a winning argument for the former president.
As Election Day progressed, Harris’ chances of winning became dependent on winning the “blue wall” of Rust Belt states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. But it fell short in all three cases.
