Former Vice President Joe Biden won Arizona’s 11 electoral votes Wednesday, in a stunning upset for the historically Republican-led state, according to the Associated Press.
On Tuesday night, Fox News projected Biden won less than three hours after polls closed in Arizona.
Arizona's electoral votes have long gone to the Republican nominee for president. Since the 1948 election, where Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey, a Democratic nominee for president has only won the state once.
In 1996, Bill Clinton won Arizona with roughly 46% of the vote, defeating Bob Dole.
"We forget there was a third candidate, Ross Perot, who polled nearly 8% that year," said Brooks Simpson, ASU Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University. "So Democrats, in terms of getting a majority of the popular vote, you have to go all the way back to 1948."
The year 1948 ended a stretch run for Democrats in Arizona, with the Democratic nominee for president winning the state five consecutive times. The tide turned in 1952.
"One of the reasons that the state becomes red in the 1950s [is] a very popular Republican candidate, Dwight Eisenhower," Simpson said. "The building of a Republican establishment in the state. Barry Goldwater's rise to political prominence and the like. The state begins to build a substantial republican base."
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
