Honestly, if you were watching the news on election night back in November 2020, you probably remember that surreal feeling when Fox News called the state for Joe Biden way earlier than anyone expected. It was a shocker. Arizona hadn't gone for a Democrat in a presidential race since Bill Clinton did it in '96, and before that, you have to go all the way back to Harry Truman in 1948.
But when the dust finally settled and the dust in the Grand Canyon State is literal, not metaphorical—the Arizona 2020 election results showed a razor-thin margin that changed the map.
Joe Biden pulled it off by exactly 10,457 votes.
That’s it. In a state where over 3.3 million people cast a ballot, the whole thing came down to a group of people that could barely fill a mid-sized basketball arena. It was a 0.3% difference. Biden ended with 1,672,143 votes (49.4%) while Donald Trump finished with 1,661,686 (49.1%).
Breaking Down the Maricopa Shift
You can't talk about Arizona without talking about Maricopa County. It’s where Phoenix is, and basically, it's where the most people live. If you win Maricopa, you usually win the state.
For decades, this was "Goldwater Country"—staunchly Republican, suburban, and predictable. But in 2020, the script flipped. Biden became the first Democrat to take Maricopa since Truman. He won it by about 45,000 votes, which was more than enough to offset Trump's strength in the rural parts of the state.
Why did it happen? A few things converged at once:
- The "McCain Factor": Trump had a famously rocky relationship with the late Senator John McCain. In 2020, Cindy McCain (his widow) endorsed Biden. That gave a "permission structure" for moderate Republicans in the Phoenix suburbs to cross the aisle.
- Changing Demographics: The Latino vote was huge. Biden won about 61% of Latino voters in the state, according to exit polls.
- The California Influx: People have been fleeing high costs in California for years, moving to places like Mesa, Gilbert, and Scottsdale. They brought their politics with them.
The Audits and the "Cyber Ninjas" Drama
After the results were certified, things got... weird. You probably heard about the "Forensic Audit" ordered by the State Senate. They hired a firm called Cyber Ninjas, which, despite the cool name, had zero experience in election auditing.
They spent months in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, looking for bamboo fibers in paper (an actual conspiracy theory at the time) and using UV lights.
The kicker? When they finally released their report in September 2021, their own hand count actually found that Biden's margin of victory was 360 votes wider than the official results.
The official canvass was right. The machines were right. Even the people looking to find a different answer ended up confirming the same Arizona 2020 election results.
The Legal Battleground
It wasn't just audits. There were lawsuits. Lots of them.
- Ward v. Jackson: Kelli Ward, the GOP chair at the time, challenged the signature verification process. The Arizona Supreme Court shot it down because there wasn't evidence of misconduct.
- Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Hobbs: This was the "Sharpiegate" era. People thought Sharpie markers were ruining ballots. Spoilers: they weren't. The campaign eventually dropped the suit.
Basically, every time a judge looked at the evidence, they found that while there might have been tiny, human errors (like a few dozen ballots here or there), there was nothing that would have flipped a 10,000-vote lead.
More Than Just the Presidency
While everyone was obsessed with the top of the ticket, the Arizona 2020 election results changed the U.S. Senate too.
Mark Kelly, the former astronaut, defeated Martha McSally. This was a big deal because it gave Arizona two Democratic senators for the first time since the 1950s. Kelly won by a much more comfortable margin than Biden—about 78,000 votes. He outperformed Biden among independents and even some rural voters who liked his "independent" astronaut vibe.
Down-ballot, the state legislature stayed in Republican hands, though only by a hair. It showed that while Arizonans were souring on Trump-style populism, they weren't necessarily ready to hand the keys to the kingdom to the Democrats across the board.
Practical Takeaways for the Next Cycle
If you’re looking at these numbers and wondering what they mean for the future, here’s the "so what":
- Registration is King: Arizona allows "Independent" or "No Party Preference" voters to participate in primaries if they choose a ballot. Keep an eye on the voter rolls; the number of independents is skyrocketing.
- Early Voting is the Norm: About 80% of Arizonans vote by mail or early in person. This isn't a "new" thing from the pandemic; Arizona has been doing this for decades. Any campaign that doesn't have a "get out the vote" plan by October is going to lose.
- The Suburban Lean: Places like Scottsdale and the Southeast Valley are the new swing zones. If you want to predict the next election, don't look at Phoenix—look at the suburbs surrounding it.
The 2020 results weren't a fluke. They were the culmination of a decade of demographic shifts and a very specific reaction to the candidates on the ballot. Whether it stays "Purple" or shifts back depends entirely on whether the parties can speak to those suburban moderates who actually decided the whole thing.
To stay informed on current election integrity measures, you can check the official Arizona Secretary of State's website for updated procedures and voter registration stats. Understanding the raw data from 2020 is the best way to cut through the noise of the next campaign season.
Next Steps for You
- Verify your registration: Check your status on the AZSOS portal to ensure you're ready for the next cycle.
- Review the 2022 and 2024 trends: Compare the 2020 margins to more recent midterms to see if the "Democratic shift" is holding or reversing in Maricopa.