2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Results, By State House district
Unlike every other U.S. state, Alaska is not divided into counties or parishes. Rather, it is administratively divided into 20 boroughs: 19 organized and 1 unorganized, which act as county-equivalents. The Unorganized Borough lacks a borough government structure and itself is divided into eleven census areas. Contrary to election results in most states, official results by borough are not available – rather, they are estimates based on precinct-level data. However, the Alaska Division of Elections does release official results by State House district, which are listed in the table below. Trump won 21 districts to Biden's 19. Biden also won overseas ballots. The 5th, 23rd, 25th, 27th, 28th, and 35th districts swung from voting for Donald Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Exit polls, Associated Press
The following are estimates from exit polls conducted by the University of Chicago for the Associated Press interviewing 689 likely voters in Alaska, adjusted to match the actual vote count.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Analysis
Scott Goldsmith, an economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, identifies the Alaskan economy as a three-legged stool, with the legs being the petroleum and gas industry; the federal government and military; and other services. The Alaskan electorate is generally aligned with the Republican Party due to the Democrats' opposition to the oil industry, which is the forefront of the state's economy. The state ranks sixth in the nation for crude oil production, producing 174.8 million barrels in 2018, with the largest oil field in North America by land area in Prudhoe Bay.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Analysis
110,000 jobs (roughly 31%) are from the in the petroleum and gas industry. The Democratic Party's 2020 platform supported net-zero emissions by 2050, including an end to carbon pollution by the power industry by 2035, both of which would entail ultimately ending oil production entirely. Meanwhile, Trump supported expansion of the country's gas and oil industries and rolled back several environmental protections enacted by the Barack Obama administration.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Analysis
Several of Trump's environmental policies involved loosening restrictions on energy, hunting, and mining in the state: he instructed the Department of Agriculture to exempt Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions; supported the construction of Pebble Mine, an unpopular gold and copper mine in Bristol Bay (though the permit was ultimately denied); rolled back limits on hunters in federal land in Alaska; and opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. While these policies expanded their respective industries, they were met with opposition among environmental groups and the Gwich'in, whose sacred land is partly within the refuge. Biden pledged to reverse several of Trump's climate policies and address the climate crisis, and he enacted a temporary moratorium on gas and oil leasing in the ANWR after being inaugurated on January 20, 2021.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Analysis
Alaska also aligns with the Republicans due to issues regarding the Second Amendment, most prominently for hunting as 64.5% of Alaskan adults own a gun, the third highest proportion in the country. Biden supported several gun control measures in his 2020 platform while Trump and the Republican Party ideologically opposes gun control with the exception of red flag laws. Trump's environmental and gun policy included reviving hunting techniques in Alaska, an action condemned by several animal rights groups, including the Humane Society Legislative Fund, which endorsed the Biden/Harris ticket on October 6, 2020.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Analysis
Also playing a major role in Alaska's economy is the federal government, which was responsible for 135,000 jobs between 2004 and 2006, the most of any industry, part of which is attributable to the government's large military presence in the state. Nationwide exit polling collected by Edison Research showed Trump winning veterans 54–44, a major decline from 2016 when he won them 60–34 against Hillary Clinton, possibly explaining Alaska's swing towards the Democratic Party. The other 122,000 jobs in Alaska are mostly in the seafood, tourism, mining, timber, and international air cargo industries.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Analysis
The seafood industry faced extreme disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, with 98% of fishermen surveyed saying their businesses have been negatively affected by the pandemic and 70% stating they stopped fishing altogether. The tourism industry practically collapsed, most prominently in Southeast Alaska, where the halting of the cruise industry – the forefront of the region's economy, along with mining – was expected to drain a projected $190 million and $800 million that would have been spent by cruise passengers and tourists, respectively.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Analysis
Southeast Alaska, home to the major cities of Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka, has historically been a Democratic stronghold, with Biden winning three of the region's four State House districts. 53% of the state believed Joe Biden would better handle the pandemic, and among the 17% of voters that viewed the pandemic as their most important issue, 81% voted for Biden.


2020 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Analysis
The election corresponded with the 2020 United States Senate election in Alaska, with incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan being successfully re-elected against independent Al Gross, who was also nominated and endorsed by the Democratic Party. Sullivan won by a 12.71% margin, outperforming Trump by 2.65 percentage points, consistent with a nationwide trend where down-ballot Republicans outperformed President Trump. In the United States House of Representatives election in Alaska, incumbent Republican Don Young underperformed Trump by 0.92 percentage points against Democrat-endorsed independent Alyse Galvin.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona
The 2020 United States presidential election in Arizona was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election, in which all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated. Arizona voters chose 11 electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Republican President Donald Trump of Florida and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence of Indiana, against Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware and his running mate, United States Senator Kamala Harris of California. The Libertarian, Green, Socialism and Liberation, and Constitution nominees were also on the ballot, as was an Independent candidate.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona
Trump carried Arizona in 2016 by 3.5%, and it was considered a vital battleground in this election. The state's bitterly competitive nature was attributed to diversification of Maricopa County, a traditionally Republican stronghold that holds 61.6% of the state's population. Maricopa County was seen as vital to either candidate's chances in the state – only one presidential candidate has ever won the state without carrying it. The county is home to Phoenix (the state capital and largest city), Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale, Glendale, Tempe, and several other major cities.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona
Biden's lead was credited to college educated, white suburbanites, formerly Republican voting blocs that have shifted continuously towards the left in recent years. High turnout among Hispanic/Latino and Native American voters was also seen as vital. Polls of the state throughout the campaign generally showed a Biden lead, albeit by a slender margin. Prior to election day, 11 of the 16 news organizations making election predictions considered that Arizona was leaning towards Biden; the other five considered it a toss-up.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona
Biden ultimately won the state by some 10,000 votes over Trump, a 0.3% margin, marking the first time a Democratic presidential nominee carried Arizona since Bill Clinton in 1996, and only the second time since Harry S. Truman's 1948 victory. Arizona was the second-closest state in 2020, the only closer state being Georgia, marking the first time since 1948 that the Democratic nominee won both Sun Belt states (though Clinton won each state in separate elections). Arizona weighed in as 4.15 percentage points more Republican than the nation in 2020.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona
Per exit polls by the Associated Press, Biden won 59% of Latino voters, including 65% of Latinos of Mexican heritage, who made up the vast majority of the Hispanic electorate. Hispanic and Latino voters comprised 18% of the electorate, up from 15% in 2016 and 16% in 2008. He won 58% of independents and was even able to notch 9% of Republicans and 10% of conservatives. That support allowed Biden to narrowly flip Maricopa County, making him the first Democrat since Truman in 1948 to do so.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona
He held his deficit among suburban voters to 51–48 despite Republicans having won them by double digits in 2016, 2012, and 2008. Biden won college-educated voters 53–46, a 17-point swing from 2016 when Trump won them by 10 percentage points. Additionally, Biden performed relatively well for a Democratic candidate among the state's Latter-day Saint voters, carrying 18% of their vote. Biden had touted his endorsement from Cindy McCain and leaned into his friendship with the late Senator John McCain in advertising. Trump disparaged McCain on several instances at rallies while campaigning and during his presidency, even after McCain's death, which some credited as the finishing blow to his performance among Arizona's moderate voter base.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona
Even after the election had come and gone, the Republican-majority Arizona Senate established a Maricopa County-based taxpayer-funded inquiry into the “voter fraud” alleged by the former President and his radical supporters. This audit took till September 2021 to be completed, and was considered something of a humiliation for its instigators because not only did it reaffirm there being no evidence of any voter irregularities, but it actually revealed Biden’s margin was larger than previously thought. This audit revealed an additional 99 votes for Biden, and 261 less for Trump- increasing Biden’s victory by 360 votes.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Primary elections, Canceled Republican primary
On September 9, 2019, the Arizona Republican Party became one of several state Republican parties to officially cancel their respective primaries and caucuses. Donald Trump's re-election campaign and GOP officials have cited the fact that Republicans canceled several state primaries when George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush sought a second term in 1992 and 2004, respectively; and Democrats scrapped some of their primaries when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were seeking reelection in 1996 and 2012, respectively.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Primary elections, Canceled Republican primary
Of the 57 total delegates, 3 were allocated to each of the state's 9 congressional districts, 10 to at-large delegates, and another 3 to pledged party leaders and elected officials (PLEO delegates). 17 bonus delegates were also allocated.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Primary elections, Canceled Republican primary
The state party still formally conducted the higher meetings in their walking subcaucus-type delegate selection system. The legislative district and county conventions were held from February 8 to April 11 to select delegates to the Arizona State Republican Convention. At the Arizona State Republican Convention, which took place on May 9, the state party formally bound all 57 of its national pledged delegates to Trump. A May 15 email from the Arizona GOP stated that "every one of our ... delegates ... elected pledged to support Donald Trump and Mike Pence as the Republican Party's 2020 nominees for President and Vice President!"


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Primary elections, Canceled Republican primary
The 54 pledged delegates Arizona sent to the national convention were joined by 3 pledged PLEO delegates, consisting of the National Committeeman, National Committeewoman, and chairman of the Arizona Republican Party.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Primary elections, Democratic primary
The Arizona Democratic primary took place on March 17, 2020, on the same date as the Democratic primaries in Florida and Illinois. Former Vice President Joe Biden won the primary with 43.7% of the vote and 38 delegates, running ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, who received 32.7% of the vote and 29 delegates. No other candidates received any delegates and the only other candidates to receive more than 1% of the vote were Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, with 5.8%, and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, with 4.1%. Both Warren and Buttigieg withdrew prior to the contest. The other candidates on the ballot comprised a collective 1.2% of the vote.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Primary elections, Democratic primary
Biden won 13 of 15 counties in the state of Arizona, with Sanders winning Coconino (home to Flagstaff) and Yuma (home to its eponymous city) counties.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Primary elections, Democratic primary
The official vote totals reported by the Arizona Secretary of State added up to 86.7%, as the remaining 13.3% of the vote was composed of candidates whose individual vote totals were not reported.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Campaign
Arizona was a heavily contested state throughout the election. Once a reliably Republican state, it has trended more Democratic in recent years, with Trump winning it by just 3.5% in 2016. Compared to past Republicans, Trump's performance was historically weak: Mitt Romney won it with a 9.0% margin in 2012 over Barack Obama, John McCain by 8.5% in 2008 also against Obama, and George W. Bush by 10.5% in 2004 against John Kerry. Arizona was one of just ten states to swing more Democratic in 2016, and its 5.5 percentage point swing was the fourth largest in the country. The swing mirrored a nationwide pattern where suburban voters, formerly the principle Republican voting base, swung deep into the Democratic column. Arizona's leftward swing was also credited to a rapidly growing Hispanic population.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Campaign
The Democratic advantage in the state was pronounced further in the 2018 elections. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won the open Senate seat against Trump loyalist and Representative Martha McSally by a margin of 55,900 votes (2.4%), flipping the state's Senate seat blue for the first time since 1988. Sinema carried Maricopa County, which holds the majority of Arizona citizens, by 60,256 votes. McSally would later be appointed to Arizona's other Senate seat on January 3, 2019 after the death of John McCain. Democrats also won a 5–4 majority in Arizona's House of Representatives delegation. In the legislative elections, Democrats maintained their deficit in both houses of the Arizona Legislature but picked up four seats in the Arizona House of Representatives and won the general ballot in the Arizona Senate.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Campaign
Both candidates spent massive amounts of money on advertising, though Biden outspent Trump 2–1.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Campaign
Trump visited Arizona significantly more than his opponent, holding 4 rallies in just one week, compared to Biden, who only visited the state once. Biden favored small, masked gathering to limit the spread of COVID-19, which ravaged the state's large Navajo communities, whereas Trump favored large rallies with thousands of people in attendance, oftentimes without masks and contrary to the advice of health officials.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Campaign
At his rallies, Trump campaigned with the Republican Governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, as well as Republican Senator Martha McSally, in a bid to help her win reelection against Democrat Mark Kelly in the 2020 United States Senate special election. Ducey suffered from low approval ratings due to his handling of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic – his approval fell from 50% to 29% before the pandemic to a 35–42 deficit in an October 2, 2020 poll.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Campaign
Ducey suffered opposition from both sides of the aisle: he was booed at a Trump rally in Tucson, with Trump supporters shouting "open up and open our state," while facing opposition from the left and public health experts for his failure to promote the usage of masks and other mitigation measures, downplaying the severity of the virus, and prioritization of reopening the economy.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Fundraising
According to the Federal Election Commission, in 2019 and 2020, Joe Biden and his interest groups raised $9,284,978.20, Donald Trump and his interest groups raised $15,506,263.10, and Jo Jorgensen raised $29,078.65 from Arizona-based contributors.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Candidate ballot access
Independent candidates who wished to run were required to submit a nomination petition and financial disclosure form between 120 and 90 days before the primary election. A valid nomination petition required signatures from 3% of unaffiliated registered voters in Arizona as of March 1, 2020. However, the signatories may be of any political party or unaffiliated as long as they have not already signed a petition for a candidate registered in a political party who intends to run in the same election. Petitions may be physical or electronic; in 2012, Arizona introduced E-Qual, an online nominating petition platform.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Candidate ballot access
In-addition, write-in candidates were required to file a nomination paper (including the candidate's name and signature; residence and post office address; age and date of birth; and the length of time the candidate has lived in Arizona) and financial disclosure form by 5:00 p.m. on the 40th day before the election in which the candidate is running – in this case, September 24 – for their votes to be counted. Sore-loser laws prevent candidates who lost a primary election from running in the general election as a write-in candidate. Write-in candidates also may not run if they didn't receive enough signatures to attain ballot access while filing for the primary election or if the candidate did not receive enough signatures to gain ballot access in the general election. The following candidates were given write-in access:


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Electoral slates
Technically the voters of Arizona cast their ballots for electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, rather than directly for president and vice president. Arizona is allocated 11 electors because it has 9 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 11 electors who pledge to vote for their candidate and their running mate. Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 11 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Electoral slates
Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than their candidate is known as a faithless elector. In the state of Arizona, a faithless elector's vote is voided and replaced, but the faithless elector is not penalized.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Electoral slates
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 15, 2020, to cast their votes for president and vice president. All 11 pledged electors cast their votes for President-elect former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris from California. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead, the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols. The electoral vote was tabulated and certified by Congress in a joint session on January 6, 2021 per the Electoral Count Act.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Electoral slates
These electors were nominated by each party in order to vote in the Electoral College should their candidate win the state:


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Results, By congressional district
Biden won 5 out of 9 congressional districts in Arizona. The presidential results matched the congressional results, where Democrats held an identical 5–4 majority. Biden flipped the 1st district, which includes Casa Grande, Flagstaff, and Navajo Nation and voted for Donald Trump in 2016 by a 47.7–46.6% margin against Hillary Clinton. Trump easily won the 4th district, which takes in Prescott and most of the rural, northwestern portion of the state. He also carried the 5th, 6th, and 8th districts, all suburban, college-educated districts where Republican dominance has been slipping in recent years. The 6th district, for example, voted for Trump by a mere 4.1%, despite being a Republican stronghold represented by Republicans in the House for all but two years of its history.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Results, By congressional district
Along with the 1st district, Biden carried the 7th and 9th districts, both of which encompass liberal bastions of inner Phoenix and parts of the cities of Glendale and Tempe, respectively. The 2nd and 3rd districts, both border districts dominated by Tucson and large Hispanic populations, also voted for Biden.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Exit polls, Edison
The following are estimates from exit polls conducted by the Edison Research for the National Election Pool (encompassing ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News) interviewing 1,639 Arizona voters, adjusted to match the actual vote count.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Exit polls, Associated Press
The following are estimates from exit polls conducted by the University of Chicago for the Associated Press interviewing 3,772 likely voters in Arizona, adjusted to match the actual vote count.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Controversies, Early call
Fox News called Arizona for Biden at 11:20 p.m. EST on November 3, election day, with 73% of projected vote counted. The Associated Press did so at 2:51 a.m. EST on November 4. Fox News received push-back from the Trump campaign and no other network called Arizona on election night. Fox News decision desk director Arnon Mishkin defended the Arizona call at 12:30 a.m., saying that Fox News was "four standard deviations from being wrong" and that Trump was "not going to be able to take over and win enough votes to eliminate that seven-point lead that [Biden] has".


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Controversies, Early call
Biden and other Democratic candidates began election night with a wide lead in the state, and at the time Fox News called Arizona for Biden, he led by 210,259 votes (53.9% to 44.9%). The reporting in Arizona was the reverse of a 'red mirage' and 'blue shift' effect seen nationwide, where the counting of election day votes before early and absentee votes gave Republicans across the country an early lead.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Controversies, Early call
Votes cast on election day typically leaned heavily Republican while those cast early and absentee ballots leaned heavily Democratic, partially due to the skepticism of mail in voting mostly from Trump and fellow Republicans. However, Arizona and several other Sun Belt states had the opposite effect. Early votes and absentee votes cast before the election were pre-counted and released shortly after 10:00 p.m. EST, when polls closed. Election day votes, as well as a few absentee votes, were released on election night and trickled in throughout the rest of the week.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Controversies, Early call
FiveThirtyEight correctly predicted that close races "might have to wait for those last few ballots before knowing who won". Despite Biden's lead dropping throughout the week, it became clear that Trump's margin among election day votes would not be enough to overtake Biden's lead: Trump needed 59% of the outstanding vote to win, but continuously won around only 53% of the votes released in several ballot dumps after election day.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Controversies, Early call
On November 11, Decision Desk HQ, along with several other outlets, projected that Biden would carry the state. On November 12, ABC News, NBC News, CNN and The New York Times all projected Biden to carry the state shortly after 11:00 p.m. Eastern.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Controversies, Objection
On January 6, as a joint session of Congress began to certify the election for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, there was an objection to Arizona's 11 electoral votes, brought forward by Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona's 4th congressional district and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and signed by 67 other Senators and Representatives.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Controversies, Objection
Debates began over the objection in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, but were abruptly cut short after threats by pro-Trump demonstrators that escalated into a full blown storming of the Capitol, forcing the building to be locked down and Congress to be evacuated. After the Capitol was secured at 5:40 p.m. and Congress reconvened, the objection failed 6–93 in the Senate, and 121–303 in the House. The riot reportedly dissuaded several Republican Senators and Representatives from objecting to the Electoral College results.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Lawsuits
Following the election, Donald Trump, the Arizona Republican Party, Republican National Committee, and several others filed lawsuits attempting to overturn the results of the election in Arizona, citing unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Lawsuits, Overvotes lawsuit
On November 7, 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and the Arizona Republican Party filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes that alleged that overvotes were "incorrectly rejected". Overvotes occur when a voter mark more than the options allowed in a given race, and stray markings can often be processed as overvotes by tabulation machines. The machines are programmed to alert voters of the overvote, allowing them to either request a new ballot or proceed with the original one.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Lawsuits, Overvotes lawsuit
The lawsuit argued that those who chose to file their "original ballots are entitled to a manual inspection of their ballots later," and claimed that voters were urged to cast their original ballots by poll workers rather than request a new one. In total, 4,816 votes were deemed overvotes, which would be insufficient to overcome Biden's 10,457-vote advantage. A representative for Maricopa County stated that only "180 potential overvotes" were involved in the lawsuit, and that it would be "absurd" to assume all 180 were incorrectly counted.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Lawsuits, Overvotes lawsuit
The Trump campaign requested that their evidence be kept secret from the public, but the judge refused to allow the secrecy. The Trump campaign also stated that they had video footage from within a polling area; however, such footage would be illegal if taken within 75 feet of a polling area with voters present. Thomas Liddy, a lawyer representing Maricopa County, deemed the lawsuit unnecessary, as if their claims were correct, both Biden and Trump votes would be equally affected, while Roopali Desai, an attorney representing the Secretary of State, argued the lawsuit attempted to "find a problem when one does not exist".


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Lawsuits, Overvotes lawsuit
Mick West, a skeptical investigator and creator of the website Metabunk, cited how the percentage of votes deemed overvotes was lower or the same percentage as the last four elections, and a considerable decrease from 2016, when 21,785 overvotes (1.4%) were cast in the presidential election in Maricopa County.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Lawsuits, Overvotes lawsuit
On November 10, 2020, Associate Presiding Civil Judge Daniel Kiley accepted a request from Snell & Wilmer, the law firm which was representing the Trump campaign and its allies, to withdraw from the Arizona lawsuit. On November 11, 2020, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich rejected Trump's voter fraud claim during an interview with Fox Business and stated that Biden would win the state of Arizona. On November 13, the Trump campaign dropped their lawsuit after it became evident that the number of votes potentially to be contested would not overcome Biden's margin of victory in the state.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis
Biden became the first Democrat to win Arizona since Bill Clinton in 1996, and only the second since Harry S. Truman in 1948. He is also the first Democrat to win Maricopa County since Truman, with a margin of 2.2%, or 45,109 votes. Arizona had been a Republican stronghold since 1952, even being the only non-Southern state to vote for favorite son Barry Goldwater in Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 landslide.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis
This dominance has been mostly attributable to Maricopa County, which is by far the largest county in Arizona; it has the state capital and largest city, Phoenix, as well as several other major cities including Glendale and Tempe, representing over 61.6% percent of Arizona's population. Though metropolitan centers have long remained Democratic, vast swaths of suburbs, which attracted old Republican voters from the rest of the country after the advent of air conditioning and retirement communities, have kept the state consistently in the Republican column after the New Deal.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis
Any chance Biden had of carrying the state depended on doing reasonably well in Maricopa, which narrowly voted for Trump in 2016, the largest county won by Trump that year. Clinton won Arizona mainly by holding his deficit in Maricopa to single digits, which made him the only candidate to ever win the state without carrying Maricopa. Ultimately, Biden's lead in Maricopa was over four times his statewide margin of 10,457 votes. Biden also became the first Democrat to break 47% of the vote statewide since Lyndon B. Johnson did so in 1964. Biden's statewide winning margin of 0.3% remained out of range for a recount, since Arizona Revised Statutes does not have provisions for candidate- or voter-requested recounts and an automatic recount will only be performed if the margin is lower than 0.1%.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis
Arizona was seen as a potential Democratic flip throughout the year, as the state's increasing Hispanic population as well as an influx of retirees and younger college-educated voters were becoming increasingly friendly to the Democratic Party. Further signaling the state's blue shift were Arizona's midterm elections, where the Democrats flipped a U.S. Senate seat for the first time since 1988 and won three other statewide races as well as gaining a 5–4 majority in the state's House of Representatives delegation and nearly winning the state legislature.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis
Dilution of the Republican's strength was also seen in local politics, most significantly in Maricopa County, in 2016, when Democrats won two county-wide races for County Recorder and Sheriff. In the latter race, former police sergeant Paul Penzone defeated Republican Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a controversial figure who utilized resources to perpetuate conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's birth certificate and engage in police misconduct, prison overcrowding, racial profiling, and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Trump pardoned Arpaio on August 25, 2017, after he failed to obey a court order in a case investigating his department's racial profiling to detain immigrants, drawing negative reactions from public figures and civil rights groups.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis
Some Republicans, such as U.S. Representative from Florida Matt Gaetz, have come to attribute Trump's loss to the unpopularity of Governor Doug Ducey and Senator Martha McSally, who lost to Democrat Mark Kelly in the simultaneous Senate special election by a much larger margin of 78,806 votes (2.4%).


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters
Exit polls from the Associated Press indicated that Biden carried college-educated white voters 50–48, which make up 28% of Arizona's electorate. He also carried college-educated voters overall by 53–48 and lost suburban voters by 51–48. Suburban backlash against Trump and the Republican Party was indicated as far back as 2016, when Arizona shifted 5.5 percentage points to the left even as 40 other states shifted to the right.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters
Among other states that shifted to the left were California, Georgia, Kansas, Texas, and Virginia, all of which states where the primary Republican voting base laid in the vast suburbs and exurbs outside of major cities. Past Republicans had done very well in the white, heavily educated Phoenix suburbs: Mitt Romney won college-educated voters in Arizona 58–40 in 2012, John McCain by 55–43 in 2008, and George W. Bush by 54–46 in 2004. They also carried suburban voters by roughly twenty points.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters
Perhaps the greatest sign of the suburban revolt was in Arizona's 6th congressional district – the most educated district in Arizona. It has been represented by Republicans for all but two years of its existence, and Bush, Romney, and McCain all won upwards of 60% of the vote in their respective elections. This time around, Trump won it by only four points.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters, John McCain and moderate Republicans
Romney, McCain, and Bush were all seen as much more moderate than the Trump wing of the party – several of their former staffers outright endorsed Biden, stating "Given the incumbent president’s lack of competent leadership, his efforts to aggravate rather than bridge divisions among Americans, and his failure to uphold American values, we believe the election of former Vice President Biden is clearly in the national interest."


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters, John McCain and moderate Republicans
Trump frequently disparaged moderate Republicans, reinvigorating the term RINO ("Republican in name only") to refer to members of the Republican Party who refused to support Trump's efforts to challenge the election results or even Trump's campaign at all. Trump and his family had criticized the moderate wing of the party on several occasions, which was seen as a divide that could prove mortal for the Republican Party in Arizona.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters, John McCain and moderate Republicans
On February 29, 2020, Trump called Romney a "low life" for voting to convict Trump of abuse of power in his 2020 impeachment trial, making the Senator the first in history to vote to convict a president of his own party. Romney would later vote to convict him again in 2021 for incitement of insurrection in response to the 2021 United States Capitol attack.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters, John McCain and moderate Republicans
Perhaps the most fatal blow to the Trump campaign was his unabashed criticism of the late Senator McCain, who represented Arizona from 1987 to 2018. Several sources told The Atlantic that Trump told his aides that McCain was "a fucking loser" in response to McCain receiving half-staff flag honors following his death of brain cancer in 2018. Trump took credit for the Veterans Choice Act on several occasions despite it being championed by McCain and passed in 2014.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters, John McCain and moderate Republicans
He previously disparaged McCain on other occasions, stating "I don't like losers" in reference to him losing the 2008 election, "I like people that weren't captured" in reference to his being a prisoner of war in the Vietnam War, and criticizing him on his deciding vote against the American Health Care Act of 2017, a "skinny repeal" of Obamacare. These incidents culminated in Cindy McCain, John McCain's widow, endorsing Biden on September 22, 2020, tweeting that "There's only one candidate in this race who stands up for our values" in reference to the vice president. Democratic advertising often referenced Biden's longtime friendship with McCain in order to appeal to moderate voters.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, College-educated and moderate voters, John McCain and moderate Republicans
Most analysts referenced Trump's attack on the moderate wing of the Republican Party (especially McCain) as an extreme disadvantage in the state of Arizona which had already been growing more unfavorable for Republicans. An article from Politico argued that the Trump campaign "did more damage to the Republican Party in Arizona than almost anywhere else".


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, Hispanic and Latino voters
Pushing Biden over the edge was the Latino vote, who made up 19% of the electorate, higher than in previous years. Though Democrats have historically won ethnic and racial minorities by large margins, the Arizona Republican Party has had an especially strained relationship with the Latino community going back to 2010 in the wake of the controversial Arizona SB 1070 law, which was seen as, by some, unfairly targeting the Latino community.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, Hispanic and Latino voters
Historically, Democrats' biggest margins have been in heavily minority counties including two on the southern border, Pima, the second most populous county and home to Tucson, as well as Santa Cruz. A 2020 survey from the Pew Research Center found that the most important issue among Hispanic voters was to "establish [a] way for most immigrants in the U.S. illegally to stay legally," with 54% responding that it was very important and 29% that it was somewhat important. 42% also responded that "improv[ing] security of country's borders" was also a very important issue, and 34% that it was somewhat important.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, Hispanic and Latino voters
During the campaign, Biden campaigned on ending construction of Trump's Mexican border wall, dramatically increase the refugee cap from Trump's historically low 15,000 cap, and rolling out an easier pathway to citizenship for undocumented and prospective immigrants, including a proposed bill introduced after his inauguration that would unveil up a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million estimated undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, Trump enacted several immigration restrictions on asylum seekers, refugees, and prospective legal and illegal immigrants, and some pundits credited Trump's victory in 2016 to immigration fearmongering.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, Hispanic and Latino voters
While Biden did carry the Hispanic/Latino vote by a 59–40 margin, this was eleven points weaker than Hillary Clinton's 61–31 win in 2016 among Latinos, in spite of her loss statewide. Santa Cruz County, where 83.5% of the population is Hispanic or Latino, swung 12 points more Republican than in 2016, while Yuma County (63.8% Hispanic or Latino) swung 5.1 points more Republican. Nonetheless, these swings were cancelled out by a massive increase in turnout and a significant increase in the number of Hispanic voters.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, Native American voters
An increase in indigenous voting was also considered vital to Biden's victory – turnout in the northeast of the state surged compared to 2016. Biden easily won Apache County, dominated by the Navajo and Fort Apache reservations; and Coconino County, encompassing the Havasupai Nation and parts of the Navajo, Hopi, and Hualapai nations. The Navajo is the largest Native American reservation in the country. Anywhere from 60 to 90% of the Navajo Nation's 67,000 registered voters voted for Biden. In Pima County, Biden won the precincts encompassing the Tohono O'odham, San Xavier, and Pascua Yaqui reservations, often with over 90% of the vote.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, Native American voters
On the congressional district level, Biden flipped Arizona's 1st congressional district, which Trump won in 2016 by a margin of 3,054 votes, or a 1.1% margin. The district encompasses Casa Grande, Flagstaff, and vast swaths of Native American reservations, most crucially the Navajo Nation, while conservative support has been anchored in whiter rural and exurban regions. AZ-01 has historically supported Republicans in presidential elections (albeit by narrow margins), a trend bucked by Biden who won the district 50.1–48.4%.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, Concurrent elections
The presidential election was held concurrently with elections to the House of Representatives and Senate. In the 2020 United States Senate special election, incumbent Republican Martha McSally, who lost the 2018 Senate election but was appointed to the Senate to replace Jon Kyl (who in turn replaced the late John McCain), ran for re-election, but was defeated by Democrat and former astronaut Mark Kelly. Kelly was widely expected in polling and forecasts to outperform Biden due to McSally's unpopularity, and ended up doing so by 2.05 percentage points.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Analysis, Concurrent elections
It also corresponded with 2020 Arizona Proposition 207, a referendum to approve the legalization and taxation of recreational marijuana, which was approved by over 60% of voters. However, House Democrats underperformed Biden, and Republicans won 50.1% of votes on the general ballot to the Democrats' 49.9%, possibly due to the lack of third-party candidates in all 9 races.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath
By November 7, hand count audits had been completed in Cochrise, Coconino, Grenlee, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, and Yavapai counties in order to test the accuracy of the voting tabulation equipment. Each of these county hand count audits either found there to be no discrepancies, or found their count to be within the acceptable margins of error identified by state election law.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath
While Maricopa County's November 4 hand count audit had found no discrepancies, an additional physical hand recount of 47,000 ballots (2% of election-day ballots plus 5,000 early voting ballots) was conducted in Maricopa County from November 7 through November 9, 2020, which again found no discrepancies.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath
On November 24, 2020, Governor Doug Ducey acknowledged that Biden won the state.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath
On January 24, 2021, the Arizona GOP voted to censure Cindy McCain, Jeff Flake, and Doug Ducey, all of whom vehemently denied conspiracy theories from the Trump campaign arguing that the results in Arizona were fraudulent and invalid. Between January 6 and January 20, the Arizona Secretary of State office reported that over 8,000 Republicans changed their party registration to Democrat, Libertarian, or unaffiliated, which was attributed to said actions by Trump and the Arizona GOP.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath
On February 23, 2021, Maricopa County announced that forensic audits of their vote tabulation equipment by two independent auditors had found no irregularities.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Origins
On March 31, 2021, the Arizona Senate Republican caucus hired four firms to examine the ballots in Maricopa County in the races for President and for the United States Senate, with a Florida-based company called Cyber Ninjas being the lead firm. Cyber Ninjas' owner, Doug Logan, is a Trump supporter and a proponent of Trump's claims of voter fraud. The process involves an audit to search for evidence of fraud, and a hand recount of the 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Origins
The hand recount is managed by Wake Technology Services, which reportedly had been hired for a previous audit in a rural Pennsylvania county by Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who has promoted numerous conspiracy theories about the election; the firm works primarily in the healthcare sector with little to no experience with elections.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Origins
The Arizona Republicans funded the effort by using $150,000 from the State Senate operating budget, but this money is acknowledged to be insufficient and the actual source of funding has not been declared. Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com and promoter of 2020 election conspiracy theories, donated one million dollars to the effort and created a website to raise further funds, which was promoted by former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn. The fundraising was conducted through a 501(c)(4) organization, a tax code provision intended primarily for the promotion of social welfare.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Origins
One America News personalities also created a dark money organization to raise funds, while providing extensive coverage of the audit that drew praise from Trump. CueCat inventor J. Hutton Pulitzer claims to have invented a system for detecting "kinematic markers" which is being used by Cyber Ninjas. Pulitzer is also said to be the originator of the claim that Chinese ballots with paper containing bamboo are part of the claimed fraud. Flynn and Byrne stated that, if they were proven wrong, the would publicly apologize that they "put this country through this."


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
The audit began on April 22, and on the same day Arizona Senate Democrats filed a lawsuit to stop the audit. The next day Judge Christopher Coury agreed to suspend the audit for three days until the contractors can present documentation on how they will conduct the audit. The suspension was conditioned on the Arizona Senate Democrats posting a $1 million bond to cover the cost that the delay could cost the Arizona State Senate Republicans. But because the Arizona State Senate Democrats refused to post the bond, the suspension did not go into effect.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
By May 5 Arizona Senate Democrats reached a settlement with the Arizona Senate Republicans to allow independent elections experts to observe the audit. The agreement authorizes Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to file suit against Cyber Ninjas for breach of contract if the company does not live up to the agreement.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
Former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, a Republican, had been designated as the State Senate's liaison to the audit. On May 5, 2021, Hobbs sent a letter to Bennett, detailing additional concerns with the way the audit was being conducted. Her letter cited the audit's disclosed procedures (departures from best practices for hand recounts) and the reports of the observers sent from the Secretary of State's office (including sloppy handling of ballots). A response from the audit's Twitter account asserted that Hobbs’s allegations were "baseless claimes [sic]".


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
Also on May 5, the United States Department of Justice sent Karen Fann, president of the Arizona State Senate, a letter expressing concerns that the audit may violate federal laws. One concern is that the law requires election officials to maintain custody of all voting records for up to 22 months. Another concern is that the statement of work for Cyber Ninjas authorizes Cyber Ninjas to knock on voters' doors to ask them if they have voted in the 2020 elections, which may amount to voter intimidation and constitute a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After the Department of Justice threatened to sue over this plan, Cyber Ninjas agreed not to do it.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
As part of the audit, auditors have been looking for secret watermarks, machine-markings, and bamboo fibers within the ballots. The testing for bamboo fibers was intended to prove a conspiracy theory that counterfeit ballots were shipped from South Korea after the elections. The audit was supposed to have concluded on May 14, but as of May 9, only 12% of the ballots were counted. The audit is being conducted at the main floor of the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which was not available for this activity beyond the original target date. Consequently, the audit went on hiatus on May 14 and resumed on May 24.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
The objectivity of the audit has been called into question due to the involvement of Logan. Additionally, Anthony Kern, a former Republican state lawmaker who was present at the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, has been seen tallying votes. Kern, who was himself named on the ballots as a would-be Trump presidential elector as well as running for re-election to the Arizona House of Representatives, has since been removed from the group with access to the ballots. Former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, a Republican, is advising the audit. Hobbs, the current Secretary of State, has criticized Bennett's efforts, saying he needs to "either do it right, or don't do it at all."


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
The audit has produced division among Arizona Republicans. After initially supporting the audit, on May 9 Paul Boyer, a member of the Arizona State Senate Republican caucus, criticized the audit, saying "it makes us look like idiots." The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which is dominated by Republicans, also opposed the audit. On May 17, the board held a hearing and sent Fann a twelve-page letter to dispute her allegations of wrongdoing by county officials.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
Republican board chairman Jack Sellers stated that the allegations were actually due to the incompetence of the auditors and accused Fann of an "attempt at legitimatizing a grift disguised as an audit." Fann, however, continued to support the audit, and sent the Board of Supervisors a four-page letter stating that "serious issues" had arisen during the audit. Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward released multiple videos about the audit, in which she criticized the Board of Supervisors and raised "the possibility of placing the validity of the entire 2020 election into question." A poll conducted at the end of March found that 78.3% of Arizona Republicans believed "that there was significant voter fraud in the 2020 United States Presidential Election which compromised the integrity of the election."


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
Fann made an allegation, later amplified by Trump in a May 15 post on his blog, asserting that Maricopa County election officials deleted the voting database after the election. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican who oversees elections, tweeted that Trump's post was "unhinged", noting he was looking at the database on his computer at that moment. Richer added, "We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer." The auditors later acknowledged the database had not been deleted.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
The Arizona Republic reported in May that because Senate Republicans had given private companies and individuals unfettered and unmonitored access to voting machines, the county might need to expend significant funds and time to ensure the equipment would meet federal, state and local requirements for certifying and protecting election equipment. The Republic reported the voting machines were worth $6 million. Hobbs, the Secretary of State, later informed the Board of Supervisors that election technology and security experts, including at the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, unanimously advised her that the machines  should not be reused in future elections because no methods exist to adequately secure them.


2020 United States presidential election in Arizona, Aftermath, Audit ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans, Conduct and concerns
A preliminary report on the results of the audit, made at the cost of some six million dollars raised from Trump supporters determined to overturn the election, found no evidence of fraud. Despite that, Trump continued to claim that there had been fraud in the tabulation of results and confirmation of the Biden win. The audit claimed to have found minor discrepancies in the original, state-certified count, that had actually widened Biden's margin by 360 votes.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas
The 2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas took place on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Arkansas voters chose six electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence, against Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate, United States Senator Kamala Harris of California. Also on the ballot were the nominees for the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, American Solidarity, Life and Liberty, and Socialism and Liberation parties and Independent candidates. Write-in candidates are not allowed to participate in presidential elections.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas
Prior to the election, all 14 news organizations making predictions considered this a state Trump would win, or otherwise a safe red state. In 2016, Trump won Arkansas by a 26.92% margin, the largest margin for a candidate of either party since Jimmy Carter's 30.01% margin in 1976. In 2020, Trump won 62.40% of the vote to Biden's 34.78%, a 27.62% margin, the seventh consecutive election in which Republicans improved on their margin in Arkansas, the longest in the nation of any state for either party.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas
This made Arkansas one of only seven states, along with the District of Columbia, in which Trump improved on his performance in 2016. A socially conservative southern state fully within the Bible Belt, Arkansas has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since former Governor Bill Clinton carried it in 1996, and the last Democrat to even win over 40% of the vote was John Kerry in 2004.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas
Trump won landslide margins across the state, including in many of the state's metropolitan areas and suburbs. Biden's strength was mostly isolated to Pulaski County, home to the state capital and largest city of Little Rock, and Jefferson County, home to Pine Bluff. He also won six rural, predominantly African-American counties on the eastern border along the Mississippi River.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas
All but seven counties in the state swung heavily to the right, with the exceptions being three counties in the Little Rock metropolitan area (including Pulaski itself); Sebastian County, home to Fort Smith; and three counties in the northwest encompassing and surrounding the college town of Fayetteville where the University of Arkansas is located. Notably, Biden lost Washington County, where Fayetteville is, by only 3.9 percentage points, the closest any Democrat has come to winning it since Clinton did so in 1996. Arkansas weighed in as 32.07 percentage points more Republican than the national average in 2020. Biden became the first Democrat to win the White House without carrying Woodruff County since the county's founding in 1862.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Analysis
Arkansas is a majority-White Southern state, completely covered in the Bible Belt and with slow population growth in comparison to the nation as a whole. As a result--although former Democratic president and state governor Bill Clinton hails from the state--no Democrat has won Arkansas since he did in 1996, with the Republican margin increasing in every consecutive presidential election since then. In addition, the state lost its competitive status in 2008, when the Democratic presidential nomination of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton--as well as Arkansans' distaste for social liberalism--caused Arkansas to go red by almost 20 points, as opposed to only 9 in 2004.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Analysis
Continuing on this trend, Trump won The Natural State again by a margin of 27.62%, somewhat up from 26.92% four years earlier in 2016. Even as most of the nation swung slightly leftward, many counties in Arkansas still swung dramatically rightward. Trump improved his margin in the historically-Democratic Delta county of Woodruff from 8.9% four years ago to 27.7% this year.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Analysis
Biden's main bases of support were in Pulaski County (Little Rock), Jefferson County (Pine Bluff), and most of the counties along the Mississippi River. Despite his statewide loss, Biden was able to decrease Trump's margin in Washington County--a northwest Arkansas county home to Fayetteville and in turn the University of Arkansas--from 9.9% to 3.9%.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Analysis
Per exit polls by the Associated Press, Trump's strength in Arkansas came from 86% with Southern white, born again/evangelical Christians. 52% of voters opposed changing the Arkansas state flag to remove the star that symbolizes the Confederacy, and these voters backed Trump by 88%–10%.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Analysis
In other elections, incumbent Republican Tom Cotton defeated Libertarian Ricky Dale Harrington, Jr. in the Senatorial election by 33 points, outperforming Trump.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Primary elections
The primary elections were held on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Primary elections, Republican primary
Incumbent President Donald Trump, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, and perennial candidate Rocky De La Fuente were the declared Republicans candidates. Tom Cotton, the current junior senator from Arkansas, declined to run in 2017. As incumbent presidents rarely face prominent challenges in primaries, Trump won all 40 delegates and 97.13% of the vote.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Primary elections, Democratic primary
Eighteen candidates were on the Democratic primary ballot, of whom nine had already withdrew, three withdrew during the early voting period, and six were active candidates. Former Vice President Joe Biden won the primary with 40.59% of the vote and 17 delegates; he carried all but one county. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont came in second place, with 22.44% of the vote and 9 delegates. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg won 16.72% of the vote and 5 delegates; no other candidates won over 15% of the vote or any delegates.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Primary elections, Democratic primary
Biden's win was widely predicted in polling and forecasts, similar to most other southern states; his best performance was along the eastern border along the Mississippi River and on the southern border, which have high concentrations of African American voters, who Biden consistently performed better among throughout the primary. He also won the Little Rock, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, and Pine Bluff metropolitan areas.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Primary elections, Democratic primary
Analogous with his performance in the 2016 primary, Sanders performed best in the northwest, traditionally the most Republican part of the state, holding Biden to less than 40 percent of the vote in many regions and winning Washington County, home to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Biden's strong performance in the state is a vestige of the prominence of moderate, white, Democratic politicians in and from the state throughout the late 20th century and 2000s which has largely faded amid increased political polarization and Republican gains among white, non-college-educated voters. Aided by several other centrist candidates withdrawing from the race just before Super Tuesday and a growing Democratic voter base in the suburbs, Arkansas was a relatively noncompetitive state throughout the primary.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Fundraising
According to the Federal Election Commission, in 2019 and 2020, Donald Trump and his interest groups raised $2,732,436.64, Joe Biden and his interest groups raised $2,088,712.78, and Jo Jorgensen and her interest groups raised $5,289.19 from Arkansas-based contributors.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Candidate ballot access
The candidates on the ballot were listed in the following order:


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Candidate ballot access
Political party candidates were eligible via a primary election or party convention and had to have filed an affidavit of eligibility, political practices pledge, and party certificate with the Arkansas Secretary of State by March 1, 2020, as did independent candidates. Independents also had to file a petition with at least 1,000 signatures of eligible voters from up to 90 days before the petition filing deadline on August 3, 2020. Write-in candidates cannot run in presidential, municipal, or primary elections.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Electoral slates
Technically the voters of Arkansas cast their ballots for electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, rather than directly for president and vice president. Arkansas is allocated 6 electors because it has 4 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot must submit a list of 6 electors who pledge to vote for their candidate and their running mate. Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 6 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Electoral slates
Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than their candidate is known as a faithless elector. In the state of Arkansas, there are no laws regarding faithless electors, meaning their vote is counted and not penalized.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Electoral slates
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 15, 2020, to cast their votes for president and vice president. All 6 pledged electors cast their votes for incumbent President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead, the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols. The electoral vote was tabulated and certified by Congress in a joint session on January 6, 2021 per the Electoral Count Act.


2020 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Electoral slates
These electors were nominated by each party in order to vote in the Electoral College should their candidate win the state:


2020 United States presidential election in California
The 2020 United States presidential election in California was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. California voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California. California has 55 electoral votes in the Electoral College, the most of any state.


2020 United States presidential election in California
Prior to the election, most news organizations considered California a strongly Democratic state, or a safe blue state. It has voted Democratic in every presidential election from 1992 onward. California was one of six states where Trump received more percentage of the two-party  vote than he did in 2016. This election also marked the first time since 2004 that the Republican candidate won more than one million votes in Los Angeles County, due to increased turnout statewide.


2020 United States presidential election in California
Biden carried California with 63.5% of the vote and a margin of 29.2% over Trump. Biden earned the highest percentage of the vote in the state for any candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, although Biden's margin of victory was slightly smaller than Hillary Clinton's 30.1% in 2016, making it one of just seven states in which Trump improved on his 2016 margin.


2020 United States presidential election in California
Biden became the first candidate in any race for any office in U.S. history to win more than 10 million votes in a single state, while Trump also received the most votes a Republican has ever received in any state in any race since the country's founding, even narrowly besting his vote total in Texas, a state that he won. Biden's vote margin was the largest vote margin for a presidential candidate in a singular state.


2020 United States presidential election in California
Per exit polls by Edison Research, Biden dominated key Democratic constituencies in the state including Latinos with 75%, African Americans with 82%, Asian Americans with 76%, and union households with 63%. Post-election analysis by Cook Political Report showed Trump made inroads with some Asian American constituencies, particularly Vietnamese American voters in Orange County.


2020 United States presidential election in California
Biden flipped Butte County and Inyo County into the Democratic column, which had not voted Democrat since 2008 and 1964, respectively. Biden's victory in Orange County was only the second time a Democrat carried the county since 1936. In contrast, while he improved his total vote share by nearly three percentage points, Trump did not flip any counties and his main regions of strength came from Republican strongholds in Gold Country, Northern California, and the Central Valley. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla certified the results on December 4, and took Harris' seat in the Senate upon her resignation to become Vice President, having been appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom.


2020 United States presidential election in California
California was one of five states in the nation in which Biden's victory margin was larger than 1 million raw votes, the others being New York, Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections
In a departure from previous election cycles, California held its primaries on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Early voting began several weeks earlier.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections
Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination on March 17, 2020, defeating several longshot candidates, most notably former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. Kamala Harris, the state's junior U.S. senator, was among the Democratic candidates declared until she dropped out on December 3, 2019. Representative Eric Swalwell from the 15th district was also a Democratic candidate but dropped out of the race on July 8, 2019. Other prominent state figures, including former Governor Jerry Brown, current Governor Gavin Newsom, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti declined to run.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, Republican primary
The Republican Party's primary campaign was dominated by a lawsuit over the President's taxes. The suit alleges that the new requirement for several years of a candidate's taxes was unconstitutional and onerous. The law was blocked in September 2019 while State Supreme court heard testimony and made a ruling.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, Republican primary
As a contingency, the Republican state committee changed its delegate selection process, turning the primary into a mere "beauty contest" and setting up an emergency state convention to Trump's delegate choices. If Trump were allowed on the ballot, the convention would be canceled and the so-called "winner-take-most" rules, which require a challenger to get 20% of the vote, would apply.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, Republican primary
President Trump was allowed on the ballot, and the contingency convention was canceled.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, Democratic primary
Candidates began filing their paperwork on November 4, 2019, and the final list was announced on December 9.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, Democratic primary
Leading California Democrats complained that Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren were snubbing the state by refusing to attend a forum at the State's "endorsement convention". Early voting began on February 11 and ended the day before primary day.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, Libertarian primary
The Libertarian Party of California permitted non-affiliated voters to vote in their presidential primary.


2020 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, American Independent primary
The American Independent Party permitted non-affiliated voters to vote in their presidential primary.


2020 United States presidential election in California, General election, Results
Biden won California with a smaller margin of victory than in 2016. Nevertheless, he performed well in most urban areas of the state. Biden is also the first candidate for any statewide race in California to receive over ten million votes.


2020 United States presidential election in California, General election, Results, By congressional district
Biden won 46 of the 53 congressional districts in California, including four that were flipped or held by Republicans in Congress.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado
The 2020 United States presidential election in Colorado was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Colorado voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Colorado has nine electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) proposed Denver as a finalist to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention, but the city declined, citing conflicts. The DNC ultimately decided to hold the convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado
Prior to the election, all 14 news organizations considered Colorado a state Biden would win, or a likely blue state. On the day of the election, Biden won Colorado with over 55% of the vote, and by a victory margin of 13.50%, the strongest Democratic performance since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and the first time since 1984 that the margin was in the double digits. In this election, Colorado weighed in as 9.1% more Democratic than the nation as a whole.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado
The results established Colorado as a Democratic stronghold, rather than the Democratic-leaning battleground state it had been for the past three election cycles. With Biden's win, Colorado voted Democratic at the presidential level four times in a row for the first time since statehood, the state having previously voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Per exit polls by the Associated Press, changing demographics made Colorado more favorable to Democrats, with Latinos backing Biden with 68%, including Latinos of Mexican heritage with 75%. Biden also carried whites with 53%. 69% of voters favored increasing federal government spending on green and renewable energy, and they favored Biden by 76%–23%.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado
Biden flipped three counties in the Centennial State: Pueblo County, which had been reliably Democratic before narrowly backing Trump in 2016; Chaffee County, one of the few counties to flip from McCain to Obama in 2012; and Garfield County, which had last voted Democratic in 1992.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado
Biden also significantly closed the gap in the GOP's two largest remaining strongholds in the state, El Paso County and Douglas County, becoming the first Democrat to win more than 40% of the vote in the former since 1964 and closing the gap in the latter to single digits for the first time since 1964. Nevertheless, Biden became the first Democrat since Woodrow Wilson in 1912 to win the White House without carrying Las Animas County; and Trump narrowly flipped Alamosa County, one of only 15 counties nationwide that he flipped.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado
This marked the first time since 1968 that Colorado voted more Democratic than neighboring New Mexico. The margin of victory for Biden in New Mexico was 10.79%, 2.71% lower than Colorado.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado, Primary elections
The primary elections were held on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado, Primary elections, Republican primary
The Republican primary was due to be canceled until Robert Ardini, a retired advertising executive, decided to submit his name for the ballot. Several others subsequently joined him.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado, Primary elections, Democratic primary
The results were certified on March 30. The race has been called for Bernie Sanders who won a plurality of votes and delegates.


2020 United States presidential election in Colorado, General election, Results, Results by congressional district
Biden won 4 out of the 7 congressional districts in Colorado.


2020 United States presidential election in Connecticut
The 2020 United States presidential election in Connecticut was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Connecticut voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Connecticut has seven electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2020 United States presidential election in Connecticut
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the state's primary elections were postponed until August 11, 2020, marking the first time that the modern presidential primary season has extended into August. By that time, incumbent President Donald Trump of the Republican Party and former Vice President Joe Biden of the Democratic Party had already clinched enough delegates to become the presumptive nominees of their respective parties. Furthermore, both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions were scheduled one and two weeks afterward, respectively, essentially making the Connecticut primary races pro forma.


2020 United States presidential election in Connecticut
Biden won the state by 20 points, a notable improvement from Hillary Clinton's 13-point win in the state in 2016. He fared especially well in Fairfield County, an ancestrally Republican area, as well as the Hartford suburbs. Biden also came within five points of flipping traditionally Republican Litchfield County, which had previously voted Democratic in 2008; and 4.2 points of flipping traditionally Democratic Windham County, which had previously voted Democratic in 2012.


2020 United States presidential election in Connecticut
Per exit polls by the Associated Press, Biden's strength in Connecticut came from college-educated voters with 64% (a large voting bloc in the state), White women with 60%, Latinos with 71%, and Jews with 80%. Additionally, Biden won over white voters (which composed 81% of the electorate) with 55%. Biden won a combined 70% in large cities and 62% in suburban areas. Biden is also the first presidential nominee ever to exceed 1 million votes in the state.


2020 United States presidential election in Connecticut
Additionally, his total is currently the highest that any candidate in any race in Connecticut has received, surpassing the previous record of 1,008,714 that Richard Blumenthal received in his 2016 Senate race. At the same time, Biden became the first Democrat to win the White House without carrying Windham County since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.


2020 United States presidential election in Connecticut, Primary elections
The primary elections were originally scheduled for April 28, 2020. On March 19, they were moved to June 2 due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. Then on April 17, they were further pushed back to August 11.


2020 United States presidential election in Connecticut, Primary elections, Republican primary
The state had 28 delegates to the 2020 Republican National Convention, all going to Trump.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware
The 2020 United States presidential election in Delaware was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Delaware voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump from Florida, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence from Indiana against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Delaware has three electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware
Delaware is the home state of Biden, who represented the state in the U.S. Senate for 36 years from 1973 to 2009. Biden defeated Trump in the state by a margin of 19%, a significant improvement over Hillary Clinton's 11% margin over Trump in 2016. Biden flipped the swing county of Kent, while Sussex County, which last voted Democratic when Bill Clinton carried it in 1996, stayed Republican.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware
Delaware's remaining county, New Castle—home to Biden's hometown of Wilmington and part of both the Northeast megalopolis and the Philadelphia metropolitan area, containing 55% of the state's population—stayed Democratic, having last voted Republican when George H. W. Bush carried it in 1988. Biden's margin in New Castle County would have been more than enough to carry the state; he carried his home county by over 106,000 votes, far exceeding his statewide margin of 96,000 votes.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware
Per exit polls by the Associated Press, Biden's strength in his home state came from African-Americans with 91%; and Caucasians with 50%, including those with a college degree with 54%. 59% of Delawarean voters had a favorable opinion of him. Biden won overwhelmingly in his hometown of Wilmington, earning 26,698 votes to Trump's 3,580.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware
With Biden's victory nationwide, he became the first person representing Delaware ever elected President of the United States.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware, Primary elections
The primary elections were originally scheduled for April 28, 2020. On March 24, they were moved to June 2 due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 7, the primary elections were again postponed to July 7. By that time, President Donald Trump of the Republican Party and former Vice President Joe Biden of the Democratic Party had already clinched enough delegates to become the presumptive nominees of their respective parties. This was Biden's third presidential attempt, as he had previously campaigned in the 1988 and 2008 Democratic presidential primaries but failed to secure the nomination both times.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware, Primary elections, Republican primary
Incumbent President Donald Trump was essentially uncontested in the Republican primary. The state has 16 delegates to the 2020 Republican National Convention.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware, Primary elections, Republican primary
However, Trump was not unopposed: Rocky De La Fuente took 12% of the vote, with Trump polling 88%.


2020 United States presidential election in Delaware, General election, Turnout
According to the Delaware's Elections website, voter turnout was 71.88% with 531,599 ballots cast out of 739,570 registered voters.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida
The 2020 United States presidential election in Florida was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Florida voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent president Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, and his running mate California senator Kamala Harris. Florida has 29 electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida
Florida was one of five states (plus Washington DC) where Trump received a greater percentage of the two-party  vote than he did in 2016.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida
Miami Beach, Florida, which hosted the 1972 Democratic National Convention, was a finalist to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention. The other finalists were Milwaukee and Houston; Milwaukee was ultimately selected as the host. Florida was Trump's state of residency for this election, after having identified New York as his home state in 2016. As a result, Trump became the first nominee of either major party to be a Florida resident. Biden was selected as the Democratic nominee in the 2020 Florida Democratic presidential primary on March 17, 2020.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida
Prior to the election, aggregate polls had Joe Biden in the lead in Florida by up to almost 3 percentage points. Despite this, Trump won the state by a 3.4 point margin, improving upon his  margin from 2016 over Hillary Clinton by 2.2 points; it was the largest margin for any presidential election in Florida since 2004. The main reason was due to increased support among Latino voters in the state, particularly in Miami-Dade County, which Biden carried by just a 7.4 point margin, significantly lower than Clinton's 29.4 point margin in 2016 or Obama's 23.7 point margin in 2012.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida
Trump carried the Cuban vote with 56%, while Biden carried the Puerto Rican vote with 66%, and Trump and Biden split the South American vote with 50% each. Overall, Biden won 54% of Latinos. Trump labeled Biden as a "trojan horse for socialism". In this election, Florida voted 7.8 points right of the nation as a whole, the furthest it has voted from the nation since 1988, when Florida voted 14.6 points right of the nation.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, Analysis
This election was the first time since 1992, and only the second time since 1960, that Florida went to the losing candidate in a presidential election. It was also the first time since 1960 that both Ohio and Florida have voted for the losing candidate in a presidential election, the first time since 1992 that Florida voted Republican while neighboring Georgia voted Democratic, and the first time since 1992 that Florida voted more Republican than North Carolina. Trump also became the first Republican candidate to win Florida with a majority of the state's popular vote since George W. Bush did so in 2004.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, Analysis
Despite his loss statewide, Biden became the first Democrat to win Duval County--consolidated with Jacksonville--since Southerner Jimmy Carter in 1976, and the first Democrat to win Seminole County since Harry Truman in  1948. Biden also flipped Pinellas County back to the Democratic Party. Biden became the first Democrat to win the presidency without carrying St. Lucie County since Bill Clinton in 1992, and the first Democrat to win the presidency without carrying Monroe County since Grover Cleveland in 1884.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, Analysis
Also, this is the first time since 1888 that Florida increased its margin to an incumbent that lost re-election nationally.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, Analysis
Florida is one of three states that voted twice for both Barack Obama and Trump, with the other two being Ohio and Iowa.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, Primary elections, Republican primary
The Florida secretary of state declared Rocky De La Fuente to be a major candidate and thus worthy of automatic inclusion on the ballot.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, Primary elections, Democratic primary
Three Democrats were still in the race by the time Florida held its primaries: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, former vice president Joe Biden, and representative from Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, Primary elections, Democratic primary
The first Democratic debate took place in Miami over two nights at the end of June 2019. It was broadcast on several of the NBC networks.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, General election, Ex-felons
United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, located in Atlanta, ruled that ex-felons could not vote in Florida unless they pay fines and fees. Florida voters approved amendment 4 in November 2018, which restored voting for felons upon completion of all terms of sentence including parole or probation, except for those who committed murders or were involved in sex-crimes. The Republican-controlled legislature then passed a law which required ex-felons to settle their financial obligation in courts. United States District Court in Tallahassee ruled against it in May, but the circuit court overturned it in September, which was speculated to have created further problems for ex-felons when they voted in November. Civil rights organizations including American Civil Liberties Union opposed the decision by the court.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, General election, Miami-Dade County
In Miami-Dade County, the majority of Trump support came from the west and the majority of Biden support came from the east. People of Mexican, Haitian, and African descent tended to vote for Biden, while people of Cuban, Chilean and Colombian descent did so for Trump, as well as the critical Venezuelan vote swinging Republican. Trump won approximately two thirds of the vote in Hialeah, whereas it was nearly evenly split four years prior. Sabrina Rodriguez of Politico wrote "a vote for Trump has become about more than just him, or even the Republican Party. It's about patriotism." Due to the heavy presence of the Cuban-American community, Hialeah traditionally, as of 2020, leaned towards Republican politics. Trump's coattails played a role in the election of Miami Republicans Carlos A. Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar to the House of Representatives.


2020 United States presidential election in Florida, General election, Miami-Dade County
Residents of Cuban descent often had an antagonism against leftist movements due to associations with Fidel Castro. Trump sought to attract these voters by implementing anti-Cuba policies.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia
The 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Georgia voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump of Florida, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence of Indiana against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Georgia has 16 electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia
Biden narrowly won Georgia by a margin of 0.23% and 11,779 votes. Leading up to the election, Georgia was seen as a key swing state in both the presidential and senatorial elections—both a regular Class II U.S. Senate election and a special election—due to the rapid growth and diversification of Atlanta's suburbs, where Republicans were once dominant. Polls of the state throughout the campaign indicated a close race, and prior to election day, most news organizations considered Georgia a toss-up. This was the only state in the Deep South carried by Biden, made possible by significant racial demographic shifts over the previous decade, especially in Metro Atlanta.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia
Like in other states, Trump had an early lead on election night due to the state counting in-person votes first on that day, before counting mail-in ballots over the following days. Biden subsequently cut into Trump's margin over the course of the week and eventually overtook Trump on Friday morning. Although majority-minority Burke County—near Augusta—flipped to Trump after supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016, Biden was able to build Clinton's vote shares in the densely populated Metro Atlanta counties of Gwinnett, Cobb, and Henry, increasing her vote shares of 51%, 48%, and 51% to 58%, 56%, and 60%, respectively. This helped Biden to narrowly win the state by a plurality, despite not flipping any counties.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia
Due to the close margins in the initial election results, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on November 11 that a full audit by hand would be conducted. The audit was completed on November 18, and Biden was confirmed to be the winner on November 19.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia
Biden became the first Democrat to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992, as well as the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Georgia since 2006. Additionally, Biden became the first Democrat to carry a state in the Deep South since Bill Clinton carried Louisiana in 1996. Biden also became the first Democrat to gain over 70% of the vote in Fulton County since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia
This is the first time since 1992 that Georgia voted more Democratic than neighboring Florida and the first time since 2000 that it voted more Democratic than also-neighboring North Carolina. Additionally, it was the first time since 1860 that Laurens County and Monroe County did not vote for the statewide winner.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia, Primary elections
The presidential preference primary was originally scheduled for March 24, 2020. On March 14, it was moved to May 19 due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 9, the preference primary was again rescheduled to June 9, being combined with the regular, usually-separate primary for other federal and state primaries as well as local elections in some counties, the first time in Georgia history that all primaries were combined on the same date.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia, Primary elections
Secretary of State Raffensperger approved sending out absentee ballot application forms to 6.9 million active voters for the combined primary, of which 1.1 million absentee ballots were requested. The total turnout for the combined primary was the highest since the 2008 presidential primary, and broke the record for most absentee ballots cast in a Georgia primary.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia, Primary elections, Republican primary
Incumbent President Donald Trump ran unopposed in the Republican primary and thus received all of Georgia's 76 delegates to the 2020 Republican National Convention.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia, Primary elections, Democratic primary
More than 200,000 votes were also cast by mail in the March 24 presidential preference primary before it was cancelled amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. These votes were not included in the official primary result, however they were separately counted. Voters who participated in the March 24 primary were able to vote again in the June 9 primary for all other offices.


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia, General election, Electoral slates
These slates of electors were nominated by each party in order to vote in the Electoral College should their candidates win the state:


2020 United States presidential election in Georgia, General election, Turnout
Voter registration for the 2020 general elections ended on October 5 in Georgia, with a final total of 7,233,584 active registered voters, an increase of 1,790,538 new voters since the 2016 election and 805,003 new voters since the 2018 gubernatorial election. Absentee mail ballots were first sent out on September 15.