Arizona is off the table for Donald Trump
In what amounted to one of the most surreal developments in an already surreal 2020 election, multiple major news outlets called Arizona for Joe Biden on election night, yet multiple other major news outlets still haven’t called it for him. Instead they were waiting for the last of the votes to trickle in, just in case.
But now the counting is basically done as of late this evening, and it turns out Joe Biden has indeed won Arizona by about 12,000 votes. Accordingly, Decision Desk just called Arizona for Biden. There is now every reason to expect other major news outlets like MSNBC and CNN to go ahead and call the state for Biden as well. But while we don’t know how long they’ll take before doing that, the final numbers make clear that Trump has in fact lost the state and has no recourse there.
This is important because Trump’s fantasy about magically winning the election is based on the premise that he can somehow overturn the results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona; he would need all three states to get to 270. Even with Georgia going to a recount, and Pennsylvania still laughing off the rest of Trump’s legal challenges, Arizona is now off the table for Trump. This means 270 is off the table for him. This should help shatter the illusion that the election result is somehow still up in the air. Joe Biden is President-elect.
