When Maricopa County announced additional results from 140,000 ballots counted on the evening of November 4 and the morning of November 5, President Donald Trump prevailed over his opponent Joe Biden with a difference of 57-40.
These ballots, which appear to be early votes sent to Maricopa County on November 2 and November 3, helped Trump narrow the gap with Biden in Arizona to 68,000 votes.
Trump won the batch of votes from Maricopa County counted on November 4 and early morning of November 5 with a rate of 57%, leading his Democratic opponent Joe Biden with a difference of 17 percentage points.
57-40 is also the margin that Trump needs to close to win Arizona’s 11 electoral votes, thereby widening the narrow gap on the re-election door, according to experts at the Arizona Republic.
President Trump at a press conference at the White House early on the morning of November 4.
Paul Bentz, a Republican pollster at the consulting firm HighGround, said Trump needs to continue to maintain a 57.6% advantage in Arizona’s 470,000 votes that are still being counted to have a chance of overturning it.
`That’s almost exactly what he got in the first round of ballots (delivered to Maricopa on Nov. 2),` Bentz said.
But the problem for Trump is that he needs to repeat that performance on the remaining 470,000 votes left to count in the state.
Trump needs to repeat such a performance `with every batch of votes, with every ballot and every day,` Bentz said.
President Trump also needs to maintain a similar percentage of votes across different batches of ballots, including ballots that arrive by mail before election day, early votes cast on election day, and provisional ballots of
These provisional ballots tend to lean Democratic and there are about 36,000 provisional ballots in Maricopa and Pima counties, 18,000 each.
Many can expect Trump to maintain a margin of victory above 57.6% for the 108,000 early votes mailed to Maricopa County on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3, Bentz said.
These votes could favor Trump, like ballots cast on election day in Arizona, but could also resemble the traditional results of ballots that should have been sent early but were cast on election day
`The first day was positive, but the question is: Can he maintain his form?`, commented Bentz.
Both AP and Fox News have called the winner in Arizona Biden, but other news agencies such as CNN, NBC News or ABC News have not made their predictions.
Emma Hall from the Republican National Committee, emphasized that President Trump’s path to victory `goes straight through Arizona`.
`Once again, the mainstream media hastily identified Arizona as belonging to Joe Biden,` Hall declared.