Who won in Arizona? 5 takeaways from the election results (so far)

Election Day is over, and the presidential race seems settled while much of everything else, at least in Arizona, is not.

Final results in the state’s closest contests may not be clear for several days more, but there are several trends worth watching to see if they will define Arizona heading into the next election cycle.

Here’s what stands out as of late Tuesday:

Democrats may do better in Arizona than expected

Donald Trump, the former president and perhaps president-elect, narrowly led in Arizona with the kind of margin that could be spellbinding if the race didn’t already seem settled in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

It’s especially notable because across the country Vice President Kamala Harris specifically and Democrats generally fared poorly.

But Arizona has a major asterisk at the moment.

The state has at least three broad types of votes — early votes, Election Day votes and “late earlies.” The late earlies are ballots turned in at the end that still require signature verification, a process that can drag on for days.

Many expected Republicans to do well at the outset on Tuesday, with a stronger finishing kick for Democrats. That’s what happened in 2018, for example.

But as of late Tuesday, Arizona Democrats were faring well in the U.S. Senate race, at least one congressional race, both chambers of the Legislature and in Maricopa County elections.

The question is whether the finishing votes will run far more red, as they did in 2020 and 2022.

Kari Lake struggled to compete

Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., was comfortably ahead in his Senate race against Republican Kari Lake, though his lead shrank throughout the night.

If he holds on, Gallego would succeed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Lake would head to a second straight statewide loss in a race many Republicans viewed as winnable.

Lake cast herself as “Trump in heels,” and he did well in Arizona, at least in the early unofficial results. But Lake was running far behind him in a way that didn’t happen in his two previous runs.

In 2016, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., received 107,000 more votes than Trump in Arizona. That was 9% more than Trump. That was largely because of McCain’s showing in Maricopa and Pima counties, the state’s population centers.

Trump won Arizona by 3.5 percentage points, which was notably low for a state where Republicans usually won by 10 points or more.

In 2020, U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., hung close to Trump’s vote totals, even though both of them wound up losing the state.

McSally ended up with 99% of the vote that Trump received. She was close to his total in Maricopa County and nearly identical in Pima County.

Trump lost the state by 0.3 percentage points, in the closest contest in the country.

So far, Lake was getting about 92% of the votes Trump has.

There were few problems voting

The job isn’t done, but election administrators had a relatively smooth Election Day across Arizona.

A printer ran out of toner in Maricopa County. The counting process is certain to go on for days. Initial results were late in Cochise County.

These were the kind of hiccups that flared up, but none of it suggests a process marred with major computer problems or paper shortages or disruptive behavior, such as the bomb threats that temporarily shut down voting in a few spots in Georgia.

After razor-thin results in 2020 and high-profile, temporary glitches in 2022, Arizona’s election administration has been under a nationally watched spotlight for years.

The results of 2024 might provide election administrators with another measure of vindication.

Arizona will remain a battleground

Arizona Democrats ended a largely dismal night nationally with a likely win in the state’s U.S. Senate race and the possibility they could win at least one of the two chambers of the Legislature. Races in Maricopa County were close as well.

The results in all these contests could wind up going the other way, but even if that happened, or even partially happened, it’s already clear that Arizona remains one of the more politically competitive states in the country.

That means Arizona’s gubernatorial race in 2026, all the legislative races, the attorney general’s race and whatever else winds up on the ballot figures to be fiercely contested again.

Enjoy the end of political commercials for the next year because it won’t last much longer after that.

Voters embraced abortion-access, immigration ballot measures

There were a lot of ballot measures for voters to go through, but at least two may capture the spirit of the election for Arizona.

Proposition 139, a measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, was easily passing late Tuesday.

Proposition 314, a provision to allow local or state law enforcement agencies to carry out immigration arrests if a Texas law goes into effect, was also passing. The Texas law is facing a legal challenge.

In some ways, each Arizona measure reflects the passion of the political left and the right at the moment, and both could pass. It suggests that neither side of the political spectrum ran roughshod over the other in Arizona. Or to put it another way, voters considered both measures on their own merits and opted to pass them both.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ election results (so far): Dems do OK, Lake founders, smooth voting