Maricopa County cast 61% of Arizona’s 2024 presidential vote
Arizona voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide the governorship and a full slate of federal and state contests. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is seeking a second term against Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, and voters will also select members of Congress and all 90 members of the state Legislature in races that could shift the balance of power both in Washington and in the state government.
The governor’s race is a top Republican takeover opportunity in a midterm environment in which voters historically have punished the party occupying the White House, according to the Associated Press. The winner’s statewide political organization could play an important role in the 2028 presidential campaign, when Arizona again is expected to be a critical battleground.
Hobbs was elected in 2022, defeating Republican Kari Lake 50.3% to 49.7%. The Associated Press declared Hobbs the winner six days after Election Day, though Lake never conceded. Of the seven Democratic governors in states Donald Trump carried in 2024, only two are up for reelection this year: Hobbs and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Biggs, who is serving his fifth term in Congress and previously chaired the conservative House Freedom Caucus, easily defeated eight-term Rep. David Schweikert and two others in the July 21 primary with Trump’s endorsement.
In the race to replace Schweikert in the 1st Congressional District, Republicans nominated sportscaster and former Arizona Cardinals placekicker Jay Feely. Democrats nominated former state Rep. Amish Shah, who received 48% of the vote against Schweikert in 2024. Feely initially ran in the 5th Congressional District, but Trump endorsed another candidate and encouraged Feely to run in another district or for a different office. Feely then switched to the 1st District, and Trump endorsed both him and another candidate in the race, who later dropped out to run for secretary of state.
The 1st District includes Scottsdale and parts of northern Phoenix and lies entirely within Maricopa County. Schweikert received 51.9% of the vote in 2024 and 50.4% in 2022. In the 2024 presidential contest, Trump received about 51% of the district’s vote, compared with about 48% for then-Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Another Republican-held seat central to Democratic hopes of retaking the House is the 6th Congressional District, where Rep. Juan Ciscomani is seeking a third term. The Democratic nominee is Marine Corps veteran JoAnna Mendoza. Both were unopposed in their primaries.
Republican Rep. Eli Crane also is in a competitive reelection bid in the 2nd Congressional District, where he faces a rematch with former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. Crane won a second term in 2024 with nearly 55% of the vote, compared with just over 45% for Nez.
All 30 state Senate seats and all 60 state House seats are up for election, and Republicans hold slim majorities in both chambers. Democrats have not controlled the state Senate since 1992 or the state House since 1966 — the last time the party controlled the governorship and both chambers simultaneously.
Maricopa County is the most populous of Arizona’s 15 counties and by far the most influential in statewide elections. Home to Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Mesa, it accounted for about 61% of the state’s total vote in the 2024 presidential race, with Pima County a distant second at about 15%. In statewide elections going back to 2012, Democrats have always carried four counties — Apache, Coconino, Pima and Santa Cruz — in both winning and losing campaigns, and in each of those races the candidate who carried Maricopa won statewide.
Polls close Tuesday at 7 p.m. local time, which is 9 p.m. ET. No results may be released before 10 p.m. ET or until all precincts have reported, whichever comes first. About 2.6 million votes were cast in Arizona’s 2022 U.S. Senate election, and about 81% of that vote was cast in person early or by mail.
County officials may begin processing and tabulating mail ballots before Election Day as soon as they arrive, and those are the first results reported after polls close. Arizona counties tend to release all or almost all of their early in-person results, along with a significant amount of mail results, in the first vote update of the night, usually before any in-person Election Day votes are reported. Mail ballots delivered on Election Day take much longer to tabulate because election workers do not begin processing or verifying them until after polls close. In Maricopa County, about 20% of the nearly 1.6 million votes cast in the 2022 midterms were mail ballots dropped off on Election Day.
In the 2024 general election, the first results were reported at 10 p.m. ET, one hour after polls closed and the earliest release time allowed by law. The count reached the halfway mark at 10:12 p.m. ET, and the last vote update of the night came at 6:30 a.m. ET Wednesday with about 66% of total votes counted.
The Associated Press, which will provide vote results and declare winners for House, governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, state mine inspector, corporation commissioner and state Supreme Court, said it does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it determines there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP said it will continue to cover newsworthy developments such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory while making clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explaining why.
Arizona law requires automatic recounts when the vote margin is 0.5% of the total vote or less. The AP may declare a winner in a race subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.