New York, Nov 5 (IANS)
Two news media organisations have called Arizona for Joe Biden, the rest of them haven’t and the Donald Trump campaign has jumped right in, protesting the early call there when 450,000 votes remain to be counted. The state has a long political history of voting Republican.
In the Associated Press and Fox News view, Arizona is a flip for Biden and he leads Trump 264-214. Five states that remain to be called take on a heightened urgency for the Trump campaign’s narrow path to the White House. Trump is at 214 now compared with Biden’s 253 (minus Arizona) in the race to 270 electoral votes. Arizona delivers 11.
Just for context here, the US does not have a national election commission which announces the winner. Organisations with resources at scale on the ground coordinate with state officials to plot the dots.
“What is happening here? Why is Arizona blue? Biden picking up Arizona changes the math!” are the series of exclamations with which Fox News broke the first truly surprising news of the election.
For its part, AP reported that “the remaining ballots left to be counted, including mail-in votes in Maricopa County, where Biden performed strongly, were not enough for Trump to catch up to the former vice president”.
The AP cited the “shifting politics” of Maricopa County where Biden “sealed his victory” with “huge margins”.
“The remaining ballots left to be counted, including mail-in votes in Maricopa County, where Biden performed strongly, were not enough for Trump to catch up to the former Vice President.”
The Trump campaign and Trump supporters aren’t buying that. In 2016, Trump carried the county by 4 percentage points and his campaign remains hopeful that the final burst of vote counting could change the game.
“Fox News Sucks!” Trump supporters chanted outside a vote-counting centre in Phoenix, Arizona.
Inside the White House, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner worked the phones and called Fox’s owner to complain about the Arizona call, according to reporting by The New York Times.
Fox News has stuck to its Arizona call, even during televised phone-ins with Trump campaign officials. The broadcaster’s “decision desk” made that call.
The all important Maricopa county will report results from a big chunk of ongoing vote counting by 7 p.m. EST Thursday.
