Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, pushed back his state’s election results after Fox News called Arizona for Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
“It’s way too early to call the Arizona election,” Ducey tweeted early Wednesday, “the votes on election day are not yet fully reported, and we haven’t even started counting the early ballots that were cast in the polls. In AZ, we have protected election day. Let us count the votes – all votes – before we make statements.
Jason Miller, senior advisor to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, also commented on this prediction, saying, “It’s too early to call Arizona.
“We believe that over 2/3 of the outstanding voters will be in favor of Trump on election day. I cannot believe that Fox was so anxious to pull the trigger here after it took so long to call Florida. Wow,” Miller said in a tweet shortly after Fox News reported that Biden had won the 11 Arizona votes.
Fox New’s Director of Decision Division, Arnon Mishkin, said live on the air that he was confident that the station was “not wrong in this particular case” when he called Arizona.
He said Biden’s victory was “known” in that state, but was “available” only an hour before Fox News called.
“We have finally called him. Yes, there are some outstanding votes in Arizona. Most of them come from Maricopa, where Biden is currently in a very strong position. And many of them are mail-in votes that we know from our FOX News voter analysis that Biden has an advantage,” Mishkin said.
“I’m sorry,” Mishkin said. The president will not be able to take power and win enough votes to eliminate this seven-point advantage,” Biden said, Mishkin added.
If Biden wins Arizona, he will be the first Democrat to win the state since 1996, when Bill Clinton won.
Fox News also predicted that Democrat Mark Kelly will defeat incumbent Republican Senator Martha McSally in the Arizona Senate race.
When a commentary was made, Fox News Washington Newsday referred to Mishkin’s earlier statements.
The blue election in Arizona was the first flip called in this year’s presidential election.
The state was hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic this year – a central issue for many voters who go to the polls. Surveys have shown that Trump’s handling of the ongoing health crisis is met with widespread rejection.
Arizona faced a flood of COVID-19 cases in the summer after stores reopened.
By November 3, the state had reported 249,818 cases of corona virus and 6,020 deaths, according to the Arizona Department of Health.
Update (11/04/20 1:12 ET): This release has been updated with a comment from Fox News….
