Joe Biden’s lead in Arizona has fallen below 30,000 after Trump slightly narrowed the gap during a dump of mail-in ballots Friday night.
Biden currently remains ahead by 28,861 votes, with a 49.6% hold of the total vote, compared to Trump’s 48.7%.
It comes after officials on Friday night released the results of the 69,000 ballots counted in Maricopa County that reduced Biden’s standing by about 7,000.
There were approximately 173,000 ballots left to count in the state as of 11pm, with 92,000 coming from Maricopa, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told CNN.
They include 47,000 provisional ballots which will not be counted until Wednesday, she said. The next update will not come until 11am Saturday.
On Friday afternoon Hobbs said that they would only be working through only 61,000 per day – an excruciatingly slow pace when the entire country and world are waiting for the results.
It means they may not finish until 12am on Sunday.
Biden is leading in every other state. He snatched the lead from Trump in Pennsylvania on Friday and is now ahead by more than 28,000 votes.
He is likely to be called the winner there soon with the remaining votes coming from Allegheny County, which includes Democratic strongholds of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
If Biden wins Pennsylvania today, he no longer needs any of the other states to claim the 270 electoral college votes he needs to claim the White House. If Trump wins Arizona, he still needs every other state in play which seems increasingly unlikely.
In Georgia, the pair are neck-and-neck and a recount has been called because the margin is so thin. In Nevada, Biden is ahead by about 22,000 votes.
Arizona has a long political history of voting Republican. It’s the home state of Barry Goldwater, a five-term, conservative senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1964.
John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, represented the state in Congress from 1983 until his 2018 death.
But changing demographics, including a fast-growing Latino population and a boom of new residents – some fleeing the skyrocketing cost of living in neighboring California – have made the state friendlier to Democrats.
Arizona has a long political history of voting Republican. It’s the home state of Barry Goldwater, a five-term, conservative senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1964.
John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, represented the state in Congress from 1983 until his 2018 death.
But changing demographics, including a fast-growing Latino population and a boom of new residents – some fleeing the skyrocketing cost of living in neighboring California – have made the state friendlier to Democrats.
About 100 Trump supporters gathered again in front of the Maricopa County election center in Phoenix, Thursday night, with some carrying military-style rifles and handguns. Arizona law allows people to openly carry guns.
Authorities at the center used fences to create a ‘freedom of speech zone’ and keep the entrance to the building open. The crowd took turns chanting – ‘Count the votes!’ and ‘Four more years!’ – and complaining through a megaphone about the voting process.
They paused to listen as Trump spoke from the White House, where he repeated many of his groundless assertions of a rigged vote.
They whooped and clapped when the president said, ‘We’re on track to win Arizona.’
It comes after the AP and and Fox News had both called Arizona early on Wednesday morning, claiming there was no possible way for Trump to claw it back from him – a move which was later called into question.
Arizona holds 11 crucial electoral college votes which, when giving them to Biden now, poises him for the White House with 264 of the 270 that he needs.