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    Trump, Harris in heat

    Online Niel Posted on

    Donald Trump and Kamala Harris topped early statewide results released shortly after polls closed Tuesday night, making this year’s unprecedented and unpredictable race for the White House too close to call Tuesday night.

    Trump narrowly led, according to incomplete and unofficial results released by the Arizona secretary of state at 3 a.m. Wednesday, and slightly extended his lead from earlier in the night.

    At the county level, early results showed Harris narrowly leading Trump in vote-rich Maricopa County shortly after polls closed Tuesday night. About 60 percent of Arizona voters live in Maricopa County.

    The Maricopa County results represented 1.1 million ballots, which represents 43.43 percent of the county’s 2.5 million voters eligible to vote in the election. The county expects 2.1 million voters to attend and estimates 700,000 ballots are being left in the tabulation in the coming days.

    Election 2024: See Arizona election results | Live election day coverage

    The vote count released by Maricopa County includes ballots received through Tuesday, Oct. 29, according to the county. Election Day in-person votes will be displayed throughout the evening. Voters had been voting since 19:30 on Tuesday evening. The polls closed at 7 p.m. in Arizona, but voters who were in line before that time were able to cast their ballots after the deadline.

    Arizona is at the heart of the presidential action. The battleground state has 11 electoral votes that will play a significant role in determining which candidate wins the White House.

    The dramatic battle for the presidency was marked by chaos and a list of unexpected events.

    Only a few times in history has a former president lost and sought the White House again, or a president stepped aside in the middle of his re-election campaign. Additionally, presidential candidates running with a felony conviction are a rarity in US history.

    The race is hot in Arizona, according to the latest public opinion polls. Trump narrowly led Harris, but the numbers were so close that either candidate had a real chance to win the Grand Canyon State.

    Voter frustrations with the economy and immigration are slightly fueling Trump’s lead among Arizona voters. The former president struck a confident tone during recent rallies in Arizona, even musing on stage in Prescott Valley that he should be in the all-important swing state of Pennsylvania.

    “We’re going to win Arizona,” Trump said at an October rally in Tempe, noting he was pleased with early vote numbers. “We’re gonna beat Kamala Harris.”

    Harris isn’t far behind though. She is strongest on the issues of democracy and reproductive rights, and her campaign is relying on a massive gambling operation to put her in the lead in a state where Democrats have made major gains during the Trump era.

    “It will be a very close race until the end. And we’re the underdogs,” Harris told a rally crowd in Phoenix last month.

    The battle for the White House was shaping up to be a 2020 rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden, but that changed dramatically in late June when Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump sent Democrats into a panic. The president was kicked out by his own party within weeks. He dropped his bid for re-election in July, long after the primary election had ended.

    That same month, Trump was nearly killed on live television when a gunman opened fire during the former president’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania. A bullet grazed his ear, leaving Trump bloodied but otherwise unharmed as Secret Service agents rushed him off the stage. He would be the target of another failed assassination attempt in September.

    Harris stepped in to take Biden’s seat just weeks before the Democratic National Convention, holding back high-profile members of her party with their own presidential ambitions and the possibility of an open convention. Harris had just three months to mount a presidential campaign in her new role as nominee. She inherited Biden’s campaign operations across the country, including in Arizona, which set the stage for February’s general election.

    This story will be updated as election results are reported.

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