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I heard Trump at RNC HQ in his speech to staff say that they are doing very well in Arizona. Let me tell you why that isn't necessarily the case, and that comes from the lack of Republican registered ballot advantage that has been the norm in Arizona in the past.
Arizona ballot returns in 2020 through 11/2 had a R advantage of 22.3K. While this may seem like good news for Rs, Arizona's breakdown of party registration is about 1/3 of each Republican, Democrat and Other (independent or no party preference). Os play a very large role here.
Compare this to 2016 where Rs had a ballot advantage of 103.0K through 11/2 and then 186.9K after Election Day. However, Trump (R) only won by 91.2K votes. That's a 95.7K vote shift towards Clinton (D) based on party registration largely due to Os and some Rs voting more for D.
Also compare this to 2018 where Rs had a ballot advantage of ~110K after Election Day, yet Sinema (D) beat McSally (R) by 55.9K votes. That's a 165.9K vote shift towards D based on party registration again due to Os and some Rs voting more for Sinema.
So let's apply this shift of vote towards Democrats to 2020. As I mentioned, Rs had a 22.3K ballot advantage going into Election Day. In order to offset a shift of 91.2K vote towards D like in 2016, Rs will need to grow the ballot advantage by 68.9K on Election Day.
In order to offset a shift of 165.9K towards D vote like in 2018, Rs will need to grow ballot advantage by 143.6K on Election Day. While these situations are hypothetical projections and assume voting trends of 2016 and 2018 in Arizona will continue, 2020 is a different race.
2020 voter turnout prior to Election Day in Arizona already exceeded that for all of 2016 including Election Day. So while the voting population has grown, there are still fewer projected votes out there on Election Day than there were in 2016. This is true for Rs too.
In addition, Biden is currently polling at a higher rate than Clinton did in 2016 with all of Arizona and especially with independents. This means that the Os may have an even greater impact for Arizona than in 2016, possibly similar to how they did in 2018 for Sinema's victory.
Despite, Trump's urge to vote in person on Election Day, most Rs in AZ have voted early just like Ds and Os. So Trump is counting on a more difficult squeeze of R turnout on Election Day. To monitor this, we can look at hourly updates of the in person votes in Maricopa County.
Maricopa County accounts for a lot of the vote in Arizona. 60% in 2016 and 2018. The percentage of party registration by in person voters so far today in Maricopa County is ~47% R, 34% O and 19% D. That is a big percentage difference, but the raw numbers are low due to early vote
In the first seven hours of voting in Maricopa County, 94.3K votes have been made in person. Compare that to 2016 where 356.8K votes were made in person on Election Day. We are over halfway through the day, and are at 26% of the total in person votes on Election Day 2016.
So far today through in person voting in Maricopa County, Rs have gained an additional ballot advantage of 26.0K. Assuming that you can extrapolate this out to the rest of the state which includes the other 40% of the vote, it can be approximated to 43.4K ballots gained by Rs.
This brings Rs estimated overall ballot advantage to 65.7K assuming a statewide trend. Again, if voting trends of 2016 and 2018 continue, Rs will need an advantage between 95.7K (2016) and 165.9K (2018) in order to offset the expected swing to vote D across party registration.
This means that the Rs are running out of time. We are over halfway through the day and voting per hour in Maricopa County by Rs is slowing, while that by Ds and Os is growing. Which means the R ballot advantage growth is slowing and may not even reach 100K by the end of the day.
Even a 100K ballot advantage by Rs would just barely over the vote 95.7K D swing threshold set by the 2016 race, and as mentioned, Biden is a more popular candidate in Arizona than Clinton according to the polls. 100K is also nowhere near the 165.9K D vote swing of the 2018 race.
In a record turnout year, the number of Os (Indys) voting makes it harder for the R ballot advantage in Arizona to grow enough to offset the expected vote swing towards D. The Trump campaign bet everything on Election Day and in Arizona it doesn't look like it's going to pay off.
