What do polls, early votes reveal about 2024 election in Arizona, a key swing state?

Arizona — home to about seven million people and the Grand Canyon — is one of several swing states that will play a crucial role in the presidential election.

With its 11 electoral votes, it could help either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump clinch victory.

On the eve of Election Day, here is what recent polls and early voting data reveal about the state of the race in Arizona.

What polls show

As of Nov. 4, two polling averages show Trump with a slight advantage in the Grand Canyon State.

The former president is leading Harris by 2.2 points — 48.9% to 46.7% — according to an average compiled by FiveThirtyEight, an election analysis site. Similarly, a polling average by Nate Silver, a prominent pollster, has Trump edging Harris by 2.4 points — 49.3% to 46.9%. Though small, Trump’s advantage in Arizona is among the largest in the swing states.

Many of the individual polls conducted in recent weeks also show Trump as having, at a minimum, a narrow lead.

For example, an InsiderAdvantage poll fielded between Nov. 1-2 has the former president leading Harris 49% to 46%. The poll, which sampled 800 likely voters, has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Trump’s advantage was even larger in an AtlasIntel poll conducted between the same time period. In a two-way matchup, he led Harris by six points — 52% to 46% — according to the poll, which sampled 967 likely voters and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Similarly, the latest New York Times/Siena College poll found Trump outpacing Harris in Arizona by four points — 49% to 45%. The poll, fielded between Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, sampled 1,025 voters in the state and has a margin of error of about 3.5 percentage points.

Based on recent polling, political scientists in the state maintain that the race is more or less neck and neck.

“It’s very close in Arizona,” Kim Fridkin, a professor of political science at Arizona State University, told McClatchy News. “The presidential candidates are tied, according to recent polls (within the standard error of error).”

“I would not be surprised if the winner has an advantage of one percentage point or less — like we saw in 2020,” Samara Klar, a professor of political science at the University of Arizona, told McClatchy News.

In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by less than half of a percentage point. Before that, it had voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1996.

What early voting shows

The early voting data coming out of Arizona reveals some notable trends, though it should not be used to predict the final outcome, experts said.

As of Nov. 1, about 2.2 million early votes have been cast in the state, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

So far, registered Republicans have outpaced registered Democrats in early voting — submitting 908,233 and 725,552 ballots, respectively.

However, there are about 300,000 more Republicans in the state than Democrats. So, the turnout rate is about the same for both parties — with 60% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans having already cast ballots, according to Uplift Data.

Klar said it’s “notable” that “we are no longer seeing a partisan gap” in early voting.

“Early voting used to be something Democrats engaged in more than Republicans largely because, in 2020, Republican candidates, including Trump himself, were casting a lot of doubt about whether you can trust the mail-in ballot process,” Klar said. “I think Republicans have come around to the idea that mail-in ballots help everybody.”

Echoing this sentiment, Fridkin said, “Republicans are now voting early by mail which they didn’t do in 2020 because of Trump’s rhetoric…”

Additionally, 584,897 early ballots have been cast by voters who are not registered with either of the major parties.

This block of voters could prove favorable to Harris.

“In my polling data, independents have been favoring Harris by about 8 percentage points,” Klar said.

Some polls have also shown that, overall, people who have voted early have tended to favor Harris over Trump, Fridkin said.

Ultimately, the race will likely come down to the wire, experts said. And the winner of Arizona probably won’t be known on Election Night — in part because election officials won’t start counting mail-in ballots until after the polls close.

“Typically in Arizona we know the results within four or five days, so that’s what I’m expecting we’ll see again,” Klar said.

This story was originally published November 4, 2024 at 5:08 PM with the headline "What do polls, early votes reveal about 2024 election in Arizona, a key swing state?."