WASHINGTON – The Associated Press declared president-elect Donald Trump the winner in Arizona Saturday night after voting updates in Maricopa and other counties added to his overall lead, putting the state out of reach for the vice president Kamala Harris.

By the time the AP called the race at 9:21 p.m. ET, Trump was leading Harris, 52.6% to 46.4%, a margin of about 185,000 votes. Harris was projected to win about seven out of 10 votes on the approximately 443,000 remaining ballots, a percentage that steadily increased as additional votes were counted.

Trump has now swept all seven hotly contested presidential battlegrounds, winning 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226. The number needed to win the presidency is 270.

In 2020, President Joe Biden narrowly carried the state over Trump, but he won Maricopa County by a margin of 50 percentage points to 48. As of Saturday, Trump led Harris 52 to 47.

The AP only declares a winner once it can determine that a trailing candidate cannot close the gap and overtake the poll leader.

Here’s a look at how the AP called this race:

CANDIDATES: President: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) vs. Jill Stein (Green).

WINNER: Trump.

POLL CLOSING TIME: 9 p.m. ET Tuesday. Arizona does not release votes until all precincts have reported or one hour after all polls close, whichever comes first, usually at 10 p.m. ET.

ABOUT THE RACE: Harris and Trump crisscrossed this border state, where immigration is a major issue, several times before Election Day.

Trump has made immigration central to his candidacy, promising to deport people without legal documentation while Harris has called for pathways to citizenship as well as tighter border security.

Independent voters make up the state’s largest bloc, followed by Republicans and then Democrats, who have managed to win Senate and gubernatorial elections since 2018.

Biden became only the second Democrat to win the state in more than 70 years.

Both candidates played a role in vote-rich Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe. Trump carried the county by 3 points in 2016, while Biden won by a 2-point margin four years later. Arizona is primarily an early voting state. In 2016, just over three-quarters of the votes were cast in advance. In 2020, this figure increased to almost 90%.

WHY AP CALLED THE RACE:

In statewide elections a dozen years ago, Democrats consistently carried four counties in both winning and losing campaigns: Apache, Coconino, Pima and Santa Cruz.

Harris had a wide lead over Trump in all four counties, but she significantly underperformed Biden’s performance from 2020.

She trailed Trump in the decisive county of Maricopa, which Biden won in 2020 and which has been a must-win county for Democratic candidates statewide in recent elections.

Although Harris very briefly led the statewide vote count on election night, Trump has been in the lead ever since.

The AP’s analysis of Arizona’s electoral history and county-level political demographics showed there was no scenario that would allow Harris to close the gap. The analysis also showed that even if the remaining updates showed vote swings in Harris’ favor, they wouldn’t be enough to give her the edge.

___

Learn more about how and why the AP declares US election winners at Explaining the 2024 election, an Associated Press series aimed at helping make sense of American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to improve its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. Learn more about AP’s Democratic Initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.