Across the state, voter turnout fell by about 1.4% across the state from the 2020 presidential election. The counties that saw the largest drops were Apache, which went for Harris, and La Paz and Yuma, which went for Trump — all dropping by more than 6% points.
Political Science professor Dr. Samara Klar says at this point we can only speculate as to why people were less enthusiastic about voting.
“Of course, you could point to a lot of possibilities, like maybe candidates weren't as inspiring to people,” she said. “Or perhaps people felt as though there just wasn't a choice that they were fully behind, but it's hard to know. We just have to speculate at this point to figure out what it was.”
Turnout in Pima County fell by about 4% and in Maricopa by less than 1%.
As well, the ballot measures on enhanced border security and abortion rights passed in nearly every county in the state, regardless of which political party holds a majority in each county.
Border Security Proposition 314 passed in every county in the state, including Pima County, which has nearly all Democratic elected officials. Abortion rights Proposition 139 passed in all counties except Gila and Graham.
“Both of these issues are actually quite important to both Democrats and Republicans,” she said. “So if we start with abortion, abortion passed overwhelmingly among Democrats but also did get substantial support among Republicans as well. There is a non-trivial percentage of Republicans who don't believe that abortion should be banned and who do support reproductive rights, particularly as a state issue.”
She said in the border security bill, specifically the focus on fentanyl highlighted an issue that is important across both parties.
“The opponents weren't really galvanized to oppose this bill because Democrats did not want to appear weak on the border,” she said. “And for a Democratic candidate to come out and oppose 314 would have put them in a bit of a risky political position where their Republican opponents could then say, ‘Okay, well, the Democrats don't care about the border as much as we do.’”
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