March 22, 2016 / Modified jul 27, 2016 2:18 p.m.

Trump, Clinton Win Arizona Presidential Primary Election

Long lines of people waited to vote an hour after Maricopa County polls closed.

Current Arizona Presidential Primary Results

DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton 242,064
Bernie Sanders 169,156

REPUBLICANS

Ted Cruz 142,694
Polls Reporting: 100%
John Kasich 56,699
Donald Trump 258,384

Listen:

Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump won Arizona's presidential preference primary election Tuesday.

With 90 percent of precincts counted in the state, Clinton had 58 percent of the votes to opponent Bernie Sanders' 40 percent. Clinton won 14 of 15 counties, losing only in Coconino County, where Sanders had a 53.4 percent to 44.1 percent margin over her.

Trump was at 47 percent, Ted Cruz at 25 percent and John Kasich at 10 percent. Trump won in 14 of 15 counties. In Graham County, Cruz won over Trump by four votes out of 3,000 cast.

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., a Sanders supporter, said he knows the Vermont senator will fight on to the convention.

"There’s no excuse and there’s no moral victory," Grijalva said. "We move on, because I think that what Bernie’s done is an attempt to straighten out the party, and I don’t think that mission’s completed yet. So we’ll finish it out go to the convention and see what influence we can have.”

Republican strategist Barrett Marson said Trump's victory should have been expected in the state.

"There was a lot of excitement for him," Marson said. "And obviously we saw a lot of candidates get out of the race before Election Day, but after early voting started, so you see Sen. (Marco) Rubio and Gov. (Jeb) Bush, Ben Carson still get votes, but Trump was the faraway winner, and it was not a surprise."

Polls closed at 7 p.m., and in Phoenix, election officials reported hundreds of people were still waiting to vote an hour later. One report said a reduced number of precincts in Maricopa County led to the long lines. Anyone in line by 7 p.m. was allowed to vote.

Gov. Doug Ducey issued a statement saying problems that caused the long lines and other issues needed to be fixed. He called for a presidential primary that allows independents to vote, hinting that some of them may have gone to the polls only to be turned away because they weren't registered with a party.

Early voting again was a big part of the election. Last week, officials reported that more than half the early ballots mailed out a month ago had been returned.

In Tucson, police evacuated staff of the Pima County Recorder's Office from a county building downtown late in the afternoon as staff members were handling calls about voting eligibility, polling locations and other voting-related issues. No reason was cited for the evacuation.

The staff was let back in the building after about one hour, a county spokesman said, and 15 more phone operators were added to handle calls in the minutes before polls closed.

Only registered Republicans, Democrats and Green Party members could vote in the election, leaving out the biggest voting bloc - independents, at 37 percent of the state's 3.25 million registered voters.

The Republican winner takes all of the state's 58 party delegates to the July 18-21 convention in Cleveland. The Democrats will split Arizona's 85 delegates proportionally for the July 25-28 convention in Philadelphia.

Your Vote 2016
For complete election coverage for Arizona and beyond, visit the Your Vote 2016 Election Center.
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