Arizona election results: Biden’s lead drops with 90% of vote counted

Majority of mail-in votes are trending towards Trump

While vote counting in the east of the US is seeing mail-in ballots erode Donald Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania and Georgia, in the west, a new release of results in Arizona saw Joe Biden’s lead drop.

With 90 per cent of ballots counted by 9pm ET on Thursday, the former vice president was leading Mr Trump by 46,257 votes in the state. 

His percentage lead had dropped from 2 per cent to just 1.6 per cent, with Mr Biden holding 1,528,319 votes to Mr Trump’s 1,482,062. 

By Friday afternoon, the disparity between the two candidates stood at 1.3 per cent, with the Democrat counting 1,562,200 votes against his Republican rival’s 1,521,246. The next report from crucial Maricopa County is expected at 7pm local time.

Read more: Follow the 2020 US election results live

Arizona was called for Mr Biden at 2.50am on Tuesday morning by the Associated Press. Fox News also called the state for the Democrat. Both have been criticised by Trump supporters.

The AP says it continues to watch and analyse the vote count in Arizona.

Sources have reported that Mr Trump was furious at Fox News for calling the state for Mr Biden when no other network had. 

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Presidential adviser Jared Kushner was reportedly desperate for the network to retract the call and even called the conservative network’s owner, Rupert Murdoch.

Trump supporters gathered outside a vote count in Maricopa County on Wednesday night chanting: “Fox News sucks!” – and on Friday, hundreds of people were protesting outside the county elections centre in Phoenix. 

As things stood on Friday, Fox News and AP remained the only two networks putting Arizona in Mr Biden’s column, bringing him to 264 electoral votes – meaning that were he to also win Nevada or Georgia, they would be the only major news organisations declaring that he has passed the 270 electoral vote threshold.