FiveThirtyEight: “Is Barry Goldwater spinning in his grave? Is Arizona turning blue in 2020? By every polling indication, the answer is yes. The latest ream of surveys coming out of the state show President Trump trailing Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The FiveThirtyEight polling average of Arizona has shown Biden with a lead of anywhere from 4.5 to 5 percentage points during the month of September, and our forecast gives Biden a 65 percent chance1 of winning the state. Arizona’s blue-ish tint has not been the norm. The last time the state voted for a Democrat for president was in 1996. Before that, Arizona had a streak of voting for Republicans that dated back to 1952.”

“But while Trump won the state with 48.1 percent of the vote in 2016, his was the narrowest margin of Republican victory in recent memory. Mitt Romney won Arizona with 54.2 percent of the vote in 2012 and John McCain won it (his home state) by around the same in 2008. George W. Bush got 55 percent of the vote in 2004. But now Arizona is probably a bona fide swing state. That might be difficult to conceive at first — Goldwater, “maverick” McCain, and the latter-day celebrity of Sheriff Joe Arpaio have solidified the state as the conservative cowboy of American pop culture. But a combination of long-term demographic changes and the, uh, unusual nature of the 2020 election, have revealed the state for what it is: a purple splotch in the desert.”