Inside a squat building ringed with a chainlink fence and concrete barriers in downtown Phoenix, election workers on Nov. 5 will begin a grindingly slow tally of every ballot cast in the vast expanse of stucco and saguaro that is Maricopa County, Arizona. In what has become the nation's ultimate swing county, the count here could determine whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be the next president, per the AP. It also is likely to determine the winner of a closely watched race—the GOP's Kari Lake vs. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego—that could decide which party controls the US Senate.
It is one of the most consequential battlegrounds in the country. That means voters, campaigns, and people around the world sometimes must wait more than a week to learn who won the county, and with it, statewide races in the swing state of Arizona. This year, election officials warn it could take as long as 13 days to tabulate all of the ballots in Maricopa. The drawn-out count has made the county a center of election conspiracy theories spawned by Trump. It's also made Maricopa a key part of the former president's campaign to install those who supported overturning the last election in 2020 into positions overseeing future ones.
But the reason it takes so long is simple. With its 4.5 million residents, Maricopa has a higher population than nearly half of the states in the country and is home to 60% of Arizona's voters. Election workers must follow voting laws—which were approved by Republican-controlled legislatures—that slow the count. And it is one of the few counties in the US that is so evenly divided politically that races are often close. That's made the county "the center of everything," says Joe Garcia, a leader of the Latino activist group Chicanos Por La Causa, noting it is the population center of Arizona, its center of growth, and home to the state capital.
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Maricopa's position isn't just at the center of Arizona politics. The county has been a regular stop for presidential candidates as they look to clinch Arizona's 11 electoral votes—including Trump and Harris and their campaigns this year—and it is a fulcrum on which nail-biter races that can determine control of the House and Senate pivot. (Read the full story.)
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