Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey: ‘Joe Biden did win Arizona’

PHOENIX – Three weeks after Election Day, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey acknowledged for the first time that Democratic President-elect Joe Biden won Arizona.

“I trust our election system; there’s integrity in our election system,” Ducey, who campaigned for and with President Donald Trump in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election, told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Tuesday.

“Joe Biden did win Arizona.”

When first asked Tuesday about whether Biden won, Ducey avoided a direct answer and instead discussed the process for finalizing the tally.

“So the steps are, of course, you have voting, you have tabulation, then you have certification at the county level,” he said.

“That’s being conducted or is completed. The next step is state certification. There’s no reason at to this point, with what’s happening inside the legal system, that that wouldn’t go forward, and that is my expectation.”

Every county in Arizona has now certified its results. The state is scheduled to canvass the final tally on Monday, the deadline under Arizona law.

The Associated Press and Fox News called Arizona for Biden on election night. Although Trump cut into Biden’s lead as the vote count continued for several days, he never caught up.

Other major media outlets joined in on the Biden projection Nov. 13, after most of the remaining ballots had been counted. Biden had been projected as the overall winner by then.

Biden will be inaugurated Jan. 20 after winning 306 electoral votes; Trump, who garnered 232 electoral votes, still hasn’t made a concession, even though lawsuits in battleground states he lost have been repeatedly dismissed.

Until Tuesday, Ducey had cited ongoing legal challenges when asked if voters had indeed made Biden the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona since Bill Clinton 1996. The last of the cases was dismissed Friday.

Ducey said any potential future lawsuits wouldn’t stop the state canvass next week.

“Those go through the courts,” he said. “But the certification in terms of Arizona is what happens on a date specific in statute.”

Ducey was criticized for not acknowledging Biden’s victory sooner and for failing to denounce baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud and election rigging.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, became the target of threats and protests outside her home from people refusing to accept the legitimacy of the presidential results.

In a press conference Wednesday, Ducey denounced those making the threats but refused to go as far to say the election challenges had no merit.

“I was disappointed he didn’t come outright and say our elections were conducted with integrity,” Hobbs told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Gaydos and Chad on Thursday. “There is no problem with the process. The laws were followed. The system worked the way it was supposed to work.”

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