With Arizona Trump has now won all seven battleground states

The Associated Press declared President-elect Donald Trump the winner in Arizona on Saturday night after vote updates in Maricopa and other counties added to his overall lead, putting the state out of reach for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has now swept all seven of the hotly contested presidential battlegrounds, winning 312 electoral votes, compared to 226 for Harris. The number needed to clinch the presidency is 270.

In 2020, President Joe Biden carried the state narrowly over Trump, but he won Maricopa County by a margin of 50 percentage points to 48. On Saturday, Trump was leading Harris 52 to 47.

With his commanding victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump has now achieved a comeback that seemed unimaginable after the 2020 election ended with his supporters violently storming the Capitol after he refused to accept his defeat.

In the years that followed, Trump was widely blamed for Republican losses, indicted four times, convicted on 34 felony counts, ruled to have inflated his assets in a civil fraud trial and found liable for sexual abuse. He still faces fines that top more than half a billion dollars and the prospect of jail time.

But Trump managed to turn his legal woes into fuel that channelled voters’ anger. He seized on widespread discontent over the direction of a country battered by years of high inflation. And he spoke to a new generation — using podcasts and social media — to tell those who felt forgotten that he shared their disdain for the status quo.

And he did so while surviving two attempted assassinations and a late-stage candidate replacement by Democrats.