Helen Purcell became a household name across Arizona on March 22nd, when her decision to have only around 60 polling places in Maricopa County for Arizona's presidential preference election created huge issues with long waiting times. Turn out however that Helen Purcell was the state's 2nd longest serving incumbent behind John McCain. Now, results have come in, and she has lost her election to Democrat Adrian Fontes.
This is a huge loss for Republicans in Arizona as Democrats will now control the voting process in the country's fourth largest county. This election was one where democrats were walloped nation wide, however they made significant strides in Arizona, and with changing demographics, this may be just what Democrats needed to continue their efforts to "trun AZ blue".
AZCentral finally called this tight race yesterday:
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The race was tight to the end, with ballot-counting continuing through last weekend and all day Monday. With roughly 100,000 early and provisional ballots remaining to be tallied late Monday, The Arizona Republic called the race for Fontes, who led by 13,000 votes — roughly 50.5 percent to Purcell's 49.5 percent. The Republic has projected that Purcell cannot make up the difference.
Purcell had been under fire from the start. She faced an extremelly tight primary challenge from Aaron Flannery, in fact barely beating him by the margin of only 185 votes.
Flannery told Cactus Politics exclusively:
The ultimate term limits has always been considered the ballot box, and voters came out in droves to let our County leaders know that they were tired of the status quo. Of the 11 county offices, only two incumbents survived a challenger. Mr . Fontes and I disagree on many issues, but he has made it clear that he believes in making the voting improvements needed for all voters.
