By Julia Thatcher | Cronkite News
While Arizona’s official Presidential Preference Election Day isn’t until the 22nd of March, that hasn’t stopped some people from getting in their early ballots.
According to the Maricopa County recorders office, approximately 95,000 early voting ballots have already been submitted.
Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell was surprised by that number.
“More than what I thought it would be for this one,” Purcell said, “Because we still have so much going on across the country.”
Specifically, 12 states are voting for who they want to be their party nominee in the presidential election this Super Tuesday.
So how is today going to impact votes in Arizona? Polls haven’t closed, and predictions have already been made for some of the results.
“We expect that Trump is going to maintain momentum and we’ll see who is able to pick up a little bit of momentum,” said Richard Herrera, the Associate Director at Arizona State University’s School of Politics and Global Studies.
“On the Democratic party side, depending on how those states go, Hillary Clinton could lock up quite a bit of the required delegates she needs which makes it very, very difficult for Bernie Sanders to catch her,” said Herrera.
He explained that he was surprised at the steady support Donald Trump has received from the beginning of this election cycle.
“He’s been able to maintain his lead, sort of top of the polls for weeks now, and months,” Herrera said. “Its very unusual that there has been very inroads made into his support.”
Purcell says Arizona voters should mail in their early ballots no later than the Wednesday before the election, March 16th.
