Pres-by-LD: Our project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for every state legislative seat in the nation comes to Arizona, a state where Hillary Clinton noticeably improved on Barack Obama’s 2012 performance even in defeat. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new states; you can also find all our data from 2016 and past cycles here.
The Grand Canyon State backed Donald Trump 49-45, a smaller win than Mitt Romney’s 54-45 victory four years before. Arizona is divided into 30 legislative districts, and each one elects one senator and two state representatives every two years; the districts are exactly the same for both chambers. The GOP holds a 17-13 majority in the Senate and a 35-25 majority in the House, with Democrats netting one seat in each chamber.
Arizona’s legislative and congressional districts are drawn by an independent redistricting commission, a body the Republican legislature has repeatedly tried to sue out of existence. Trump carried 16 of the legislative districts, losing two seats that Romney won. None of the 13 Senate Democrats sit in Trump districts, while just one Senate Republican has a Clinton seat. Republican Kate McGee won a promotion from the state House 51-49 even as her suburban Phoenix LD-28 swung from 53-45 Romney to 50-45 Clinton. The other Romney/Clinton seat is LD-18 south of Tempe, which went from 50-48 Romney to 52-42 Clinton. Last year, Democrat Sean Bowie won this seat 51-49, which became open after the Republican incumbent lost his primary.
Democrats haven’t controlled the state Senate since the early 1990s, though a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans ran the chamber in the early 2000s when both sides controlled half the seats. If Democrats hold all 13 of their current seats, there is a path to forcing another tie: Unlike in most states, there is no lieutenant governor who could break a tie, so there would presumably be some sort of power sharing agreement again. Besides McGee’s LD-28, the Republican in the bluest seat is Steve Yarbrough in LD-17; this Chandler seat swung from 56-42 Romney to 49-45 Trump, though Yarbrough won by a convincing 57-43.
But even if Democrats hold all their seats and unseat McGee and Yarbrough, getting the 16th seat they’ll need to outright control the chamber will be very difficult. Republican Kimberly Yee represents what on paper should be their next target, but her LD-20 backed Trump 51-43. That’s a drop from Romney’s 55-42 win but this suburban Phoenix seat is still quite red, and Yee won 50-36. Unfortunately, the turf only gets tougher from Democrats after that.
Over in the House, three Republicans represent Clinton seats while no Democrats hold Trump turf. Both legislative districts that swung from Romney to Clinton have one Democratic and one Republican state representative each. The one Republican who holds an Obama/Clinton seat is Todd Clodfelter in the Tucson-based LD-10; his seat swung from 52-47 Obama to 53-42 Clinton, but Clodfelter narrowly regained his seat after losing in 2014.