US election: Trump campaign erupts at Fox News' early Arizona call

Fox News has called the state of Arizona for Joe Biden. Photo / AP

A huge upset against Donald Trump has been reported, with Joe Biden becoming only the second Democrat to take out the key battleground state of Arizona since 1952.

Fox News called Biden's victory in the state, but the Trump team has fired back, saying it is too early to call with more than one million votes still to count.

The New York Times gives Biden a 53.6 per cent chance of winning the state to Trump's 45 per cent, with roughly three quarters of Arizona's votes already counted.

It's an outcome the US President may not have foreseen – considering he beat Hillary Clinton in Arizona by a moderately comfortable margin of four per cent in 2016.

Biden clinches a major battleground state, Fox News projectshttps://t.co/jc9GzdILdt pic.twitter.com/9JuDBxZCWX

— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 4, 2020

THANK YOU ARIZONA YOU MAY HAVE JUST SAVED THE COUNTRY

— elijah daniel (@elijahdaniel) November 4, 2020

BIG FOX NEWS call: JOE BIDEN wins ARIZONA.

Huge development for Democrats.

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) November 4, 2020

Fox News just called Arizona for Joe Biden.

If this holds, Biden will be the first Democrat to win Arizona since 1996 when Bill Clinton won.

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 4, 2020

However, Trump's Senior Adviser Jason Miller has said it's still "too soon to be calling Arizona".

Republican Senate spokeswoman Natalie Johnson said it as "purely conjecture and insanely irresponsible".

Arizona's Republican Governor Doug Ducey said it was "far too early to call the election".

"In Arizona, we protected election day. Let's count the votes – all the votes – before making declarations," he said.

WH and Trump campaign sources furious at Fox right now over Arizona call

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 4, 2020

2/ We only need 61% of the outstanding, uncounted Election Day votes in Arizona to win.

These votes are coming from “our counties,” and the 61% figure is very doable based on what our other Election Day votes are looking like.@FoxNews should retract their call immediately.

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) November 4, 2020

It’s far too early to call the election in Arizona. Election Day votes are not fully reported, and we haven’t even started to count early ballots dropped off at the polls. In AZ, we protected Election Day. Let’s count the votes — all the votes — before making declarations.

— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) November 4, 2020

What this means for the election's outcome

There may be 50 states in America, but when the votes are counted, just a handful of them – Arizona included – decide who wins the presidential election.

In this election, 15 states fall into the category of a "swing state" or "battleground state" – meaning they could conceivably be won by either Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

As for the rest, we already know who will win them: Trump stands no chance whatsoever in Democratic Party strongholds like New York and California, for example, while he's likely unbeatable in heavily Republican territory, like Alabama or Oklahoma.

Worth 11 electoral votes, Arizona has only voted for a Democratic candidate once since 1952 – Bill Clinton, in 1996.

While that may not sound like the voting pattern of a swing state, Arizona was very much in play this election, with Trump only once leading Biden in the state's polling average.