If Maricopa County flips in 2020, does Arizona flip?

[I’m not Stu]

If Maricopa County votes for the Democrat, does AZ flip?

[mileslunn]

If Maricopa County votes for the Democrat, does AZ flip?

Pretty much as Maricopa County always votes slightly more GOP than the state as a whole mind you it's over 60% of the state's population so it will impact the results quite a bit either way.  In fact it is probably more likely for Arizona to vote Democrat but Maricopa County still narrowly goes GOP, but if either side wins it by any sort of margin they carry the state.  It's sort of like Clark County in Nevada in which is the GOP carries it, they carry Nevada otherwise it is to the GOP in Arizona what Clark County is to the Democrats in Nevada.

[TML]

It would definitely make AZ at least "lean D."

[Xing]

Most likely, though I suppose it's possible that Maricopa could go Democratic by less than 1%, and then AZ might just barely stay Republican.

[Webnicz]

Nearly 2/3rds of our state lives in Maricopa county, the weight of the votes in maricopa are the bulk of the entire state.

However back in 2014 David Garcia won Maricopa county but failed to win statewide (David Garcia was the best statewide preforming Democrat since 2006). This happened because as of recent, Maricopa is beginning to trend left but the conservative parts of the state are so overwhelmingly conservative that the statewide numbers for the GOP are higher than in Maricopa.

In 2016, Clinton did better in Maricopa county than she did statewide (by .3% albeit)
Trump preformed worse in Maricopa county than he did statewide (By roughly 1%)

[AN63093]

Maricopa alone wouldn't do it.  Clinton lost Maricopa by 44k votes, AZ by 91k votes.

So technically, no.  However, if Maricopa is flipping, then the D candidate is probably also narrowing the margin elsewhere, so realistically this scenario is not that likely.  At least yet- in 10 years, it may be possible to win AZ without flipping anything else.  Maricopa did trend and swing D this past cycle and I expect that will continue.

[Cynthia]

If Maricopa flips AZ almost definitely flips on a uniform swing.

[TheLeftwardTide]

In a 2020 election, probably. If the Democrat wins Maricopa without having any serious ties to the Phoenix metro area, which would almost certainly be the case of any Democratic nominee, then they're winning big in other places too. Maybe it's the Tucson metro, maybe it's in the northeastern areas, or maybe it's just high turnout, but their strength in Maricopa should carry over in other parts of Arizona.