In a press conference Tuesday, Maricopa County election officials said they expect between 718,000 and 894,000 votes to be cast by the time primary voting ends July 30. That’s about 30% of registered voters.
That gives the county a chance to break a turnout record it set two years ago, when 866,000 votes were cast in the primary. That year’s primary — which was filled with high-profile statewide races for governor, secretary of state, attorney general and a U.S. Senate seat — brought out 35% of registered voters.
According to Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, those were “record numbers for a primary election” in the county.
While the 2024 primary isn’t as top-loaded, Arizonans will be selecting Senate candidates for the third straight election cycle. But recent primary voting trends suggest Maricopa County could make history again.
Since 2014, according to county election data, primary election turnout has increased each year. Roughly 55,000 more votes were cast in 2016 than in 2014. Turnout jumped again in 2018 — by about 144,000 votes — as voters chose party nominees for governor and other state agencies while also selecting candidates to fill the Senate seat left open by John McCain.
In Maricopa County, a rise in early voting turnout has helped boost overall turnout in primary elections.
Morgan Fischer
The trend continued in 2020, which saw an increase of more than 160,000 voters over 2018. The 2022 primary, which set a slate of Democratic candidates who went on to wins in November, drew 6,000 more voters than the previous cycle. That was the smallest year-to-year jump in the last decade, so it’s possible that turnout will plateau this year.
If it does, early voting numbers may level off along with it. The two have been linked in recent cycles — likely due to the increase of mail-in ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic — though early voting numbers dipped in 2022 compared with 2020, during the height of the pandemic. Still, voting early will remain by far the most popular method for county residents to cast their ballots.
As of Monday, the county already had received 395,000 early ballots and counted 211,000 of them. Assuming the county hits the high end of its projected turnout, that means Maricopa County already has received 44% of the ballots it expects for year’s primary. In 2022, according to the county, 88% of primary ballots were submitted early.
The number of people voting on election day has remained steadily low, experiencing only a slight drop in 2020 due to COVID-19.
