Navajo and Apache counties pick Trump, Clinton; Coconino feels the Bern

Posted by Cindy Yurth | Mar 22, 2016 | Politics |

CHINLE
Unofficial election results show two of the three counties that overlap the Navajo Nation have chosen Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the Republican and Democratic nominees for President, respectively, in the Arizona Presidential preference election.

The results mirror the rest of the state so far, with 262 of 487 districts reporting.

Coconino County, however, was bucking the Democratic trend, with Bernie Sanders ahead of Clinton by more than 1,100 votes. Twenty-one of its precincts had yet to report as of 10:30 p.m., however.

Coconino was also logging the second-highest voter turnout in the state at 46.5 percent.

Among registered Democrats in Navajo county, Clinton logged 2,121 votes to Bernie Sanders’ 1,278, not quite a two-to-one margin. Martin J. O’Malley trailed with 80 votes, followed fairly closely by Roque De La Fuente (58), Michael Steinberg (55) and Henry Hewes (37).

Navajo County Republicans picked Trump over Ted Cruz by a similar margin, 2,360 to 1,739. Marco Rubio was a distant third at 616 votes, followed by John R.Kasich with 292 and Ben Carson with 236. The rest of the field was in single or double digits.

Apache County gave Trump a narrower lead, 1,724 to 1,336 for Cruz, and Kasich was the third-place finisher there with 202 votes. Democrats chose Hillary (3,010) over Sanders (1,562).

Coconino, which includes Flagstaff and is by far the most populous of the rez counties, gave Sanders 6,787 votes to Clinton’s 5,573. If the results hold up after all the precincts have reported, it will be the only Arizona County to go for Sanders.

The county’s Republicans, however, with 3,288 for Trump, 2,814 for Cruz and 1,058 for Rubio.

So far, Arizona as a whole is overwhelming opting for Trump (174,406 votes, or 47 percent) and Clinton (158,279 or 60 percent) over Cruz (82,172, 22 percent) and Sanders (96,610, 37 percent) in their respective races.