For just the second time in more than seven decades, a Democrat will carry Arizona in a presidential election, a monumental shift for a state that was once a Republican stronghold.

CNN projected on Thursday that President-elect Joe Biden will carry Arizona, defeating President Donald Trump and providing Democrats in Arizona and the universe of allied grassroots organizations in the state with a crowning achievement a decade in the making.

Biden's win in the state that propelled Republican leaders like Barry Goldwater and John McCain to national prominence could foretell problems for the party going forward. Three key shifts in the state helped Democrats this year: a growing Latino population that leans Democratic, a surge in voters moving to Arizona from more liberal states like California and Illinois, and the way suburban voters have starkly broken with a Republican Party led by someone like Trump.

Arizona, by going blue, is moving closer to its neighbor to the northwest -- Nevada, where Democrats have taken control of almost all aspects of government -- and away from the state's traditional rightward bent.

The Democratic victory -- declared days after CNN projected Biden's win in the presidential race -- was anchored by Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and nearly 60% of all people in the state. Maricopa is the fastest-growing county in the country, transforming over the last two decades into a sprawling mass of metropolitan hubs, sun-scorched planned communities and bustling strip malls.

"Maricopa County won the state of Arizona for Mark Kelly and Joe Biden," said Steven Slugocki, chair of Maricopa County's Democrats. "Here in Maricopa, we committed our resources to contact voters of color, women and traditionally underrepresented groups throughout the state. Our strategy proved to be effective."

Biden is just the second Democrat to win Arizona since 1948, when Harry Truman won. Bill Clinton narrowly won the state in 1996, but Arizona moved further right in the next two decades, electing hard-line immigration proponents like Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and passing laws like SB 1070, a controversial state law that required officers to make immigration checks while enforcing other laws if "reasonable suspicion" of illegal immigration exists.

The Democratic victory builds on the work by grassroots organizations on the ground in Arizona, many of which focused on the state's growing Latino population by uniting around the opposition to Arpaio and the immigration crackdown. Those groups provided the state's Democratic apparatus -- which had few wins to brag about back in 2010 -- with the building blocks needed to grow into an influential force able to win a Senate seat in 2018, and, just two years later, the other Senate seat and the presidential race.

"This year was a victory for the decade-plus of work in this state," said Laura Dent, the executive director of Chispa Arizona, one of a number of organizations that have formed a coalition called Mi AZ, an alliance of six groups that have worked to engage voters, particularly Latinos, for years. "It has been a decade-plus of building and the sustained work of organizing between electoral cycles have been critical."

Dent said the organizing around SB 1070 was a "catalyst" for these groups to unify around something and "build that collective power" on display this year. Just since 2018, Chispa Arizona alone has registered 44,000 voters, and it made 1.3 million calls to voters this year in Arizona.

This shift in Arizona will also be felt back in Washington, DC, as the party's top operatives attempt to figure out how they lost a state like Arizona, which just six years ago was seen as a Republican lock. The key question: Will the rising Democratic organization in the state put Arizona further out of reach in the years to come?

"I thought by 2024, Arizona would be for real a swing state," said Yasser Sanchez, an immigration lawyer who volunteered for Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and worked for McCain's 2016 reelection to the Senate before rejecting a Trump-led Republican Party and helping organize Latino voters for Biden. "Every time I heard it would be before, I thought that was wishful thinking."

Looming over Biden's victory is the legacy of McCain, an Arizona stalwart whose "maverick" conservatism carried a coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans for years in the state. Trump and McCain had a tense relationship, and when the senator cast a vote against the President's Obamacare repeal bill, the tension exploded, leading Trump to double down on his mocking attacks of the Republican senator, even after he died in 2018. This, along with comments Trump reportedly made about military members and veterans, spurred McCain's widow, Cindy McCain, to back Biden, an endorsement that was front page news in the state.

Republicans like Chad Heywood, the former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, argued that the Democratic victory did not portend a significant shift in the state.

"This was a purple state that looked red during the Obama years," said Heywood, adding that if the President ends up losing the state by less than 3 percentage points, it wasn't "a massive sea change in Arizona."https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/11/12/politics/biden-wins-arizona/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

The decomposing body of a bar attendant, Oritoke Manni, has been found at a site in Otolu town, Akodo, in the Lekki Local Council Development Area of Lagos State.

PUNCH Metro gathered that Manni went missing after visiting her boyfriend, Segun Titilayo, at his house in the area.

When efforts by Manni’s family members to locate her proved abortive, they reported a case of missing person to the police.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, in a statement on Thursday, said the victim’s corpse was found after an engineer reported to the police that his company, while excavating its site at Otolu town, exhumed the body.

He noted that Manni was identified by workers of the hotel.

Adejobi said, “The Lagos State Police Command has arrested one Segun Titilayo, 29, of Otolu town, Lekki LCDA of Lagos State, for killing and burying the corpse of his girlfriend, Oritoke Manni, 26, a bar attendant at K.C. Hotel, Apakin town, Lekki.

“On October 13, 2020, around 11am, it was reported that the suspect, Segun Titilayo, put a call to the deceased and she went to Segun’s house, but Oritoke (Manni) could not be traced or seen afterward.

“The police recorded a case of a missing person for the deceased. The police wireless message on the case was widely circulated to all police formations across the state for search and necessary police action as a practice.

“However, on November 7, 2020, one Engineer Adegbago David of Adron Homes and Properties reported to the police station at Akodo rea, Lagos State, that while the company was excavating its site at Otolu town, their caterpillar exhumed a decomposing corpse. Police detectives swung into action and the corpse was identified by the staff of the hotel to be Oritoke’s. The corpse was evacuated to a public morgue for autopsy.

“The police placed a manhunt on the suspect and he was arrested. He is being detained at the SCID Panti and giving useful information to help the police in their investigation.

The state Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Hakeem Odumosu, has condemned the crime and directed the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the State CID, DCP Yetunde Longe, to carry out thorough investigation into the matter.

“The CP cautions the youth, especially ladies, against keeping unscrupulous and destructive friends. He also encourages Lagosians to promote moral values and shun crimes and criminality.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/punchng.com/man-kills-girlfriend-buries-corpse-in-lagos/%3famp=1