Former Arizona governor pressured by Trump to overturn 2020 results: reports

Former President Trump called then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to pressure him to overturn the 2020 election results in that state, according to reports from The Washington Post.

Trump encouraged Ducey, a tepid ally, to find votes to overcome his narrow loss in the state in multiple calls after the 2020 election and asked Vice President Mike Pence call him and ask the same, according to the outlet.

Ducey told a donor about the calls earlier this year, saying that he was under “pressure” from Trump to overturn the election. He also said he was surprised special counsel Jack Smith did not request information on the calls for his federal investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. 

Ducey did not record the call, the donor told The Post. He left office in January being term limited.

State investigations into Trump’s claims of mass voter fraud in Arizona did not discover any fraud. Trump lost Arizona by less than 10,000 votes in 2020, a margin of about 0.3 percent.

The reported phone calls bear resemblance to a recorded call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021. In the call, Trump asks Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to change the outcome of the election results.

“What I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than [the 11,779 vote margin of defeat] we have, because we won the state,” Trump said in the call.

Trump is currently being investigated by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr for the call and other attempts to overturn the 2020 election in that state.

Pence did not pressure Ducey to overturn the election in his calls to the governor, The Post reported.

Ducey endorsed and campaigned for Trump in 2020, but after the election their relationship soured. Trump repeatedly criticized Ducey on social media over the election in his state and called him a “RINO Republican.”

In one Twitter post, Trump said Ducey “fights harder against us than do the Radical Left Dems.”