Katie Hobbs in March 2022. Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Karrin Taylor Robson had a 41,000-vote lead, but it evaporated as Lake dominated Election Day votes
BY: JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY | Arizona Mirror
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs secured the Democratic nomination for governor and former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes appears to have secured the nomination to be the Democratic nominee to replace her.
Hobbs handily defeated her opponent, Marco Lopez, winning more than 73% of the vote as of 9 p.m. Tuesday night.
“This fight is far from over,” Hobbs said on Twitter about her victory. “We CAN and we WILL win in November,” Hobbs added.
Who Hobbs will face in November remains unclear.
Karrin Taylor Robson jumped out to an early lead over Kari Lake when the initial early ballots were counted, but her 41,000-vote lead had evaporated by 1 a.m. Wednesday as ballots cast on Election Day were counted and she trailed Lake by nearly 2,000 votes. There were at least 125,000 early ballots dropped off at polling places in Maricopa County on Tuesday, and an unknown dropped off at polling places in the state’s other 14 counties. Election workers will begin counting those votes on Wednesday.
But Lake’s surge among votes cast on Tuesday makes it likely she will expand her lead.
In the Democratic contest for secretary of state, former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes held a slim early lead Tuesday night over state Rep. Reginald Bolding, 53% to 47%.
And in the lone competitive Democratic congressional primary, state Rep. Kirsten Engel defeated Daniel Hernandez, also a state legislator, in Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 6. Engel will go on to take on Juan Ciscomani, who handily won the GOP primary contest, in the general election.
