As the Arizona governor’s race continues to unfold with increasing suspense, a new report offers a glimmer of hope to supporters of Republican candidate Kari Lake.
Katie Hobbs has been in the lead since Election Night, following a fierce campaign between Katie Lake and Katie Hobbs.
When 85,000 votes from Maricopa County were tallied on Saturday, Hobbs defied predictions that she would lose her lead. According to KSAZ-TV, she held a 1.6-percentage-point lead with those votes counted.
Saturday ended with approximately 270,000 votes still to be counted and Hobbs leading by approximately 35,000 votes.
Sunday, Garrett Archer, a political analyst for KNXV-TV, speculated that the Hobbs lead erosion that Republicans have been anticipating could finally be commencing.
About 90k of the remaining 170k uncounted EVs are from the ruby red CDs 5, 8, and 9. Another 70k from purple CDs 1 and 4. https://t.co/AAijIbiNyF
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) November 13, 2022
“About 90k of the remaining 170k uncounted EVs are from the ruby red CDs 5, 8, and 9. Another 70k from purple CDs 1 and 4,” he wrote in a Twitter post, referring to early votes in the state’s congressional districts.
The comment was in line with a tweet from Saturday.
👋. Being that guy again.
Today's 85K batch only included a portion of this 114K. The reason you haven't seen any calls, is b/c The agencies know this is coming.
It's not a question that Rs will win the next batches. Only a question of by how much. https://t.co/ZUnoNIHwb9
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) November 13, 2022
“It’s not a question that Rs will win the next batches. Only a question of by how much,” he wrote in a separate tweet.
However, Republican pollster Paul Bentz of the Phoenix firm HighGround had been less rosy on Lake’s chances, according to the Arizona Republic.
“There’s still a path to victory here for Lake,” Bentz said.
“But she needs these remaining rounds of ballots to be incredibly Republican-leaning from here on out. She can’t afford to have another round of returns on this level; otherwise, it will make it incredibly difficult to come back,” he said.
After the polls closed, Lake stated that she would be patient, but also had faith.
“God did not put us in this fight because it was going to be easy,” Lake said Tuesday, according to KSAZ-TV. “Not one thing that we’ve had to go through has been easy.
“We’re gonna be patient. We’re gonna wait,” Lake said. “We will take the victory when it comes, and we will turn this around.”
Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo,” Lake stated that Hobbs, who now serves as Arizona’s secretary of state and monitors elections, should have recused herself from that post due to her gubernatorial run.
“We called for her to recuse herself July of last year, 2021, right after we got into the race, recognizing that there’s a major ethical problem there. Obviously, just the optics of it looks bad. And she didn’t do that,” Lake said.
“Even though many people [have] been calling for her to recuse herself, it creates problems, to say the least.”