(The Center Square) – After a prolonged ballot counting process, Democrat Katie Hobbs appears to have withstood a late push by Republican Kari Lake in their face-off for Arizona governor.
Maricopa County released an additional 72,000 votes Monday night, 57% of those going to Lake. With Hobbs leading by more than 48,000 before that update and at most 15,000 more ballots in Maricopa County, news outlets and election watchers estimated that the remaining votes would not be enough for Lake to close that gap.
Lake, a former Fox 10 anchor, ran an aggressive campaign focused on border and election security, often citing controversy over the much-scrutinized Maricopa County’s 2020 general election results. She won a close primary against Karrin Taylor Robson, a conservative who was the party establishment favorite.
Taylor Robson pulled Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence to rally support. She ultimately lost out to the charismatic television personality anchored by the blessing of former President Donald Trump.
Some theorize that Lake’s fiery language about establishment Republicans alienated many who would have otherwise voted for the GOP contender in the governor’s race.
Hobbs, the current secretary of state, framed the race as “sanity vs. chaos,” referring to Lake’s discounting of past elections and rowdy primary debates. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Hobbs made reproductive rights a focal point of her campaign. She painted Lake as an “abortion extremist” who supported a virtual ban on the procedure in Arizona, a position that didn’t poll well with independent voters in the months leading up to Nov. 8.
Hobbs’ weak spot in the final stretch was her repeated refusal to share a debate stage with Lake. Hobbs said she didn’t want to participate in what she felt would devolve into a shouting match. Her decision was panned by not just Lake and other GOP figures but by Democrats and cable news personalities who said it projected an unwillingness to take on what should be a minimum responsibility of the state’s top executive.
Just enough confusion and mayhem to ensure a Democrat victory. And, after all, she was overseeing her own re-election.
Arizona fair and honest elections found dead on arrival, killed in “Katie Bar the votes” Hobbs corruption, now found drowned face down in Kari Lake. The Hobbs Hobbit type Secretary of State non-transparent vote count version of “The Desolation of Smaug” election with the undetectable untransparent corruption count, hidden in Democrat party smoke, Undetectable Vampire mirrors and Socialist Stalinist Smog.
IF LAKE was the one ‘on the election board’, and was running, the DEMS WOULD have raised holy hell, about THAT conflict of interest… BUT SINE IT was hobbs in that role.. No “Conflict” exists..
ballot counting is bs its ballot harvesting when the left has there sticky fingers in it.
They sowed the corruption, not let them harvet the wind. along with their tainted harvested votes. God’s justice can be delayed, but never denied. The more and the longer you cheat him,, the greater the price paid when he balances his scales of justice , when the scales are removed from the eyes of THE PEOPLE.
Not to worry Kari over this manufactured loss,,,,you are a winner and God has something even better for you down the line,,,mark my words. Talent always wins out in the end.
Very questionable ethics on the Democrat side involved, what a SURPRISE!
When it comes, to dems. I SAY WHAT ethics.. They wouldn’t know ethics if it bit off their nads.
Sounds like the definition of a political Hobknobber???
I hope a recount is triggered here. I did like Lake a lot at first, but then her over-confident tough talk started to ware thin. Hobbs, on the other hand hid in the basement like Biden, avoiding Lake and any substantive debate. I don’t want to be a conspiracy theory person, but it does seem fishy. At the very least, this election proved Arizona has major election issues that need to be addressed – in court if need be.
Hobbs, by being in charge of an election she was a part of (and, Yes! she should have recused herself!), showed she was as honest as the deli server who weighs your sliced corn beef with their thumb on the scale.
If Lake was such a weak candidate, why was the vote count so close?
We are well into the second decade of the twenty first century! So why does it take so long for them to count their votes? And why do these prolonged vote counts always happen in States that have smaller populations than major cities in States that can tabulate them in one day (like Florida)?
And after these prolonged vote counts, why do they almost always seem to eek out just enough votes to put the Dem candidate ahead every time?
Hmm…
And thanks to Biden’s “successful” campaign strategy in 2020, now re-enforced by brain damaged Fetterman and the coward Hobbs, we will probably see more Democrat candidates deeming it unseemly to sully themselves by debating their opponents or having to appear before the public to profess their polices any more than they have to. Or want to.
Lake had every right to be confident, because she had the right answers to the problems she clearly outlined. Hobbs chose to hide out and not participate. And Lake wasn’t in charge of the election. Hobbs was.
How convenient for the Dems. Again.
I hope the people of Arizona relish the continued chaos and having their rights and expectations bashed as their rewards for backing such a selfish coward and power hungry loser as Hobbs.
ITS almost like they are ENGINEERED TO do just that.
“ITS almost like they are ENGINEERED TO do just that.” Ituser.
Yes it does, doesn’t it? Interesting, no?
DISGUSTING as i’d call it..
Valid counterpoint as always, Ituser. Valid indeed.
As in, we can count on you to, after a touchdown, make the extra point that wins the game.
Honestly. Glad to have you on Our team.
One candidate, the incumbent has a big say in vote-counting. Only in America, unlike every other developed country that would outlaw this as CONFLICT OF INTEREST, banana republic territory.
I know, right?
Oh, nothing suspicious going on here.
So just move along, move along and just accept it?
Give me a break!
What’s the betting, IF Fraud was detected in LAKES favor, the dems would be ‘decrying the fraud’…
There is no longer any election integrity and democracy has been dead for some time. But fear not, there are other alternatives for people to bring about a change in the government.
Unfortunately, as a nation, i fear, we’ve collectively LOST the guts, to PURSUE that option.
There is a cynical side of me that accepts that, Ituser.
But here is another side of me, a self-righteous side of me, that has grown up in this Country, in a State that until the a certain point was considered the Golden State.
The State everyone wanted to come to to seek their fortune, from 1849’s gold rush through the growth of of fame and fortune in Hollywood and Anaheim, to the breakneck breakthroughs of Silicon Valley…There was any number of somethings for anyone to be able to pursue to seek their fortune.
Then the greed and the lust for power of a certain Party turned the Streets of Gold and affluence into Streets of Dung and effluence.
But it doesn’t mean we on Our side have given up. And across this Country, there are many…Many…who believe in what Our Country stood for, and could stand for once again.
I do not believe these are the last days of the grand experiment started by Our Forefathers, it’s but a hiccup that will eventually be resolved, one way or another. Because We have seen the worst the World can throw at Us, and in most cases it has not been enough to bring Us down.
We will get over this awful period, and rise again to prominence.
It is Our Destiny. It is Our Duty. To ourselves and to the World.
(Wow! I hope that wasn’t too didactic! But it is what I believe, or I couldn’t wake up every day or take one more breath in after I exhale.)