With 95 percent of precincts in Arizona reporting results the day after the election, Donald Trump appeared headed to a decisive victory over Kamala Harris. As more ballots came in, from Tuesday evening through Wednesday afternoon, his lead increased to 108,521 votes, about 5 points. At the same time, in the other high-profile race in the state, Kari Lake appeared to be losing her bid to replace outgoing U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema to Democrat U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego. As of press time, Gallego’s lead stood at 59,656 – less than 3 points ahead.
State Senator Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff), who won her reelection, posted on X, “Approximately 1 million Arizona statewide ballots remain, which lean heavily Republican. Arizona votes trend for @KariLake as Maricopa tabulates Election Day dropoffs.” She included a post by former Lake staffer Matthew Martinez, which showed the gap decreasing between Lake and Gallego.
Similarly, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) COO Tyler Bowyer posted regarding Martinez’s update, “Kari will close.” TPUSA launched a ballot curing drive on Wednesday to assist with votes for Lake. Lake urged her followers to help.
Golec reposted a screenshot from 1 a.m. in the morning showing Trump with 968,471 votes and Gallego with 986,427 votes. A couple of hours later, Gallego was still ahead of Trump with 699,120 votes to Trump’s 687,840. The county did not post any more results on Wednesday through late afternoon.
In 2022, while candidates like Lake, Abe Hamadeh, and Mark Finchem lost their statewide races, little-known non-MAGA Republicans like Arizona State Treasurer Kimberly Yee received substantially more votes than they did. Lake and Finchem are still involved in litigation over their losses.
In Arizona’s congressional races, all incumbents appeared to retain their seats except Representative Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ-06), who lost to Democrat Kirsten Engel by 4,148 votes, or about 1.5 points.
Republicans appeared likely to keep both chambers in the Arizona Legislature. In response to rumors they might lose the State Senate, Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) posted on X, “Some of the media jumped the gun on the legislative races. There are a lot of votes still to count and there are 5 senate districts that are very much in play. Need 2 for majority. The later batches have been favoring the Rs. Lots to be optimistic about.”
One of the close legislative races was between State Senator Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix) and Democrat Judy Schwiebert. But like most of the election results, as more ballots were tabulated, they favored Republicans. By late afternoon on Wednesday, Bolick was ahead 1,212 votes after starting behind Schwiebert Tuesday evening.
The Arizona Legislature appeared poised to become even more favorable towards Republicans after Mark Finchem defeated Ken Bennett in the Senate primary earlier this year. Bennett frequently angered Republicans by blocking their bills and voting with Democrats.
Two Arizona Supreme Court justices who were the target of a campaign by the Left to defeat them due to their votes to uphold Arizona’s old abortion law (which was later repealed by the Arizona Legislature) easily survived their retention elections. Justice Clint Bolick, the husband of Shawnna Bolick, had 58 percent support and Kathryn King 59 percent by Wednesday afternoon. However, Proposition 137, to protect Clint Bolick and King and limit Governor Katie Hobbs from replacing judges, failed with 77 percent voting no.
