Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Latest Numbers from Arizona
Arizona is famously slow in counting votes. And since the debacle of 2020, state election officials have changed nothing. (I wrote about it here for the Arizona Republic.)
Adding to the confusion is that votes are counted in a specific order. The ballots tabulated so far were mailed in or dropped off before election day, and the ballots filed on election day itself. These tend to support the Democratic candidates. The last returns from these two categories were announced Friday night.
As of Friday night, some in the last category are added to the mix: the so-called “late earlies.” These are mail-in ballots dropped off at polling places on election day. These tend to support the Republican candidates, and the ballots are slower to count since election officials must verify the signature on the outer envelope before opening and counting. Observers for Democrats and Republicans are present throughout this process.
More of these “late earlies” were filed this year since Maricopa County, which holds 62 percent of the state’s residents, had tabulation machine errors. Also, after the mess in 2020, many Republicans and independents don’t trust the post office or drop-boxes to deliver their ballot properly. (Yours truly fits into this category; in my case, due to simple procrastination.)
As of about 8:30 p.m. local time, here are the latest numbers from Arizona. At this stage of the count, Democratic candidates are dominating. This is expected to change somewhat after Saturday’s numbers are released:
Governor
| Candidate | Percentage | Vote Total |
|---|---|---|
| Kari Lake (R) | 49.3% | 1,068,908 |
| Katie Hobbs (D) | 50.7% | 1,100,005 |
U.S. Senator (race called for Sen. Kelly at 8:15 p.m., Friday, Nov. 11)
| Candidate | Percentage | Vote Total |
|---|---|---|
| Blake Masters (R) | 46.1% | 1,005,001 |
| √ Mark Kelly (D) | 51.8% | 1,128,917 |
Secretary of State (race called for Adrian Fontes at 8:25 p.m., Friday, Nov. 11)
| Candidate | Percentage | Vote Total |
|---|---|---|
| Mark Finchem (R) | 47.2% | 1,011,019 |
| √ Adrian Fontes (D) | 52.8% | 1,129,144 |
Attorney General
| Candidate | Percentage | Vote Total |
|---|---|---|
| Abe Hamadeh (R) | 49.6% | 1,055,522 |
| Kris Mayes (D) | 50.4% | 1,074,673 |
Treasurer
| Candidate | Percentage | Vote Total |
|---|---|---|
| Kimberly Yee (R) | 55.3% | 1,173,483 |
| Martin Quezada (D) | 44.7% | 947,604 |
Superintendent of Public Instruction
| Candidate | Percentage | Vote Total |
|---|---|---|
| Tom Horne (R) | 49.8% | 1,059,486 |
| Kathy Hoffman (D) | 50.2% | 1,066,151 |
I plan to update these numbers at the end of each day until the various races are called. Which will hopefully happen this year…
So, where do we stand at 8:30 p.m. Friday? I expect the close races (1-2%) to eventually move into the GOP column. That means Kari Lake will be Arizona’s next Governor, Abe Hamadeh our next Attorney General, and Tom Horne our next Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Where GOP candidates lag by a lot (4% or more), I doubt they can make up the gap. That’s why Blake Masters is, very sadly, out of contention, as is Mark Finchem, the Republican nominee for Secretary of State. Both were declared defeated minutes after the latest numbers dropped Friday night and while I was writing this post.
For the record, an estimated 394,521 ballots are yet to be counted. Again, these are expected to favor GOP candidates, especially the 274,885 from Maricopa County.
Published in Elections
Your state struggles at free and fair elections.
As I understand it, the main reason why Florida is able to get their votes counted so much faster than Arizona is because they have more people working during the election day doing the counting. It’s just a question of manpower.
If you only have one poll worker per 500,000 voters, of course it is going to take a long time to get those votes counted.
Why doesn’t Arizona simply ask for more people to volunteer to work at the polls during election season? If Florida can do it, it would seem that other states can do it too.
Thank you Jon for the statistics. The Republican candidates for Senator, Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General were all endorsed by Trump and all are Election Deniers. They won narrow plurality wins in the primary; none of them had a majority of votes cast in the primary.
By contrast, the fifth candidate, Kimberly Yee is running for re-election as State Treasurer. State Treasurer is low on the totem pole, so Trump did not bother to endorse in that race. Kimberly Yee is a standard-issue Pro-Life, Low Taxes, Anti-Crime Republican from her days in the State Legislature. As such Kimberly Yee gives us a good example of what to expect out of a standard issue Republican. She is winning 55.3% of the vote. Of all of the Republican Candidates, she has the most votes, 1,173,483. Let’s contrast her with Trump Endorsed, Election Denying Kari Lake who has only 1,068,908 votes, which is the second highest total of any Republican in this election. This tells us that as of 8:00 p.m. tonight, Kari Lake has 104,575 less over than “standard issue” Republican Kimberly Yee.
Trump suffered from NeverTrump Republicans and Independents who refused to vote for him in the 2020. In light of the Trump Big Lie, and January 6th, the number of “NeverAgainTrump” voters will be added to the “NeverTrump” Republicans. We now know that there were some 104,575 NeverKariLake Republicans and Independents who refused to vote for Kari Lake as of 8:00 p.m. tonight.
Will Kari Lake pull it out? We shall see. But we know that both Blake Masters and Mark Finchem were wiped out by being Election Deniers who were endorsed by Donald Trump in the primary. It is almost a virtual certainty that standard-issue Republican Karrin Taylor Robson would have been elected as Governor if Trump had not endorsed Kari Lake.
In 2018 Doug Ducey won re-election by 14 points. That’s not quite as much as John McCain, but after eight successful years as Governor, reducing taxes every year, and leaving a $1 Billion “Rainy Day Fund,” Doug Ducey would been the high favorite to have wiped out Mark Kelly. The only problem was that Ducey would not lie for Trump and certified that, yes, Biden won Arizona in 2020.
Thank you Donald Trump! You lost the House, the Senate and the Presidency for the first time in only one term since Herbert Hoover. Now you have screwed up the Republican’s opportunity to take back the Senate in 2022.
Jon, your article for The Republic is spot on.
In the past, “Late Early Ballots” that came in on Monday or Tuesday in the mail, or were dropped off in Drop Boxes after Saturday, or were dropped off at the polling place, tended to favor Republicans. However, this year, the statistics may be different after January 6th, and the Dobbs decision. We shall see.
America. You need help. Real help. Not Frasier.
Learn to count your votes in one night. Its not that hard.
I suspect you can write off any GOP candidate that has not won at this point. I am confident that the Democrats will squeak by and win.
The ballot counting system in Arizona seems unnecessarily complicated. The length of time needed to tabulate the results is excessive. Florida was once a laughing stock for its hanging chads and weeks-long wait for results. Now they report within hours of the polls closing.
Someone is sure to sue Arizona for an audit of the election. Or at least they should.
With 80 percent of the expected vote in (according to NBC news), 61.2 percent of voters in Coconino county voted against Proposition 309, which
Right now, Proposition 309 is losing. You share your vote on candidates, Gary; how did you vote on this question?
Did you think that Blake Masters the 4-chan gremlin was going to beat Mark Kelly the astronaut?
Propositions tend to be poorly written and are examples of what can’t be enacted by the Legislature, and often have aspects hidden in an otherwise good idea. My rule of thumb is to vote “no” on propositions unless I am strongly in favor of all aspects of it. When in doubt, vote “no.”
I also routinely vote “no” on retaining appellate judges, given that it has been some 40 years since an appellate judge has not been retained by the voters in Arizona.
Thanks for asking.
So you didn’t actually answer the question, but assuming that you voted no, which aspects of the question did you not favor? It seems rather straightforward. I would like to understand.
There is a very long history of multiple part propositions in Arizona which have hidden provisions in them.
For example, the proposition that legalized recreational marijuana had a small provision which stops the Court from considering use of marijuana in determining child custody.
The description of propositions on the ballot are very, very short, and don’t cover all of the points of the proposition. About ten years ago, a proposition passed that prohibits the legislature to modify the worst point of a proposition passed by the voters.
There were over a dozen propositions on the last ballot. No, I was not going to research each and every provision of the dozen propositions.
My point is that the burden is on the proponent of the proposition, and so unless I am convinced that 100% of the proposition was good, I vote against it. I think that I voted for two of the dozen propositions and against the other ten.
I voted against this proposition, given how I have seen the recreational marijuana proposition lead to pothead parents. (I don’t think that most Arizona voters who voted for recreational marijuana realized that it is a green light for pothead parents.)
@garyrobbins — Assuming you’re not being intentionally deceptive, you should perhaps see a neurologist about your memory. Because you made the same assertion back in early May, and I took you to task then:
Gary, that’s very misleading. You should be ashamed of yourself. For one thing, how many Republican presidents had the House and the Senate to lose since Hoover?
One of the few that did was Dwight Eisenhower. He lost control of both in just two years, compared to Trump, who — crucially — held the Senate for four years. (Imagine what the Supreme Court would look like now if he hadn’t!)
And while Eisenhower did manage to get himself reelected, his two terms were a disaster for Republicans, with Democrats gaining overwhelming majorities in both houses. Indeed, Eisenhower did so much damage that the Republicans did not regain the Senate until 1981, and the House not until 1995.
Trump was hugely more successful than Eisenhower in this respect.
So as I understand your explanation, you decided that you did not support presenting a photo ID in order to vote, nor provide a date of birth and voter registration number on mail-in ballots, because of the effects of a previous ballot initiative regarding the legalization of recreational marijuana and its use by parents. While you did not provide a specific reason for voting no, nor did you explain what aspect of Proposition 309 was unacceptable, I did find the response helpful.
Agreed.
That’s ridiculous!
If Kari Lake is elected, perhaps her first two things should be to…
Illinois needs to do the same thing with Cook County which is about 41% of Illinois’ population.
It seems to me that the ones with over 3 million people should really be split up and maybe some of the other ones too. Let the Democrats largely draw the new lines as a compromise?
These huge counties make no sense to me. The largest counties I’ve ever been to, excluding airport transfers and brief rides through, would be probably one trip to #12 Clark County, Nevada, and #50 St. Louis County, Missouri. (I know that one of the counties where I used to work occasionally had a county seat with a population of less than 200 people, and a few counties where I have worked either have one stoplight or no stoplights in the entire county.)
I have a similar policy of voting no on most propositions for similar reasons. But if this proposition purports to fix Arizona’ admittedly flawed voting system, crucial to fair elections, it would seem prudent to make an exception to that rule and spend a little effort researching it. It seems that you didn’t even read the text of the proposition, which, in most cases, is enough a trained lawyer needs to do. You’re not a defendant in a court case who can sit back and say “prove it”. You are a voter with an obligation to inform yourself.
Normally I don’t share your pessimism, but we’ve seen this all before. Whether or not the election is fraudulent, this process of drip, drip, dripping in votes to chip away at a solid lead gives the appearance that it is. Faith will not be restored until winners are declared on election night. And as that gives no advantage to the Democratic machine, that will not happen.
Asked and answered. Then asked again and answered again.
Do you live in Arizona? Have you ever voted in Arizona? With all due respect, you are playing “gotcha” with me and I don’t like it, nor do I respect it. I have explained twice that unless I feel strongly for each and every part of a proposition, I vote against it. If a proposition is a great idea and loses barely, then it can be asked again in the future. But you would know that if you were an Arizona voter, wouldn’t you?
Please stop trying to hijack this main feed post with your interesting hobby horse. Please feel free to develop your own member feed post on the intricacies of Proposition 309, especially when you have not identified that you are an Arizona voter, nor have you bothered to identify your name.
Thank you..
If it loses, it can be re offered. My suggestion is to take a multiple point proposal and divide it into distinct component points. My predilection is against omnibus propositions or bills, be they “comprehensive immigration reform” or “The Affordable Care Act.” Go figure.
Thanks much for laying out what’s happening. Do you have any idea why the GOP legislature & Governor didn’t, don’t care to improve the system?
What a sanctimonious load of horse hockey. As usual. Thank you Gary Robbins and your country club ilk.
If you nominate Election Deniers, or Donald Trump wanna-be’s don’t expect to get my vote, and in Arizona, don’t expect to get the vote of 104000+ voters who did vote for a standard issue Republican. BTW, I don’t belong to a Country Club, nor do I expect that the other 104,000 voters belong to a Country Club.
This is a good question, Titus. Florida decided after 2000 that it was tired of looking incompetent and changed things. You would think Arizona would feel the same way.
Arizona is the new Florida sans hanging chads.
Gary, Jon managed to write a straightforward, informative 540-word post about the election without once mentioning Donald Trump. Yet there you are jumping in at #3 yammering on about…Donald Trump.
And then in #19 you accused 9th District of highjacking the post.
I mean, do you really not see it?
Gary’s been doing a lot of hijacking. Wrecked my post last night with the very first comment, so I deleted, then reposted, and he went right back and hijacked it again.
And of course a main feed post is a particular magnet for his brand of hijacking. This is a pattern with Gary when he can’t get his own Trump-hating posts to the main feed: find a popular post that’s already on the main feed and SPAM it with his usual nonsense.
Is it hypocrisy when it’s so deliberate? Or is it just plain evil?
What utter hypocrisy. You lecture Bryan about Georgia elections, you lecture me about Wisconsin elections, you lecture everyone else about their state’s elections, but someone talks about Arizona elections and you try to shut them up. And then you have the gall to accuse them of hijacking with their own hobby horse — something you have been doing here for six years.
Jon, I have a couple of questions.
First question: By “ballots filed on election day itself,” I think that you mean “ballots cast in-person on election day itself.” Is this correct?
Second question: From prior years, it was my impression that ballots cast in-person on election day tended to favor the Republicans, not the Democrats. You say the reverse. Are you sure about this?