Democrat Katie Hobbs defeats MAGA favorite Kari Lake in high-stakes race for governor in Arizona

Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has defeated Republican Kari Lake in Arizona’s race for governor, NBC News projected Monday.

Hobbs’ victory is key for Democrats in a presidential battleground and a rebuke to a prominent election denier — though the closeness of the contest left the result up in the air for nearly a week.

A record number of early ballots were dropped off on Election Day in Maricopa County, officials said, which had to be processed in a more time-intensive manner that includes signature verification. Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, said Sunday that it estimated that its count was 94 percent complete after receiving a historic 290,000 of those early ballots on Election Day.

Lake, a MAGA firebrand and former local newscaster who closely linked her campaign to former President Donald Trump and his false claims of a rigged election in Arizona, ultimately fell short after polling in the final weeks of the campaign suggested she was grabbing the lead from Hobbs, who in her role as secretary of state in 2020 vocally defended the state’s election system and the accuracy of the count.

Hobbs’ low-key approach contrasted sharply with Lake, who was seemingly omnipresent on the trail. Lake’s television charisma boosted her in the race, but did not appear to make up for voter concerns over her positions on the 2020 election, abortion rights, and how closely she aligned herself with the former president, who saw independent voters in the state abandon the Republican Party during his presidency, allowing President Joe Biden to flip the once ruby-red state.

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The stakes of the race were high. Arizona presented perhaps the greatest chance for an election-denying candidate to win a swing-state governor’s race this fall, with the winner having a direct role in the state’s certification of the 2024 presidential vote.

But Arizona was subjected to some of the highest inflation rates anywhere in the country, and voters were also concerned over high levels of undocumented immigrants crossing into their state from Mexico. In the closing weeks of her campaign, Lake focused on the economy, education and crime rather than her push to change election laws.

Still, election administration took center stage in the final days of the campaign, on Election Day itself and in the days that followed as election officials faced a series of snafus and votes took days to count at a slow pace. Lake and other statewide GOP candidates blasted the process, with some suggesting without evidence that nefarious activity was afoot.

At her election night event, Lake said: “We had a big day today and don’t let those cheaters and crooks make you think anything different,” adding she predicted victory “within hours.”

“We will declare victory and we will get to work turning this around,” she said. “No more in competency and no more corruption in Arizona elections. I love you.”

Arizona Democrats, who boosted Lake during her primary, had hoped that her refusal to moderate her stances, which include declaring an invasion at the southern border and to enforce new abortion bans following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, would help Hobbs court independent voters. In Arizona, voters are essentially split into thirds, among Republicans, Democrats and independents. 

Hobbs and her allies centered the campaign on abortion rights, putting Republican-endorsed restrictions at the forefront of their message. But they also sought to contrast their plans on inflation and immigration with Lake, a political newcomer.

NBC News exit polling bore out Hobbs’ theory of the case, with 58% of Arizona voters feeling either dissatisfied or angry about the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe V. Wade and 80% of those voters casting ballots for Hobbs.

NBC News exit polling also found Hobbs winning the majority of independent voters and 59% of self-described moderates, who made up a plurality of the electorate. More than 70% of voters 29 and under, who made up about 12% of the electorate, backed Hobbs, who also won over a higher percentage of Republican voters than Lake won Democrats.

At a Trump rally in the state last month, Lake made clear she was still fully aligned with the former president: “I have some of these know-nothing consultants who say, ‘You know, you really need to back away from President Trump right now.’ And I say to them, ‘Put down Hunter’s [Biden] crack pipe right now.’”

Days earlier, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., urged Arizonans at a forum at Arizona State University not to vote for Lake because of her refusal to accept the upcoming election results should she lose, saying if she lived in Arizona, she would back Hobbs.

Outgoing GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, who drew Trump’s ire for certifying Biden’s 2020 win, condemned Lake during the primary, endorsing her Republican opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson. But Ducey and Lake patched their relationship up following her victory, and the Republican Governors Association, which Ducey chairs, spent millions to boost Lake.

Lake seized on Hobbs’ refusal to debate and centered it in her campaign’s closing weeks. She even disrupted the start of a forum where both candidates were supposed to appear separately last month, asking that Hobbs come out and debate her, before agreeing to leave the audience until it was her turn to speak.

Responding to concerns from allies about her own campaign, Hobbs told NBC News last month: “I am out here. I’m fighting.” 

NBC News has already projected that Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Democratic nominee for Secretary of State Adrian Fontes defeated Republicans Blake Masters and state Rep. Mark Finchem, respectively. The battle for attorney general featuring Democrat Kris Mayes and Trump-backed Republican Abraham Hamadeh remains too close to call.

On the election denial movement, for which Arizona was in many ways ground zero, Hobbs told NBC News in an interview ahead of Election Day she saw little evidence such conspiracies would recede after the votes were counted.

“I think 2020 was the start of this long campaign,” Hobbs, who pledged to accept the results regardless of who won, said. “And, depending on the outcome of a lot of these elections, I think it could get worse because Kari Lake has already said she will only accept the result if she’s the winner. And so I don’t think any of these folks are going to go away quietly if they lose their races.”