Hobbs lead over Lake narrows with 93 percent of votes counted 

Democrat Katie Hobbs’s lead over Republican Kari Lake in Arizona’s gubernatorial race has narrowed to just 1 percentage point with 93 percent of the state’s vote tallied.

The two candidates are now separated by just 26,000 votes, five days after last week’s election. Hobbs’s lead stood at about 36,000 votes earlier in the day.

Despite the gain, Lake’s window for victory appears to be closing.

David Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said after the latest vote drop Sunday that it’s “extremely tough to see how Kari Lake (R) wins now.”

Lake gained ground in Maricopa County with 54 percent of the nearly 100,000 votes reported Sunday evening, but that’s not by a wide enough margin to close the gap with Hobbs. As of Sunday night, Lake needs 58 percent of all remaining votes to win, according to AZCentral.

As the state continues processing mail-in ballots in the close race, Arizona officials have said the ballot counting could stretch into next week. The majority of those uncounted votes are in Maricopa County.

Lake has called Arizona’s elections system a “laughingstock” and accused officials of intentionally slowing down the process. 

Maricopa’s head of elections, Bill Gates, has called Lake’s claims “offensive.” 

“I understand that Kari Lake wants us to move quickly, and a lot of people do, but you know what’s more important? That this is done accurately,” Gates told CNN earlier this week.

Lake has long cast doubt on the integrity of Arizona’s elections system and has parroted former President Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020, raising fears that she will refuse to concede even if she loses.