Democrat Katie Hobbs slowly grows lead in Arizona secretary of state race

PHOENIX – Democratic Arizona secretary of state candidate Katie Hobbs added about 1,000 votes to her lead over Republican Steve Gaynor as the number of the state’s outstanding votes slowly dwindled Wednesday.

After the latest daily batch of results from several counties, Hobbs led by more than 6,000 votes.

Maricopa, Pinal, Navajo, Mohave and Coconino counties reported results Wednesday, leaving around 125,000 uncounted ballots statewide, according to Garrett Archer, data analyst for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.

Almost all of the remaining ballots are from Maricopa and Pima, two counties where ballots counted since Election Day on Nov. 6 have favored Democrats.

Arizona outstanding ballot report 11/14 5:32PM

Coconino: 800
La Paz: 576
Maricopa: 104k
Pima: 19.3k

State of Arizona: 125k

— The AZ Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) November 15, 2018

Maricopa still needed to tabulate 104,000 early, provisional and out-of-precinct ballots that were dropped off on Election Day.

Election officials in the state’s largest county said they will continue to make daily reports at 5 p.m. and expect tabulation to continue into the weekend.

The latest results for Maricopa County in the 2018 General Election are in, and can be found here: https://t.co/yJpuLCiCXe

The next update will be tomorrow at 5 p.m. pic.twitter.com/PIPGMu5zP9

— Adrian Fontes (@RecorderFontes) November 15, 2018

Archer said Pima won’t make any daily reports until submitting its final 19,000 votes Saturday.

I know this will cause some wailing and gnashing of teeth…

Pima will upload it's 19k remaining ballots by late afternoon on Saturday.

— The AZ Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) November 15, 2018

Hobbs is looking to join Kyrsten Sinema (U.S. Senate) and Kathy Hoffman (superintendent of public instruction) as Democrats who trailed on Election Day but surged to victory as counties got caught up tabulating early ballots.

Hobbs trailed Gaynor by about 44,000 votes after Election Day, prompting the Associated Press to call the race in favor of the Republican. That call now appears to have been premature.

In the closest race in Arizona, Republican state Sen. Kate Brophy McGee saw her lead over Democrat Christine Porter Marsh in District 28 shrink to 472 votes.

Marsh, a former Arizona teacher of the year, cut 64 votes into the incumbent’s lead in the north-central Phoenix district.

In the race for two corporation commissioner seats, Democratic candidate Sandra Kennedy increased her lead in the four-person contest to about 11,000 votes.

On Tuesday night, Kennedy declared victory in the race.

In the battle for the second seat between two Republicans, Justin Olson maintained his lead of about 4,000 votes over Rodney Glassman.

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