Arizona governor’s race polling shows Kari Lake narrowly leading Katie Hobbs
Oct 14, 2022, 9:16 AM | Updated: 9:21 am

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (left, AP Photo) and Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake (Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
PHOENIX – With the general election less than a month away, polling for the Arizona governor’s race showed Republican Kari Lake with a narrow edge over Democrat Katie Hobbs.
A newly released poll by Phoenix-based OH Predictive Insights found Lake with a 47%-44% advantage. The survey was conducted Oct. 4-6 and has a margin of effort of plus or minus 3.77%, which is larger than Lake’s lead.
“The race is unequivocally a toss-up — maybe a slight edge to Lake — but this race is super close with only 10% undecided,” Mike Noble, OHPI chief of research, told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Thursday.
A further breakdown showed Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, ahead of Lake 46%-40% among independents, while Latino voters were evenly split at 44%-44%.
Early voting for the Nov. 8 midterms started Wednesday.
One poll is just a snapshot of the time it was conducted. Polling averages that compile findings from multiple pollsters are a good tool for analyzing overall race trends.
Two national websites that track polls and publish updated averages showed Lake barely ahead as of Friday morning, with the former TV news anchor up by .9 percentage points in FiveThirtyEight’s version and 1 point according to RealClearPolitics.
During Thursday’s interview, Noble revealed unreleased OHPI poll results for other statewide offices, and they mirrored the governor’s race to show Republicans holding narrow leads. But with large chunks of voters still undecided, the races for attorney general, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction also look like toss-ups.
- For attorney general, Abraham Hamadeh was in front of Democrat Kris Mayes 42%-39%, with 19% undecided.
- For secretary of state, Mark Finchem led Democrat Adrian Fontes 43%-41%, with 17% undecided.
- For superintendent of public instruction, challenger Tom Horne had a 42%-41% advantage over Democratic incumbent Kathy Hoffman, with 17% undecided.
OHPI results for the U.S. Senate race released earlier in the week showed that not all of Arizona’s statewide polls are close or in the GOP’s favor. Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly was at 46%, Republican Blake Masters was well behind at 33% and Libertarian Marc Victor had 15%, with only 7% undecided.
In the Senate polling averages, FiveThirtyEight showed Kelly up by 6.3 points as of Friday morning and RealClearPolitics had the incumbent leading by 4.5 points.