And even Ducey called this year's political cycle "chaotic.''

The question that remains is whether all this will end up as a post-election victory analysis or a post-mortem over the measure.

As of Wednesday afternoon the measure was leading by just 8,806 votes out of more than 921,000 ballots already counted. More to the point, there appear to be at least another 100,000 ballots to be tallied.

There were other related complications that made the pro-123 argument difficult

There was the decision to put the issue before voters in a special election versus waiting until November. Ducey said that was intentional to try to get the dollars flowing into schools as soon as possible.

Twist said the people who tend to turn out for special elections are "high-propensity voters.''

"And the high-propensity voters are 65-plus, white folks in both parties for the most part,'' he said. That, Twist said, was not good news.

"The Democrats in that group were saying, 'No, no, no, this is the legislature's problem, this is just bailing them out of (Proposition) 301,' '' he said, the 2000 voter-approved measure that required lawmakers to boost state aid to schools annually to match inflation.