One big Arizona race is still undecided: Hobbs, Gaynor battling for secretary of state

Dustin Gardiner | The Republic | azcentral.com

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Democrat Katie Hobbs has built a potentially insurmountable lead over Republican Steve Gaynor in the race to be Arizona's next secretary of state.

Hobbs was ahead of Gaynor by more than 13,100 votes in updated results Thursday evening. She more than doubled her margin from a day before and now leads by 0.58 percentage points.

More than 2.3 million ballots have been tallied statewide.

Gaynor, a wealthy businessman, led the race by more than 44,000 votes on election night.

But Hobbs, a state senator from Phoenix, seized the lead as more votes were counted in the state's urban areas.

Hobbs' lead still is slim, but it's improbable that Gaynor can overtake her given there are 93,000 ballots left to count statewide and most are in areas that have trended for Hobbs.

85,000 are in Maricopa County, where Hobbs has built a slight lead as the county tabulates early ballots dropped off at the polls.

The remaining 8,000 ballots are in blue-leaning Pima County, where she has dominated from the beginning.

The race for the Secretary of State's Office is the last major contest for public office in Arizona that remains undecided more than a week after Election Day.

Given the rate of tabulation, a winner might not be declared between Hobbs and Gaynor until next week.

Additional results from Maricopa County are expected at 5 p.m. Friday.

Earlier this week, the Associated Press — which had projected Gaynor would win — took the rare step of retracting its race call. The contest is now officially too close to call.

"No new call will be made until the results of the election are certified by Arizona officials," the AP stated in its updated projection.

In Arizona, the secretary of state is the No. 2 statewide-elected official, next in line to succeed the governor if he or she leaves office early. That has happened four times since the late 1970s.

The secretary of state's primary duty is managing the statewide elections system, which has faced a string of problems in recent years.

Neither candidate has declared

Gaynor didn't declare victory on election night, despite the AP's call. He said he was optimistically watching results.

His campaign declined to comment on the revised projection earlier this week.

Hobbs steadily closed the gap, taking the lead Monday, as more votes were tallied.

On Wednesday evening, she took to Twitter to thank supporters and invoke a sense of patience.

"It is incredible to feel this much support," Hobbs posted. "Let’s make sure every last vote is counted — democracy is worth the wait."

Thanks everyone for all of the well wishes - want you all to know I ❤️ u and appreciate how much you all are pulling for me (for AZ really)! It is incredible to feel this much support. Let’s make sure every last vote is counted - democracy is worth the wait. — Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) November 15, 2018

If Hobbs succeeds in flipping the seat, it would be a major victory for Democrats. The party hasn't held Arizona's No. 2 executive office since early 1995.

Under Arizona law, an automatic recount is triggered if the final gap between statewide candidates is less than or equal to the lesser amount of one-tenth of 1 percent, or 200 votes.