MSNBC's Steve Kornacki explains where Arizona's key Senate and governor's races stand

Arizona is still counting votes from Tuesday's elections, and it will continue doing so for several days, releasing updates every evening until the roughly 550,000 outstanding ballots are tallied. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs padded their leads over Republicans Blake Masters and Kari Lake, respectively, with Thursday evening's drop. Kelly now leads by 5.6 percentage points while Hobbs leads by 1.4 points.

But the races, both of which have national ramifications, are too close to call.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"The races will hinge on whether those late-counted ballots look more like 2018 or 2020," The Associated Press reports. In the 2018 election, mail ballots dropped off on Election Day skewed Democratic. But "if voting patterns from 2020 hold, and there are signs they will given Lake's strong support among voters who cast ballots in person on Election Day, she could surge into the lead," The Arizona Republic adds.

MSNBC's Steve Kornacki ran through where the race stands Thursday night, and he suggested Kelly is on track to win while the Hobbs-Lake race is anybody's guess.

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

If the partisan mix is more like 2020, Lake will probably overtake Hobbs and win, Kornacki suggests. But Austin Stumpf, a former data cruncher for the Arizona Democratic Party, did his own analysis of the outstanding votes and concluded Hobbs will probably win even if the remaining votes tilt Republican.

Whatever the outcome, the long vote count is fraying nerves and fueling unfounded conservative conspiracy theories from Lake and others. But Arizona has always taken a long time to process mail ballots, which have to be scrutinized by signature matches and to make sure the voter didn't also cast a ballot in person, AP reports. "This is how things work in Arizona and have for decades," said Bill Gates, the Republican chair of the Maricopa County board of supervisors. "We are doing what we can and still maintaining accuracy," he added, and will continue working 14 to 18 hours a day until all the votes are counted.

Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.