Arizona governor primary 2022: Taylor Robson, Lake both confident as counting continues; Hobbs cruises to win

Democrat Katie Hobbs was declared the winner of her party’s nomination for Arizona governor on Tuesday evening, while Karrin Taylor Robson and Kari Lake were in a narrow battle for the Republican nomination. 

The Associated Press called the race for Hobbs just after the first results were reported about 8 p.m. Those results include early voters, but not ballots cast on election day, meaning many more ballots have yet to be counted.  Results of the GOP battle may not be final for days. 

Hobbs won roughly three of every four ballots cast, defeating former Nogales Mayor Marco López, a Democratic opponent who ultimately couldn’t compete with Hobbs’ national presence defending the 2020 election in Arizona.

Hobbs delivered a victory speech about 8:30 p.m., gathered with supporters at downtown Phoenix's Crescent Ballroom. She offered a forward look while slamming her Republican challengers and noting the threats she experienced defending the 2020 election.

“The people threatening our democracy, our state and our personal freedoms aren’t just banging at my door," she said. "They're banging at Arizona’s door to take over our state and any sense of normalcy we have left. I can say this unequivocally as the secretary of state, it’s time to move on from the 2020 election. It's time to tackle the real challenges we have before us today like rising costs, Arizona's water crisis, our failing education system attacks on women's freedoms and skyrocketing cost of housing.” 

Lake, the former news anchor, and Taylor Robson, a developer and former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, remained locked in a close race, the early results showed. Taylor Robson led throughout Tuesday night, but Lake narrowly overtook her early Wednesday morning.

By 10 p.m., guests at their election night parties began heading home as it became clear results would not be known Tuesday. 

In a ballroom at the Biltmore resort, Taylor Robson addressed a few hundred supporters while flanked by her family and several of the state's most notable Republican officeholders, including former governors Jan Brewer and Fife Symington and former Congressman Matt Salmon.

“There are a lot of good people involved in this process and it is vitally important that they take the time necessary to get it right," Taylor Robson said. "Whether you cast a ballot for me or one of my opponents, every legitimate vote counts.”

She urged her supporters to “keep calm. Keep the faith and keep us in your prayers. Because at the end of the day, we’re going to win this thing.” 

Just a few miles away at a Scottsdale hotel, Lake had her own confident message while also expressing doubt about the election system.

“I wanted to come out here tonight, I wanted to say, 'Wow, we already have the final results,'" she said. "But we know how our election systems work and they don’t work well. And that’s one of the reasons why I'm standing here.” 

She cast a ballot shortage in Pinal County as something more than the result of "unprecedented demand for in-person ballots," as county officials said earlier in the day.

“They knew we were going to have record turnout because we aren’t going to take it anymore," Lake said. "One hour into voting they ran out of ballots? What the hell is going on? What in the hell is going on? This is why we’re in this race. This is why we have this movement right here.”

The primary vote winnowed a field of four Republican candidates and two Democratic hopefuls after an intense 15-month campaign in which the national spotlight was trained on Arizona, with the close GOP contest drawing political power players hoping to sway voters in the final stretch.

Each party’s nominee will be on the ballot in November’s general election, and the winner of that contest will replace two-term Gov. Doug Ducey. Ducey, a Republican, has reached his term limit and cannot run again. 

The partisan contests saw unprecedented fundraising and spending, a reflection of close campaigns in a battleground state seen as up for grabs by either a Republican or Democrat. 

Election coverage: Live updates across Arizona | Arizona election results

Republican nomination

The GOP race at its busiest included seven candidates, but by election day just four remained in the battle for the nomination. 

Two Republican candidates, Scottsdale businesswoman Paola Tulliani-Zen and Mesa businessman Scott Neely, mounted bids for governor but in terms of fundraising and polling consistently trailed the two race leaders. Tulliani-Zen claimed one of the most humorous moments of the race when she debuted an out-of-the-box advertisement that pictured her slapping a chunk of prosciutto, and declaring she'd cut the fat off state government if elected.

The two leading candidates, Lake and Taylor Robson, aligned on many policy priorities, but otherwise offered contrasts in their campaign style, relatability to voters of different economic classes, and their devotion to former President Donald Trump's false claims he won the state in 2020.

On the issues:5 takeaways from the Republican debate for Arizona governor

The race was seen as yet another litmus test of Trump's power and a harbinger of the state GOP. Trump's endorsement in governors' races across the nation is mixed, but in Georgia, another 2020 swing state, his favored candidate fell to the Ducey-backed incumbent. Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence both campaigned in Arizona for Taylor Robson, presenting her as a lifetime conservative and stable future for the state.

In terms of fundraising, Lake relied on contributions from donors while Taylor Robson dipped into her own wallet, lending her campaign $15.2 million — over 80% of her total haul.

The astronomical amount, more than was spent in any previous contest for governor, appeared to have brought Taylor Robson within reach of Lake, who once was considered to have a commanding lead thanks to her familiarity to voters through her career in television.

The gap narrowed as Aug. 2 loomed large, and as Taylor Robson and her allies wore Lake down with attacks that she wasn't truthful. Taylor Robson attacked Lake for her Democratic voting record and past comments she'd made supporting a mass amnesty plan.

Lake responded, painting Taylor Robson as an out-of-touch elite trying to buy the election. She ran on her relationship with Trump and connected with voters who saw her as a career woman who demonstrated integrity when she walked away from the news business she no longer believed in.

Taylor Robson said she believed the 2020 election wasn't "fair," but never declared Joe Biden the rightful winner, which could alienate some of the GOP base. Meanwhile, Lake was a leading acolyte of Trump's false claims, who said last week she believed there was fraud taking place in this year's election, without providing evidence.

Democratic nomination

The Democratic contest was considered much less competitive than the Republican battle.

But it wasn't a smooth path, and Hobbs stumbled along the way while responding to a discrimination case that involved her firing of a Black female aide while Hobbs was in leadership in the Arizona Senate. Facing criticism from several prominent Black community leaders, Hobbs apologized but has maintained that discrimination did not factor into her decision to fire the staffer.

Hobbs has kept her sights on November, holding on to more of her donated dollars than any other candidate. That focus, however, allowed López a chance to criticize Hobbs as being unresponsive to voters.

López was the only candidate of color in the race. He pointed to Hobbs' refusal to participate in a televised debate, and her absence at several local campaign events, as warning signs Hobbs would not advocate strongly for her voters if elected.

But for the most part, Democratic party leaders stayed silent about Hobbs' campaign strategy, seeing her as the more viable candidate to take on a Republican challenger in November.

López congratulated Hobbs in a statement Tuesday night.

"While we are disappointed by tonight’s results, our movement will live on in the campaigns of so many strong Democrats running this fall," it read. "We must do everything we can to get them elected or re-elected, because the stakes are simply too high. 

"And if you have ever been made to feel ‘less than’ because of the color of your skin, what language you speak or where your parents came from, our movement lives on with you."

Buckle up for what's next

With just two candidates in the race after the primary is complete, the focus will shift to appealing to Arizona's large pool of independent voters, most of whom don't participate in primary elections — though they can — and who account for a third of the state's registered voters.

The partisan rhetoric of the primary, especially on the GOP side where candidates claimed "invasions" of migrants or embraced false claims of election fraud, may lessen as the competitors seek to appeal to those independents, who in recent years have tipped the state one political way or another, including for Joe Biden in 2020 and electing two Democratic U.S. senators for the first time since the 1950s.

With Arizona's primary election already getting the attention of national media, the race for the Governor's Office will remain in the spotlight.

Political forecasters like The Cook Political Report rank the race for governor just one of four toss-ups across the nation this year, meaning the governorship is in reach for either a Republican or Democrat. The state is a toss-up even as the national election map is expected to favor Republicans because many strategists predict voters will offer an Election Day rebuke to Biden's job performance and staggering inflation that is driving up the cost of everyday life.

If one thing is certain, it's that Arizona's relatively short window between the primary and November election — about two months before early voting begins in October — means no break from the battleground state barrage of political advertisements seeking to sway the vote.

"It is going to be a wild ride," said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of the consulting firm Lumen Strategies.

"We're not going to be able to pick up our phones, or turn on a radio, or watch live sports without seeing political ads," she said.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669. Follow her on Twitter @sbarchenger.

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