As of Wednesday morning, Kari Lake, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, led the contest to become Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee.
The Arizona secretary of state’s website showed that of the 636,000 votes counted, Lake, a former Phoenix news anchor, held an 11,000-vote advantage over Karrin Taylor Robson, or just under 2 percent of the total.
Robson, a former real estate developer, led for much of Tuesday night by as much as 10 percent as early voting and mail-in ballot totals came in.
However, after counties began reporting their Election Day tallies, Lake took the lead early Wednesday morning.
Maricopa’s final election day batch was 47,474 votes in the R gov race.
Breakdown:@KariLake 65.4%@Karrin4Arizona 29.6%Lake now leads by 1,958 votes.
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) August 3, 2022
She is now leading in all of Arizona’s 15 counties, except Maricopa (Phoenix metro), where Robson holds a 1 percent edge.
Breaking:@KariLake has just taken the lead over @Karrin4Arizona. pic.twitter.com/roflLGcFrU
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) August 3, 2022
The race took on a higher national profile when both Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence endorsed Robson.
Are you glad to see Trump-endorsed candidates win?
Trump and Pence held dueling rallies a week and a half ago in the Grand Canyon State.
Though the governor’s race is still too close to call, Trump touted on TruthSocial that he “ran the entire board” Tuesday night nationwide.
All of his other Arizona endorsees have been declared the winners of their primary contests — including U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem.
