Primaries were held on August 2 for both parties, with Lake winning the Republican nomination and Hobbs winning the Democratic nomination, making this the first gubernatorial election in Arizona history in which both major party candidates for governor were women. Hobbs became the fifth female governor of Arizona, with Arizona setting a record for the most female governors in American history.[3][4] With the concurrent passage of Proposition 131, this was the last gubernatorial election in Arizona without a lieutenant governor on the ticket.[5]
Going into the election, most polling had Lake leading and analysts generally considered the race to either be a tossup or leaning towards the Republican. Nonetheless, Hobbs ultimately defeated Lake with 50.32% of the vote, becoming the first Democrat elected governor of Arizona since Janet Napolitano in 2006. This was the first gubernatorial election in the state since 2002 that the margin of victory was not double digits. Lake refused to concede and filed a post-election lawsuit in an attempt to overturn the results. Most of her lawsuit was rejected by all three levels of Arizona's state courts, with the remaining part dismissed at trial in May 2023.[10]
This race was one of six Republican-held governorships up for election in 2022 in a state Joe Biden won in the 2020 presidential election. With a margin of 0.67%, it was the closest election in the state since the 1990–91 gubernatorial election and of the 2022 gubernatorial election cycle. According to Ron Brownstein of CNN in 2023, Hobbs won independent voters by 6–7 percentage points, which contributed to Lake's defeat.[11]
Lake was criticized for her denial of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election. She had made her closeness to former president Donald Trump central to her campaign.[55][56] Hobbs refused to debate Lake, which became a highly discussed issue of the campaign, earning criticism from Republicans.[57] On October 16, 2022, Lake twice refused to say that she will accept the result if she does not win the election: "I'm going to win the election, and I will accept that result."[58]
According to Politico, the race was considered a toss-up.[59] Lake called both the primaries and current round of elections "incompetent" and stated that "honest elections are needed" and that "the system we have right now does not work".[60]
Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin Campaigns for Kari Lake in Tucson
Debates and forums
Katie Hobbs refused to debate Kari Lake, though one debate-like forum was held.[61]
2022 Arizona Gubernatorial Forums
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On November 17, Lake refused to concede defeat, and announced she was assembling a legal team to challenge the results.[127][128] Lake alleged voter disfranchisement due to ballot printing problems and long waiting lines in Maricopa County, which had elections run by local Republican officials Bill Gates and Stephen Richer.[127][129] In 70 out of 223 Maricopa County polling sites, voting machine ballots were printed too lightly to be read by tabulators; the problem was caused by a printer setting which had not shown widespread issues during prior testing.[127][130] If voters did not want to wait in line for the issue to be fixed, they could leave to vote at another Maricopa County polling site, with wait times for polling sites being shown online, and many polling sites had little to no waiting lines, stated Maricopa County election officials.[127][128][131] Alternatively, voters could drop their ballots into a secure box ("Box 3"), with these ballots being later tabulated at Maricopa County's elections headquarters, under monitoring from observers from both parties; ultimately, around 17,000 Maricopa County ballots were dropped into Box 3.[127][128][132]
Bill Gates, the Republican chair of Maricopa's Board of Supervisors, partially blamed the long lines on Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward for discouraging voters from using Box 3; she had claimed that Box 3 should not be used as "Maricopa County is not turning on their tabulators downtown today".[127][133] Lake herself told her supporters to stay in line to vote, while a lawyer for Lake's campaign assuaged concerns about using Box 3 to vote.[133] Lake's campaign filed a lawsuit on Election Day to extend voting for another three hours, but Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Tim Ryan declined to do so, stating: "The court doesn't have any evidence that any voter was precluded from their right to vote".[134]
While Lake alleged that Republican-dominated areas in Maricopa County were disproportionately affected by the printing problems, The Washington Post found that the percentage of registered Republicans in affected precincts (37%) was very close to the percentage of registered Republicans across Maricopa County (35%), and also found that some Democrat-dominated areas also faced the printing problems.[130][135] According to the Associated Press: "Democrats voted overwhelmingly via ballots received in the mail. In-person Election Day votes heavily favored the GOP because Lake and other prominent Republicans had claimed it was more secure, which election experts dispute."[127] Meanwhile, The New York Times analyzed 45 of the claims of irregularities reported by voters, finding that in 34 of these 45 claims, the voters were able to cast their vote despite an inconvenience; while for the others, three raised problems with voter registration; seven gave unclear accounts as to what exactly happened; and only one said she had been denied the opportunity to vote, though she acknowledged she had arrived at her polling place at the time it closed.[133]
Arizona's Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright demanded that Maricopa County explain the election problems, stating: "These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa's lawful compliance with Arizona election law".[136]
Delays in certification of voting results
14 of Arizona's 15 counties certified the voting results by the November 28, 2022 deadline; the exception was Cochise County.[137] Despite no evidence of irregularities with vote counting, Cochise County's Republican officials delayed their certification vote to December 2, 2022, to accommodate a hearing on the certification of voting machines.[138] Previously on November 21, Arizona's State Elections Director, Kori Lorick, had sent County officials confirmation that the county's voting machines had been certified by the United States Election Assistance Commission in an accredited laboratory.[139] However, the county's officials insisted on hearing more from those who had without evidence alleged that the voting machines were not properly certified.[140]
On November 29, Hobbs, as secretary of state, sued the county for being unable to certify results by the deadline.[141]
On December 1, the Pima County Superior Court ruled that the Cochise County Board of Supervisors must hold an emergency meeting on the same day to certify and approve the canvass.[142] Hours later, the Board voted 2–0 to do so.[143]
Lawsuit
On December 9, 2022, after Arizona certified the election, Lake initiated a lawsuit seeking a court order to either overturn Hobbs' victory and declare Lake as the winner of the election, or redo the election in Maricopa County.[144][145] Lake's complaint alleged that there were hundreds of thousands of illegal votes in the election, but no evidence was provided.[146] On December 19, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson dismissed eight of ten counts of Lake's lawsuit, regarding invalid signatures on mail-in ballots, incorrect certification, inadequate remedy, as well as violations of freedom of speech, equal protection, due process, the secrecy clause, and constitutional rights.[147][148] The judge allowed the remaining two counts to go to trial, these being allegations that election officials intentionally interfered with Maricopa County ballot printers and with the chain of custody of Maricopa County ballots.[149] The judge ruled that Lake needed to prove during the trial that the above allegations were true, and that the alleged actions "did in fact result in a changed outcome" of the election.[150]
Lake's reaction to the judge's initial ruling was declaring: "Arizona, We will have our day in court!"[151] During the two-day trial, Northrop Grumman information security officer Clay Parikh, a witness called by Lake, testified that some ballots had printing errors that would cause tabulation issues, but also testified that these misprinted ballots would ultimately be counted after duplicates were made.[152][153] On December 24, judge Thompson dismissed Lake's remaining case, as the court did not find clear and convincing evidence that misconduct was committed.[153][154][155] The judge wrote: "Every single witness before the Court disclaimed any personal knowledge of such [intentional] misconduct. The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence".[156][157] The judge further ruled that "printer failures did not actually affect the results of the election", while highlighting that one witness called by Lake testified that "printer failures were largely the result of unforeseen mechanical failure."[153][156] Regarding the witness Richard Baris, a pollster, who alleged that potential voters were disenfranchised, the judge noted Baris' testimony that "nobody can give a specific number" of people who were disenfranchised, and called Baris' analysis "decidedly insufficient" in this case, because Baris' analysis showed that Hobbs "had a good chance of winning anyway" even after reversing the supposed disenfranchisement.[158]
On December 30, 2022, Lake appealed the ruling to the First Division of the Arizona Court of Appeals.[159] Lake also attempted to transfer her appeal directly to the Arizona Supreme Court, which denied this on January 4, 2023, ruling that there was "no good cause" to do so.[160] On February 16, a three-judge panel for the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed Thompson's ruling; chief judge Kent Cattani wrote the opinion and two other judges, Maria Elena Cruz and Peter Swann, concurred.[6][161] The appeals court found that "Lake’s only purported evidence" that long lines at voting centers "had any potential effect on election results was, quite simply, sheer speculation."[162] The appeals court noted that "Lake presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by on-site tabulators were not able to vote", while highlighting that Lake's own cybersecurity expert testified to the contrary.[161] While Lake alleged that there was improper chain-of-custody documentation in Maricopa County, the appeals court decided that the lower court reasonably concluded that Lake failed to prove this allegation.[161] While Lake alleged that Maricopa County had improperly handled early ballots from election day, the appeals court ruled that even if this allegation was true, Lake "failed to present evidence, as opposed to speculation", that this affected the result of the election.[163] In summary, the appeals court wrote that the evidence presented in court showed that "voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results".[163]
Lake filed an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court on March 1, 2023.[7] The Arizona Supreme Court issued a ruling on March 22, written by Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, finding that the Appeals Court correctly dismissed six of Lake's seven legal claims, as these challenges of hers were "insufficient to warrant the requested relief under Arizona or federal law."[8][164] For Lake's remaining legal claim, on signature verification, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the lower courts incorrectly interpreted her challenge as pertaining to signature verification policies themselves, instead of the application of such policies; thus this issue was sent back for Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson to reconsider.[8]
The Arizona Supreme Court in May 2023 employed "the extraordinary remedy of a sanction" against Lake's lawyer, which was a $2,000 fine, for having "made false factual statements to the Court".[165][166] Within Lake's court filings was the claim that it was an "undisputed fact that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total of ballots [at] a third party processing facility".[167] The Arizona Supreme Court responded that there is "no evidence that 35,563 ballots were" added, and further that Lake's claim had been disputed by Lake's legal opponents, so the claim of an "undisputed fact" is "unequivocally false".[165]
Later, in May 2023, Lake was granted a second trial by Judge Thompson, where Lake needed to prove that "Maricopa County’s higher level signature reviewers conducted no signature verification or curing", in violation of law, and that this changed the election result.[168] Thompson later acknowledged that the scope of Lake's claim of misconduct also extended to Maricopa County’s lower level signature reviewers.[169] The result of the trial was that Lake's remaining claim on improper signature verification was dismissed; Judge Thompson ruled on May 22, 2023, that Lake had not provided "clear and convincing evidence or a preponderance of evidence" of misconduct in the election; instead the court received "ample evidence that — objectively speaking — a comparison between voter records and signatures was conducted in every instance [that Lake] asked the Court to evaluate."[9][170] Thompson noted that Lake's attorneys earlier argued that Maricopa County did not perform signature verification, but later argued that signature verification was performed, but done too quickly.[9] Thompson concluded that it was possible for signature verification to be done quickly and properly when "looking at signatures that, by and large, have consistent characteristics".[171] Meanwhile, Lake's own witnesses testified to performing signature verification for Maricopa County.[9] Thompson did not sanction Lake for her final claim, stating that while there was no clear or convincing evidence for this claim, it was not necessarily "groundless".[172]
Independent investigation into printer problems
The results of an independent investigation into the 2022 election's printing problems was published in April 2023; the investigation was led by a retired chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, Ruth McGregor, who concluded that "the primary cause of the election day failures was equipment failure", and that no evidence gathered gave "clear indication that the problems should have been anticipated". McGregor also detailed: "Two-thirds of the general election vote centers reported no issues with misprinted ballots; approximately 94 percent of election day ballots were not faulty".[173][174]
^Monroe, Rachel (November 12, 2022). "Counting through the conspiracies in Arizona's midterms". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 21, 2022. ...these technical issues were cropping up in Maricopa County, which has been the epicenter of election conspiracies for the past two years. The local officials running the election—Bill Gates, the chair of the county board of supervisors, and Stephen Richer, the county recorder—were already under enormous scrutiny.
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